Category: Historical Images

Well before gaining statehood in 1796, carpenters, cabinetmakers and chairmakers were leaving Eastern Seaboard states to settle in Tennessee. They crossed the mountains using The Great Road (also known as The Great Wagon Road). They advertised their services in local newspapers and, very fortunately for me, and possibly for you, these ads were collected by Ellen Beasley, a researcher for the Historic Sites Federation of Tennessee. Her sources were newspapers and the 1820 Census of Manufacturers.

Following is a selection of advertisements and census information dating from 1809 to 1840 taken from Ellen Beasley’s article, “Tennessee Cabinetmakers and Chairmakers Through 1840,” published in Antiques Magazine, October 1971. At the end of the ads you will see capital letters which are keys to the newspaper or census source.

John D. Goss on the Price of Mechanical Labor and a Hearse Available

In 1824 John Goss traveled by horseback from Baltimore to Nashville. The earliest ad for his cabinetmaking business is from 1830 (see the top figure). Goss’ advertisements are a good example of the “cradle to grave” services carpenters and cabinetmakers offered to the public. The last line in the illustration at top is, “N.B. He has also prepared himself to make with great dispatch the last article to which his fellow-men requires on this side of eternity.”

His 1831 ad included a promise to charge Cincinnati prices and in N.B. “A hearse shall be kept in rediness at all times.”

In an ad from 1837 the end-of-life service is again noted.

Eastern Styles Made Here 

A cabinetmaker’s ad often pointed out their ability to make furniture in the styles of the large Eastern cities. They were up against furniture dealers importing and advertising furniture from New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and eventually Cincinnati. 

You Made How Much ?

Where possible, Ellen Beasley matched a craftman’s ad to productivity information from the 1820 Census of Manufacturers. James S. Bridges was a chairmaker in Knoxville. An ad from August 1819 advises the public he has opened for business. At the end of his ad is a list of the shops’ productivity as found in the census (“Do” means ditto) and the census taker’s alternate spelling for chairs.

In the case of James Bridges we learn the types of chairs made in his shop. 

Cabinetmaker John Ashton was located in Hawkins County in the northeast corner of the state. Without this bit of information from the 1820 Census we might not know of him.

Fine & Tasty Language

Many ads have similar language, likely the terms used were copy suggested by the newspaper. Mr. N. Bell, cabinetmaker of Lebanon,  seems to have written his own copy and boldly claims  you don’t have to go to the big city for fine tasty furniture.

A Bedstead Patentee

Many patents were issued that addressed the stability and comfort of bedsteads. Henry Boyd worked on  improving the fastening of the rails to the vertical posts. A Thomas Early patent dealt with attaching bed curtains (one part of the whole range of bed clothes), a necessity in poorly heated bedrooms.

A Feud Between Chairmakers & a Forger Reported

When business slowed down it was a good idea to remind the public that you were still in business and where you could be found. In October 1810, Charle M’Karahan let everyone know he was still making chairs, and he could be found at the easy-to-remember location opposite the new jail.

John Priest set up his chairmaking business a couple years before M’Karahan. Here is his 1809 woodblock-print ad announcing his business. Nancy Goyne Evans included this image in her publications on Windsor chairs.

It seems within a year of M’Karahan settling in he had a disagreement with Priest over money. The feud was settled in court in December 1811 and Priest, with much apparent gloating, paid for an ad to let the public know.

About a year later Priest gave up chairmaking in Nashville and resorted to cabinetmaking.

M’Karahan continued to work in Nashville and issued a public service announcement in early 1813 warning that another chairmaker was a forger. 

Malicious Mischief & Murder by Cabinetmakers

Chairmakers will be relieved to know they, so far, were not the worst in the furniture world, at least in Tennessee, and before the year 1840. 

Malicious mischief is the willful destruction of property, either public or owned by another person. Phineas, with his rascally countenance and apparent lack of contrition, had no intention of staying behind bars and broke jail. I hope they caught him.

A nasty piece of work, is (was) this Kinchen Wilborn. When apprehended, he was well into Arkansas Territory (statehood was in 1836) and traveled almost 250 miles. The slippery scoundrel escaped and we don’t know if he was ever caught.

Marriage & Misdirection

Let’s throw in a turner for some comic relief. Ferdinand Rienman, a turner in Nashville, announced his wedding to Miss Susannah Rule via poetry. Clever.

