The shop of Robert Stewart: work and wealth in the antebellum Natchez furniture trade
Date
2018
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
Cabinetmaker Robert Stewart of Natchez, Mississippi is one of the best documented artisans of the antebellum American South. Surviving furniture, account books, and other sources outline the evolving business model of the typical nineteenth-century cabinetmaker as merchant mechanic, while simultaneously reflecting the unique opportunities that antebellum Mississippi offered to ambitious white Americans. Over the course of his fifty-year career, Stewart diversified his business interests, creating a profitable model that appealed to a wide range of Natchez customers and was deeply rooted in the institution of slavery. Stewart produced and repaired furniture, operated as an undertaker and merchant, and even purchased a cotton plantation in Louisiana to supplement his income. A diverse group of apprentices, journeymen, enslaved artisans and laborers, hired women, and Stewart’s own sons made possible the shop’s success. ☐ The shop of Robert Stewart demonstrates that, although many Natchez homes were indeed furnished with fine imported pieces from the North, Gulf South material culture was also shaped by significant local furniture production throughout the antebellum period. This thesis examines first how and why Stewart became established in Natchez as a cabinetmaker, and then considers the operations both within and outside of the shop by tracing the shop’s products, labor, and customers. Spanning a remarkably turbulent and formative period in Southern and American history, Stewart’s life and work in Natchez complicates our understanding of the material life of the antebellum Gulf South.
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Keywords
Social sciences, Antebellum, Artisan, Cabinetmaker, Furniture, Mississippi, Natchez