Buying into the World of Goods

How did people living on the early American frontier discover and then become a part of the market economy? How do their purchases and their choices revise our understanding of the market revolution and the emerging consumer ethos? Ann Smart Martin provides answers to these questions by examining the texture of trade on the edge of the upper Shenandoah Valley between 1760 and 1810.

Makers and Users: American Decorative Arts, 1630-1820

American furniture and prints as well as English ceramics from an extraordinary Milwaukee collection tell stories of stylistic change, regional preference, solutions of technological problems, artisan-patron relations in a market economy, the new consumer impulse for more and different furnishings, and how Americans responded to English, European, Asian, and African influences..

American Material Culture:
The Shape of the Field

Fourteen authors offer diverging viewpoints on material culture scholarship. Published in 1995, the editors' introduction assesses the  maturing of the material culture field in the two decades since  a seminal 1995 Winterthur material culture book.

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