Promotion at the Delafield Antique Show

I spent last weekend doing some intensive project promotion at the Delafield Antique Show. Ron and Debby Christman, the show’s organizers, had very generously offered me a booth space, where I set up a digital projector and my laptop to give live demos of the Wisconsin Decorative Arts Database website. I had some fascinating conversations with dealers, collectors and other interested folks, most of whom were hearing about the project for the first time. The weekend yielded a number of exciting new leads that will make great additions to the database. In fact, I’m heading out this afternoon to photograph some ironwork in a nearby private collection.

Thank you to all who took the time to stop and talk. Enjoy the database, and keep an eye on the blog as this resource continues to grow this summer!

Posted by Emily Pfotenhauer.

A Progress Report

January is a good time to reflect on accomplishments and think about future goals. Sure, most people do this around December 31-January 1, but I like to think of the whole month as an introduction to the new year. I started this blog just over a year ago–and the entire Wisconsin decorative arts project more than two years ago–so I wanted to take some time to recap what’s been achieved so far.

• 792 catalog entries online in the Wisconsin Decorative Arts Database, including manufactured and handmade furniture, ceramics, art pottery, china painting, quilts, needlework, metalwork, and much more. To browse the database, click here.
• 31 content contributors from all over the state, ranging from small-town historical societies to major museums. Click here for a full list of the sites I’ve worked with since beginning this project. Behind this list are the dozens of dedicated volunteers and staff members at these institutions who have so generously shared their time and knowledge with me.
• The Finest in the Western Country: Wisconsin Decorative Arts 1820-1900 at the Milwaukee Art Museum. This exhibition was a wonderful opportunity to introduce this subject to a broad audience and to show off the work of some of the many skilled craftspeople in early Wisconsin.
• Equal to Any in the Market: The Furniture Trade in Mineral Point, Wisconsin at Pendarvis State Historic Site. This exhibition of furniture made and used in Mineral Point is coming up on its final (of three) seasonal runs at Pendarvis. The site opens for its 2009 season on May 12.
• Internships–I’ve partnered with the Material Culture Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison to provide internship opportunities for several students. Calli Neumann, who recently received her B.A. in Art History from UW-Madison, and Maggie Ordon, a graduate student in the UW-Madison Design Studies program, both helped me with image processing, data entry and research. Theresa Haffner-Stearns, a recent graduate of the Design Studies program, spent the summer of 2008 working with the Mt. Horeb Area Historical Society.
• Presentations–I’ve shared information on building metadata for three-dimensional objects in panel sessions for the Wisconsin Association of Academic Librarians, the Wisconsin Council for Local History and the Upper Midwest CONTENTdm Users Group. I’ve presented a lecture on Mineral Point furniture for the Mineral Point Historical Society’s annual meeting and lyceum and a lecture on early Wisconsin decorative arts at the Milwaukee Art Museum.

My goals for 2009 are to expand the database content, incorporating artifacts from private collections as well as public institutions, and to increase awareness of the program through public programming and more student outreach. Stay tuned!

Posted by Emily Pfotenhauer.

Now Online: Mt. Horeb Area Historical Society (new and improved!)

Frame with photographs of Ellen Sweet Donald Jones and her brother George Clark Sweet, Madison or Town of Springdale, Dane County. Photographs date to 1871 and 1867, respectively; frame may be early twentieth century.

The Mount Horeb Area Historical Society was one of the first sites I worked with when I began this project over two and a half years ago. Over the course of many months, I made several visits to the Society’s museum and archives in downtown Mt. Horeb. With a great deal of help from their dedicated staff and volunteers–board president Brian Bigler, museum director Laurie Boyden, textiles curator Marietta Gribb, and volunteer Donna Reid–I documented dozens of fascinating artifacts. At the time, I was still figuring out the ropes of object photography, and they were very patient and helpful as I made minute adjustments in lighting and moved large pieces of furniture in order to get the best possible views.

