United by water: cabinetmaking traditions in the Delaware River Valley, 1670-1740
Date
2015
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
This thesis is a geographic and temporal case study of the carpentry and joinery trades present in the Delaware River Valley region from the period of Anglo-European settlements in the 1660s to about 1740. This examination of the region’s craft traditions emphasizes what its colonies share: patterns of settlement, ethnicity, kinship, religion, material richness, and commercial interdependence. This study closely examined the construction of and materials used in case furniture produced in New Jersey or Pennsylvania individually, or in the larger Delaware River Valley region as a whole, revealing the persistence of Anglo-European craft traditions in colonial America, and a relative stasis in internal casework construction as a result of the apprenticeship system. The similarity of construction and material found in these objects indicates the shared cultural expectations of craftsmen and their patrons, illustrative of the craft tradition of the Delaware Valley Region, not of any one colony. It also speaks to the significant role of New Jersey's timber in intercolonial commerce. This further suggests that extant furniture defined as made within Philadelphia or Pennsylvania without any further details of maker and place of manufacture could have been produced anywhere in the Delaware River Valley, including New Jersey, Chester County, and the Lower Counties (Delaware). In addition to case studies examining furniture of this region, this study identifies over two hundred and fifty members of New Jersey’s woodworking trades who utilized the colony's material wealth and interpersonal resources for individual success.