Ulysses G. Smith, printer and cabinetmaker, took a different approach to marriage. He married Miss Rosannah Mc’Affy on February 1, 1827, with the newspaper announcement on February 7. One week later he ran an ad announcing he had taken over the establishment formerly occupied by his father-in-law, Terrence Mc’Affry, also a cabinetmaker.

Mc’Affry was well-known and respected in Knoxville. He had been in business as a cabinetmaker for about 27 years. Smith’s announcement took him unawares. He soon responded to Ulysses Smith’s claim in another ad.

Wait, there’s more! Mc’Affry, aged “upwards of 60 years” died in April 1830, with the report of his funeral in the April 14 edition of the Knoxville Register. A week earlier, in the same newspaper, it was reported Mc’Affry’s daughter sued Ulysses Smith for divorce.  Oh, poor Ulysses, Rosannah chose not to be your Penelope.

Kudos to Ellen Beasley for matching up the juicy details of this cabinetmaker soap opera.

Cherry & Walnut Wanted

A good way to find out what woods were used by cabinetmakers and chairmakers in a particular area is to find this type of ad. 

Runaway

Advertisements for runaway apprentices and enslaved servants were common. This ad, for an enslaved craftsman and two others, is notable for the large reward and the description of Perimus. He was obviously skilled and well-regarded by Burchett.

On the other hand, after an escape the usual course of action was to question and punish other enslaved in order to find out where the runaways were headed. Dyer County is in the far western part of Tennessee, north of Memphis. The runaways had a long and perilous journey to reach freedom.

At the Sign of the Large Chair

I have a particular fondness for signs depicting the article made and for sale within a shop. Big shoes, big lock and keys, big fish and so on. Did Isaac Barton have a chair painted on a sign or an actual large chair suspended from an iron support? Also, exactly how big was this large chair?

I’m Still Here

At the end of the year, a weary “I’m still here” is a sentiment many of us might feel, while others might lean towards surprised consternation. As for Mr. William Young, considering Shelbyville was not a one-horse town, including your location in your advertisement would have been a good idea.

N.B. Ellen Beasley’s work in digging up the advertisements for cabinetmakers and chairmakers before 1840 was a gargantuan task. It required many hours of travel throughout Tennessee to search through physical editions of newspapers, newspapers on microfilm and microfiche and deciphering the handwriting of the 1820 census takers. After working in Tennessee she continued her research work in Texas and in 1984 was named a Loeb Fellow at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design.

– Suzanne Ellison

Today marks the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year and the longest night. Last year I wrote a short story, “The Long Night” for this blog. If you would like to read, or reread, the story you can find it here.

 

The American Philosophical Society was founded in Philadelphia in 1743 by Ben Franklin to “promote useful knowledge.” Before the U.S. Patent Office was formed, one of the functions of the APS was as a repository for plans for inventions and devises for improving the human condition. 

In 1786, Charles Wilson Peale, artist, soldier, scientist and member of the APS, sent a letter to Benjamin Rush with a diagram and description of a chair made for him by John Cram, an instrument maker. Peale’s letter, read to the Society in August 1786, described the chair as, “useful to the studious and others that are obliged to sit at their employment…to keep them cool…” The superstructure was wood and the fan was pasteboard.

The secretary’s notes for the meeting refer to John Cram as “an ingenious mechanic.” Not much is known about John Cram, other than he was an instrument maker. He was listed in a 1785 city directory with a shop on Lombard Street between Second and Third.

There are at least two fan chairs in existence, one at Mount Vernon, George Washington’s Virginia estate, and one in the New Haven Museum in Connecticut.

The notes for the Mount Vernon chair state Washington purchased a fan chair in 1787 while he was in Philadelphia for the Constitutional Convention. The whereabouts of that chair are unknown, “but this version likely resembles the original.” The chair on display is dated 1786-1800 and the edge of the fan is decorated with a trailing vine. 

The second chair, in the collection of the New Haven Museum, was owned by Dr. Eneas Munson. It is dated 1786-1790. The fan on Dr. Munson’s chair was painted to depict an eagle’s wing, “kidney-shaped fan, painted black with painted gold feathers.”

The Mount Vernon Collection has a page for their fan chair and you can find it here. Under the photo of the chair is a link to a PDF with a full description of the chair’s construction and the fan mechanism (the website does not allow a direct link to the PDF). 

–Suzanne Ellison

p.s. Semper fi.