This winter, I’ve taken the time to research these objects and the families they came from in greater detail, and I’ve written improved and expanded histories for each of the 73 catalog entries now online in the Wisconsin Decorative Arts Database. One of the highlights of the Mt. Horeb Area Historical Society’s collection is a large group of artifacts from the estate of Delma Donald Woodburn, who carefully documented and preserved the material heritage of several generations of her family in the rural Mount Horeb area. Her ancestors, Reverend James Donald and Margaret Strong Donald and William Sweet and Sally Clark Sweet, were “Yankees” from New York State who were some of the earliest settlers in the region. The artifacts Woodburn preserved and passed on to the Society tell a rich story stretching from the early days of Wisconsin farm life to Madison’s Progressive-era politics.

Other intriguing groups of objects from the Mt. Horeb collections include:
–Several examples of furniture made by Aslak Olsen Lie, a well-documented Norwegian immigrant craftsman
–China painting by artist Hazel Miller Hanneman and her students
–Ornate calligraphy by E.E.N. Lee
–Coverlets and blankets woven by Mollie Nace Nees from wool raised and processed by the Sweet family

Finally, an unusual artifact from the Society’s collection is highlighted this week in the Wisconsin Historical Society’s “Odd Wisconsin” feature: a leather and steel cane made by Charles Agrelius, a notorious Wisconsin horse thief who was arrested five times between 1877 and 1904–the last when he was over 70 years old.

Posted by Emily Pfotenhauer.

Now Online: Mayville Historical Society

Pair of turned wooden candlesticks attributed to Frank Fell, Mayville, 1905-1935.

I’ve just added 29 artifacts from the collections of the Mayville Historical Society to the Wisconsin Decorative Arts Database. It’s quite a wide range of objects, including embroidery by a local man named Rudolph Sauerhering; a splint basket made by Elmer Kelm, who learned basketry from his German immigrant father; and a lace collar crocheted in 1912 by 18-year-old Alvina Lindemann, framed with a photograph of Lindemann wearing her handiwork.

The candlesticks shown above were made by Frank Fell, a woodworker born in Mayville in 1865 who worked for the Mayville Furniture Company. When the manufactory closed in 1904, Fell purchased its lathe and opened his own woodturning shop. He was best known for his German-style spinning wheels, which are discussed by Victor Hilts and Patricia Hilts in their article “Not For Pioneers Only: The Story of Wisconsin’s Spinning Wheels,” Wisconsin Magazine of History 66:1 (1982), available online. Fell also made what a 1907 receipt (on file at the Mayville Historical Society) describes as “artistic turned work”: tilt-top tables, side tables, footstools, lamp bases, and candlesticks like the examples shown here.

When I write the catalog entries for the database, I try to find out as much information as I can about each object’s maker. In this round of research and writing, I was excited to uncover genealogical information about a local family that helped me to date a quilt (detail below) in the Mayville Historical Society’s collection. This white quilt is covered with the signatures of members of the Hinkes family of Dodge County embroidered in red, a popular trend in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. MHS documented the names and locations on the quilt, but was uncertain of the date when it was made. I was able to apply the concepts of terminus post quem and terminus ante quem to pin down a possible date range. These are terms archaeologists (and some historians) use to mean “no earlier than” and “no later than.” In the case of the Hinkes family quilt, the terminus post quem is 1892–according to Dodge County, Wisconsin: Past and Present (1913), Joseph Hinkes married Clara Heimerl in 1892; Joseph and Clara Hinkes’ names appear together on the quilt, so it must have been made after they were married. The terminus ante quem is probably 1897–according to the Wisconsin Genealogy Index, Celia Hinkes married Joseph Weix in 1897; Celia Hinkes’ maiden name appears on the quilt, so it was most likely made before her marriage and subsequent name change.

A side note–a striking Gothic Revival parlor stove cast from iron ore mined in Mayville in 1846 is the Wisconsin Historical Society’s current Museum Object of the Week.

Posted by Emily Pfotenhauer.

Now Online: Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum

Detail of carved panel in a wardrobe said to have been made by two Norwegian immigrants, Hurley, Iron County, 1885-1886.

Norwegian settlers in the Upper Midwest were one of the first immigrant groups in America to systematically document and preserve their material heritage. As early as 1877 the Vesterheim (“Western Home”) Norwegian-American Museum in Decorah, Iowa collected artifacts brought from Norway as well as objects crafted by immigrants in the region. Vesterheim’s collection now numbers over 24,000 objects, including many examples of furniture, folk art, and textiles made by Norwegians in Wisconsin. A total of 37 of these important artifacts from the Vesterheim collections are now online in the Wisconsin Decorative Arts Database.

