Syllabus

Orienting the Week—The Home in Cultural Context (GDH)
Katherine C. Grier (Professor of History, Director of Museum Studies at the University of Delaware, and CHAViC seminar leader)
-Readings-
Both Beecher and Child are available as free pdf downloads from Google Books. These are the editions from which the reading assignment comes.

• Beecher, Catherine and Stowe, Harriet Beecher, The American Woman’s Home
  Read the following: Introduction; I. The Christian Family; II. A Christian House; IV. Interior Decoration; XIII. Good Cooking; XV. Domestic Manners; XVI. Good Temper in the Housekeeper; XVII. Habits of System and Order; XXX. The Care of Rooms. Also, be attentive to the frontispiece and illustrations.
• Child, Lydia Maria, The Frugal Housewife 27th ed. New York: Samuel and William Wood, 1841. “Enlarged and Corrected by the Author.”
  Read the following: Introductory Chapter pp 3-11; Odd Scraps for the Economical pp. 8-22; Hints to Persons of Moderate Means pp. 89-113.

In-class exercise: PROBATE INVENTORIES AS MYSTERIES (GDH)

Doors onto Childhood (GDH)
Karen Sanchez-Eppler, Professor of American Studies and English at Amherst College
-Reading-

• Sanchez-Eppler, Karen, “In the Archives of Childhood” in The Children's Family: Childhood Studies and the New Humanities, edited by Anne Mae Duane, University of Georgia Press, May 2013.

Tours of Small House, Bixby House, and Towne House
-Readings-

• Bushman, Richard, “The Comforts of Home” in The Refinement of America: Persons, Houses, Cities. New York: Knopf, 1992.
• Stachiw, Myron, “The Color of Change: A Nineteenth –Century Massachusetts House” in Paint in America. Washington, D.C.: The Preservation Press, 1994.

Social Looking: Parlor Culture and Prints (AH)
Katherine C. Grier
-Reading-

• Grier, Katherine, “The Comfortable Theater: Parlor Making in the Middle-Class Victorian Household” in Culture & Comfort: People, Parlors, and Upholstery. Rochester: The Strong Museum, 1988.

Photography and the American Home—Technology and Processes (AH)
Lauren Hewes
-Reading-

• Carter, Sarah Anne, “Picturing Rooms: Interior Photography 1870-1900”

Narrative and Display at the Aretmas Ward House
Sarah Anne Carter (Curator, Chipstone Foundation and Lecturer in Art History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison)
-Readings-

• Carter, Sarah Anne, “Reinstalling Mrs. Ward’s Corner Cupboard: Narrative and Display in a Colonial Revival House Museum”
• www.wardhouse.harvard.edu. Spend some time exploring this website before we visit the Ward House.

The Native Americans Presence at the Artemas Ward House
Judy Kertesz (Assistant Professor of History at North Carolina State University)
-Reading-

• Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher. “'An Indian Basket” in The Age of Homespun. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001
• Wolverton, Nan. “'A Precarious Living': Basket Making and Related Crafts Among New England Indians”
   

-Optional Supplemental Reading-

• Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher. Excerpt from “A Bed Rug and a Silk Embroidery'” in The Age of Homespun. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001
   

Historic House Museums as Resources for Teaching and Scholarship
Katherine C. Grier, Sarah Anne Carter, Judy Kertesz
-Reading-

Schlereth, Thomas J., “Historic Houses as Teaching Laboratories: Seven Teaching Strategies”

At Home with Animals: Pets in Print and Material Culture (GDH)
Katherine C. Grier
-Reading-

• Katherine C. Grier, Pets in America: A History. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006. Chapter 1, A Natural History of Pets and Chapter 2: At Home with Animals.