Re-creating the American Past: Essays on the Colonial RevivalRichard Guy Wilson, Shaun Eyring, Kenny Marotta Although individually and collectively Americans have many histories, the dominant view of our national past focuses on the colonial era. The reasons for this are many and complex, touching on stories of the country's origins and of the founding fathers, the privileged position in history granted the thirteen original colonies, and the ways in which the nation has adjusted to change and modernity. But no matter the cause, the result is obvious: images and forms derived from and related to America's colonial past are the single most popular form of cultural expression. Often conceived solely in architectural terms, from the red-brick and white-trimmed buildings that recall eighteenth-century James River estates to the clapboarded saltboxes that recall early New England, Colonial Revival is in fact better understood as a process of remembering. In Re-creating the American Past, architectural historian Richard Guy Wilson and a host of other scholars examine how and why Colonial Revival has persisted in modern times. The volume contains essays that explore Colonial Revival expressions in architecture, landscape architecture, historic preservation, decorative arts, and painting and sculpture, as well as the social, intellectual, and cultural background of the phenomena. Based on the University of Virginia's landmark 2000 conference "The Colonial Revival in America," Re-creating the American Past is a comprehensive and handsome volume that recovers the origins, characteristics, diversity, and significance of the Colonial Revival, situating it within the broader history of American design, culture, and society. |
Contents
Introduction What Is the Colonial Revival? | 1 |
Consumed by the Past Wallace Nutting and the Invention | 29 |
Jens Fredrick Larson and Colonial Revival | 53 |
Ellen Biddle Shipmans Colonial Revival Garden Style | 67 |
The Architecture of Efficiency The U S Army and the Colonial | 83 |
A Portrait of a Nation The Role of the Historic American | 99 |
The Mills Connection Colonial Revival and Institutional | 118 |
The American Parkway as Colonial Revival Landscape | 140 |
Virginia House The Reconstruction of Social and Historical | 237 |
The Marie Zimmermann House Engaging Dutch Colonial History | 255 |
Creating a Dignified Home Richard Henry Dana Jr and the | 269 |
For the Children Out Here Recreating the Gardens of Mount | 284 |
Louis Bromfields Big House at Malabar Farm Form Follows Fiction | 303 |
The Concept of Hand Production in Colonial Revival Interiors | 321 |
Advertising Gentility Ovals and Mass Market Womens Magazines | 336 |
To Keep Up the Delusion Henry W Longfellows House | 351 |
Reviving Colonials and Reviving as Colonial | 167 |
Colonial Georgetown The Power of Myth | 180 |
One of the Fairest Spots on the Atlantic Coast The Colonial Revival | 200 |
George Washington Birthplace National Monument Provenance | 216 |
Sunny Spain or Our Algeria The Other Colonial Revival | 367 |
American Colonial Homes Migrate to France | 390 |
Notes on the Contributors | 407 |