Research Resources

Databases and archives for the study of the history of American decorative arts.

“From 1619 to beyond, Black craftspeople, both free and enslaved, worked to produce the valued architecture, handcrafts, and decorative arts of the American South. The Black Craftspeople Digital Archive seeks to enhance what we know about Black craftspeople by telling both a spatial story and a historically informed story that highlights the lives of Black craftspeople and the objects they produced. The first and second phases of this project focus on Black craftspeople living and laboring in the eighteenth-century South Carolina Lowcountry and mid-nineteenth century Tennessee.”

Rhode island furniture Archive

Yale University Art Gallery
 

“The Rhode Island Furniture Archive at the Yale University Art Gallery documents furniture and furniture making in Rhode Island from the time of the first European colonization in 1636 through the early nineteenth century. Bringing together records of surviving furniture, individuals who owned it, and known furniture makers, this archive aims to provide a complete account of the specific culture, local variations, and artistic practices surrounding the first two centuries of furniture making in Rhode Island.

Spearheaded by curator Patricia E. Kane, the archive draws from research conducted at the Yale University Art Gallery surveying existing scholarly resources, secondary literature, and commercial publications to locate surviving examples of Rhode Island furniture. In addition, the generous contribution of information from public and private collections that contain furniture made in Rhode Island augmented existing published accounts. Information regarding craftsmen was gleaned from a wide variety of published resources, as well as a systematic reading of state judicial archives and land, probate, town-meeting, and town-council records up to the year 1800 for each Rhode Island town. The research also draws on the Liza and Michael Moses Photographic Archive, the Anne Rogers Haley research notes on British trade records, and the Sara Steiner research notes on Rhode Island land records, all of which are part of the Rhode Island Furniture Archive at the Yale University Art Gallery.”

Boston Furniture archive 1630-1930

Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library

“The Boston Furniture Archive is a free, online resource for the study of Boston furniture. The Archive’s database provides catalog information and photographs of objects produced between 1630 and 1930 in Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, Charlestown, Dorchester, and Roxbury. In addition, the Archive offers basic information about furniture design and construction and links to related online resources.

The Boston Furniture Archive is a project of the Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library in conjunction with Four Centuries of Massachusetts Furniture, an unprecedented collaboration of eleven cultural institutions exploring furniture production and use across the Commonwealth.”

MESDA Object and CraftsmAn databases

Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts, Winston-Salem, NC

“The purpose of the MESDA Object Database is to record and make accessible images and data about objects made and used in the South before 1861. MESDA began recording objects in private and public collections in June 1972 with the help of grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts. MESDA representatives have visited over 11,000 homes and the program has documented more than 20,000 objects. In 2014, with funding from the MARPAT Foundation, the MESDA Object Database was digitized and made available online. MESDA representatives continue to visit private collections and new records are regularly added to the MESDA Object Database, creating a living archive of the material landscape of the early American South.” See More

“The MESDA Craftsman Database contains information about artisans gathered through primary research in public and private records. The program’s researchers scour newspapers, city directories, court records, probate inventories, wills, and private papers in search of information pertaining to southern craftsmen working in 127 trades.The records for the craftsmen vary from simple directory listings to complex descriptions of work produced, land transactions, vital statistics, and how products were produced and sold, to name just a few examples. The overriding purpose of this program is to collect and make accessible data on the lives and working habits of artisans working in the South before 1861. The information contained in the Craftsman Database has been used to plan numerous major museum exhibitions and countless articles and books.” See More

Decorative Arts Photographic Collection

Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library, Winterthur, Delaware

(Part of Winterthur’s Visual Resources Collection) “DAPC is a unique research resource of photographs of decorative arts objects made and used in America prior to 1920 and now located in public and private collections throughout the United States and England. DAPC documents the work of individual craftsmen, workshops, and manufactories. Images of furniture and silver are particular strengths. Indexes in the collection provide basic biographical and bibliographical information on craft workers compiled from newspaper advertisements, city directories, and major secondary sources. Winterthur’s Boston Furniture Archive, a growing online resource on furniture produced in Boston from 1630 to 1930, has digitized relevant photographs and catalog information from DAPC.”