Almost eight years ago, I wrote a piece about a hidden letter written by Jacob Arend, a journeyman cabinetmaker, living and working in Würzburg, Germany. Arend, and fellow journeyman, Johannes Witthalm, had recently finished making their masterpiece, an ornate writing cabinet. The letter was hidden in the writing cabinet in a space beneath a small drawer

The splendor of the writing cabinet, and the expensive materials used in its making, contrasts sharply with the living conditions mentioned in Arend’s letter. He described the scarcity of food he, and others in the houshold, have endured. Recent wine vintages are poor and good wine costs twice as much. He mentions an ongoing war. With the writing cabinet completed, Arend and Witthalm decided to leave Würzburg and seek better fortune elsewhere. He asks the finder of the letter to toast to the journeymen’s good health, or to their salvation.

The letter is dated, “This 22nd day of October in the year 1716.”

Jacob Arend’s letter brings to mind a quote attributed to Mark Twain, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”

You can read the original blog post here. And, a short follow-up post about Arend here.

If you happen to be in London, the cabinet is currently on view at the V&A Museum in the gallery of Europe 1600-1815, Room 7.

Prost!

–Suzanne Ellison

It is Labor Day in America and Labour Day – Fête du Travail in Canada!

Back in 2019 I wrote two pieces for Labor Day describing how the mechanic societies organized to bring about more protections for themselves, their families and their actions to shorten the workday.

Rest for the Weary is about craftsmen’s associations and societies and you can find that post here.

From Six to Six covers the long struggle to reduce the workday from sunrise to sunset to a more humane ten-hour day. You can find that post here.

The Lost Art Pressers will soon be back from Handworks and my short residence is at an end.

–Suzanne Ellison

The craft groups and lumberyards in this second part of the Japanese woodworking festival cover a period of about 400 years. The occupations of craftspeople at work were painted on screens for castles and temples, carved on woodblocks that were bound into books, or sold as individual prints. The audience for the screens and books were the upper classes of society. Often, for the amusement of the readers, books featured “poetry contests” between craftspeople on opposing pages. These are similar to painted scenes of peasants going about their daily lives in seasonal calendars found in European medieval prayer books and manuscripts.

Some of the images are, like the one above, from works designated as national treasures or important cultural properties. In the last few years many have become available in higher resolutions and, especially the highly-detailed painted screens, are just plain fun to study.

Similar to western societies, entire families were engaged in making goods for sale. Multiple generations commonly lived and worked in small two-room homes. The front room faced the street and was used to display and sell goods and as a workspace. The back room and small courtyard was the living space and also where much of the goods were made.

The Toolmakers

In his comments for this image Kaemmerer noted the blades and saws hanging at the shop front, small items in a box near the toolmaker and a display at the shop front that might be nails.

In this second image there is bit more detail and a with more detail and a better view of the forge used to heat the metal in a small shop. Below is a toolmaker with a much bigger operation.

In the same book by artist Hasegawa Mitsunobu a crew is crafting heavy tools for use in a quarry. A much larger forge is needed for this operation with a dedicated “forge man.”

The Carpenters

Several years ago I sent the top-left image (15th century) to Wilbur Pan. In his comments on his blog he noted there was no Japanese plane, but there was a yari-kanna, or spear plane, and this is possibly an indication of when the planes used today came into use. The image at top-right, with unknown artist and source, is notable for the tattoos on the carpenter in the foreground and nice curly wood shavings. It is just possible the plank acting as his workbench is a sake barrel.

The busy scene above (except for the guy in the back taking a nap) may be at the carpenter’s workshop with prep work underway or it may the building site. In the background is a drawing of the building plan, something not seen very often in these illustrations. One of the tools near the seated master is the yari-kanna, or spear plane. Other things to note are the tool box in front of the building plan and lunch has arrived.

A very pristine building site of what may be, considering the size of beams, a warehouse. Seated at the corner of the building is the very important sharpener, because as we all know, sharp fixes everything.

The Turners

The illustration at the top probably shows three generations of the turner’s family and emphasizes the family nature of the business. You can also see how stakes are used to stabilize the lather. The image of the lathe and stand is from the Kinmo-zu-i (Enlightening Illustrations), Japan’s first illustrated dictionary. The dictionary is comprised of 14 volumes of woodblock illustrations with written descriptions.

Working as the power for the turning lathe was an exhausting job as emphasized by these two images. On left, the worker stops and gasps for breath. On the right, his counterpart strains to keep the lathe turning. Also note the large brace employed to work on a larger container.

The Wheelwrights

Some things don’t change much over a period of 200 years: the tools are the same, the body is used as a work-holding device and the wheels are made the same way (except on the bottom-right – is that felly being held in place by magic?).

