Full Description
In this lavishly illustrated volume, which features over 200 halftones and sixteen color plates from public and private collections, distinguished experts in history, art, and genealogy explore the important but often overlooked relationship between material culture and family history in New England during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. The contributors examine a broad range of family record artifacts, including genealogical samplers, mouring embroideries, pen-and-ink family registers, gravestones, heraldica, textiles, furniture, silver, and portraiture. An indispensable resource on the world of decorative arts and its significance in preserving "family identity," this beautiful work provides much valuable information and research clues for modern-day genealogists.
Contents
Introduction (John Demos, Yale University) Two Historians' Views on Family History and Genealogy Families and the Decorative Arts (Wendell Garrett, Sotheby's) Creating Lineages (Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Harvard University) Family Representations and Remembrances Decorated New England Family Registers, 1770 to 1850 (Peter Benes, The Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife) "Keep Sacred the Memory of Your Ancestors": Family Registers and Memoiral Prints (Georgia Brady Barnhill, American Anitquarian Society) Tall Oaks from Little Acorns Grow: The Family Tree Lithograph in America (Maureen Taylor)
