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Upstairs/downstairs in historic town houses
The book examines town houses in the eastern United States, from Portsmouth, N.H., to Charleston, S.C., (including the Kensey Johns House in New Castle), as well as dwellings in English port cities and towns. Herman peoples the houses with those who lived in them, gathering information on the households from surviving records and artifacts. “My goal was to write a larger set of stories about the houses than physical descriptions of the buildings. I was interested in how people lived, how they organized their domestic space, the relationships and roles of owners and servants,” Herman said. “The evidence of the material world is important to writing any meaningful kind of social and cultural history.” Each chapter starts with a story or vignette about someone associated with the house. “The Merchant Family’s House” describes a recipe for spun sugar globes in Elizabeth Meyers’ worn copy of The Experienced English House-Keeper, which she and subsequent generations used in her home in Norfolk, Va. Herman begins with the recipe, asking how the ephemeral sugar sculpture shaped the experience of formal dining. He then goes on to explore the architecture of the house and the furnishings for entertainment, such as tea tables, card tables, china and glassware as indicators of a family’s social life and ambitions. Another chapter, “The Servant’s Quarters,” describes the living quarters of servants from pallets on the floor of the kitchen or in a family member’s chamber to the well-furnished housekeeper’s quarters of town houses in England. “Traveler’s Portmanteau” describes the belongings of deceased travelers and descriptions of taverns and boarding houses, including the house where Benjamin Franklin boarded in London. The chapter includes a lengthy poem one traveler wrote about ridding her rented lodgings in Norfolk, Va. of an insect (“chintzes”) infestation.
Besides visiting existing town houses and examining the plans of many that no longer stand, Herman drew upon a whole range of documents, including probate inventories, newspaper stories, street surveys, fire insurance records and historic data in museums, historical societies and court houses. Beyond paper records, however, Herman depended on the people he has met along the way who were interested in the project and shared their expertise. Many showed him their homes and directed him to others who might help him with the project. There was a mass of information, he said, and with Richard Stevens, analytical statistician in mathematical sciences, and Rebecca Sheppard, assistant professor in UD’s School of Urban Affairs, he constructed databases of statistical profiles of cities of the era. Herman, who is director of UD’s Center for Material Culture Studies and is the senior research professor in the Center for Historic Architecture and Design, is the author of the Stolen House and coauthor, with alumna Gabrielle M. Lanier, of Everyday Architecture of the Mid-Atlantic. He is working on an architectural history of the first-period (1680-1740) buildings of the Delaware valley and a series of essays on “voices” of cultural artifacts, with a focus on contemporary quilts. Article by Sue Moncure |
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