The Coopers

I’ve often wondered if Hokusai made that barrel extra large just to frame Mount Fuji.

Like the image from Eric Kaemmerer’s book, we get a good sense of how the family was involved in making goods for sale and how the living space was dominated by the workshop.

Back in 2016 (when we were all so much younger) I wrote a piece on Japanese and Estonian cooperage and included information and video of a Japanese company still engaged in making barrels. If you would like to read it you can find it here.

The Cypress Woodcrafters (himono-ya) 

Working with hinoki, these craftsmen are making round containers, sanbo (a small stand for offerings in Shinto temples), trays, small tables and stands. After splitting thin sheets of wood, the wood is scored and bent into place. A clamp holds the piece together until it can be stitched together. In the large image the master uses a yari-kanna to smooth the wood and the worker on the right is bending (with the aid of his mouth) a sheet into a round shape. The worker in the foreground has a clamp in place as he stitches the wood together. Two sanbo are stacked to the right of the master and in the background supplies are stacked. The screen paintings from the Kita-in Temple are true treasures in depicting how artisans worked.

The Shamisen Maker

Many Lost Art Press readers make and play musical instruments, even banjos (hello, Mattias). So, I have included the shamisen in this post.

While the craftsmen on the right work on smoothing the neck of a shamisen, the guy on the left trudges home looking like the girls said “no way” or he got kicked out the band. The screens painted by Iwasa Matabei have so many interesting scenes and I couldn’t resist including him.

Although this is one of those staged photos taken in the late 19th and early 20th centuries it does give us a glimpse at how the shamisen is made. The drum is covered by an animal skin (formerly of an animal usually viewed as a pet) which the maker appears to be applying in this photo.

The woman on the left tunes the shamisen; the woman on the right plucks the three strings with a baci, a type of plectrum, cousin to the guitar pick.

The Comb Maker

Fans, umbrellas, sandals, small boxes and combs are just some of the many personal items that were, and continue to be, made of wood. I chose combs because they are a practical item used by women and  men and are also an ornamental item. 

The kanban, or shop sign, makes it to easy find this comb maker. Comb making requires the skill to make precision cuts, both for blanks and to cut teeth that are evenly spaced. An ornamental comb, or kushi, required a high level of skill and refinement with finishing and decoration completed by a lacquer artist.

There are many painters in the books illustrating craftspeople at work, but I could not find one that was definitely a lacquer artist. However, we do have an illustration of Japanese sumac trees, urushinoki, being tapped for sap to make lacquer, or urushi.

Hara Yoyusai used the maki-e technique of sprinkling gold onto a lacquered surface before it hardened. This raises the design elements and provides texture. The comb on the bottom is gold and the fireflies are black. Note how the painted design extends over the teeth of the comb. The comb at the top has been repaired, a common practice, because there is still beauty in broken things.

The Boatwrights 

Only one image of this craft and it calls for alteration: boatwrights building a big boat.

Bringing Lumber to Market and the Lumberyards

Trees are cut, trimmed and start the float down river to lumber merchants and their yards. These are scenes not usually found in the books featuring town-based craftsmen.

The three craftsmen at the very top of this post need only walk a short distance down their street and into the next panel of their screen to find a lumber merchant. The merchant probably received his supply via boat on the nearby river.

The 1657 Great Fire of Meireki was a conflagration that destroyed over 60% of Edo (Tokyo)and caused the deaths of over 100,000. After the fire lumbar yards were moved east of the Sumida river and further from the city. Thanks to the well-known 19th-century woodblock artists, Hokusai and Hiroshige we have two views of Tokyo’s Fukagawa-kiba lumberyard. 

The lumberyard was its own city with a maze of canals, bridges and warehouses.

The lumberyards grew as more land was reclaimed.

In the early 1970s the lumberyards were moved further away to reclaimed land. The old lumber yard is now Kiba Park, the newer yards are Shin-kiba.

To bring the Japanese Woodworking Matsuri to an end I will leave you with a link to high-resolution images of the two screens of “Scenes in and Around Kyoto” (Funaki edition) painted around 1615 by Iwasa Matabei (Collection of Tokyo National Museum, National Treasure of Japan).

You can find the link here.
Each screen is made of six panels.
When you open the link click on the highest resolution. Scroll to the bottom of the page and you will see two links, one for each screen.

Your challenge is to find this pumpkin-panted Portuguese visitor:

–Suzanne Ellison