When I visited Vesterheim this past summer, I blogged about two examples of furniture I found particularly exciting: the tilt-top table and Lincoln rocker used by the Jacobson family at Perry parsonage in Dane County in the 1870s. Another important example of furniture made by Norwegians in Wisconsin is a massive wardrobe (above) carved with grotesque faces. The story associated with this piece is that it was made by two Norwegian brothers in Hurley, Wisconsin in exchange for room and board over the winter of 1885-86. These unnamed brothers were clearly talented craftspeople familiar with the so-called “dragon style” developing in Scandinavia in the late nineteenth century.

The early twentieth century saw the revival of many traditional Norwegian craft practices in Wisconsin, including spoon carving and kolrosing (fine-line incising) by Erik Teigen and rosemaling (flower painting) by Per Lysne, both of Stoughton. My favorite example of Teigen’s work at Vesterheim is a spoon incised with political cartoons (below), including an image of Uncle Sam holding President Grover Cleveland by the ear and forcing him to confront a balance sheet listing the debts incurred through Cleveland’s support of the gold standard.

Carved spoon incised with political cartoons, Erik Teigen, Stoughton, 1896.

Posted by Emily Pfotenhauer.

Now Online: New Holstein Historical Society

Chest attributed to Joachim Schildhauer, New Holstein, ca. 1862

Another site I worked with this summer was the New Holstein Historical Society, located east of Lake Winnebago in Calumet County. The community of New Holstein was founded in 1848 by “Forty-Eighters” from the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein. The “Forty-Eighters” were political refugees who fled Germany for the United States after the failure of a democratic revolution in 1848.

The New Holstein Historical Society operates two sites dedicated to local history–the Timm House, recently restored with support from the Jeffris Foundation, and the Pioneer Corner Museum. The featured exhibition for the museum’s 2008 season was “Edward Schildhauer, from New Holstein to the Panama Canal.” Raised in New Holstein, Schildhauer was a second-generation German-American who served as the electrical and mechanical engineer for the building of the Panama Canal from 1907-1914. Several artifacts from the Schildhauer family are among the 17 objects from the NHHS recently added to the Wisconsin Decorative Arts Database. Edward’s father Joachim Schildhauer left Germany for New Holstein in 1851. A trained cabinetmaker, he is said to have made this lift-top woodbox styled like a chest of drawers (above). Between 1890 and 1915, the Schildhauer family cultivated and processed willows for use in wicker baskets, selling bundles of stripped willow branches to basketmakers in Sheboygan, Milwaukee and Chicago. The basket below is attributed to Joachim’s daughter Ellen Schildhauer.

Wicker basket attributed to Ellen Schildhauer, New Holstein, 1890-1915.

Posted by Emily Pfotenhauer.

Now Online: Fort Winnebago Surgeons’ Quarters

Photographic copy of a 1896 painting by Ira A. Ridgway depicting Fort Winnebago, based on the recollections of early settlers in Portage, Wisconsin. The Surgeons’ Quarters, the only structure still standing today, is the U-shaped building to the right of the main garrison. Wisconsin Historical Images WHi-28343.

Strategically located between the major waterways linking the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River, Fort Winnebago was the third United States military outpost established in what is now the state of Wisconsin. For the Ho-Chunk and the French fur traders in the area, the establishment of the fort represented a threat to their way of life. But for early settlers from the east, the fort was a bastion of civilization in what they viewed as the untamed western frontier. The collections of the Fort Winnebago Surgeons’ Quarters, now a historic site operated by the Wisconsin Society Daughters of the American Revolution, reflect this extension of Yankee culture in the Wisconsin wilderness in the 1830s and 40s. Some of the artifacts I documented for the Wisconsin Decorative Arts Database are thought to have been made by soldiers at the fort, such as a carved and painted eagle, a massive tilt-top desk, and, possibly, a pair of painted side chairs (below) that have traditionally been attributed to Jefferson Davis, who was stationed at the fort from 1829-1839. Other artifacts, like a turned sewing box, are not original to the fort but are of the time period and were donated by area families.

Now Online: Sauk County Historical Society

Now that the Wisconsin decorative arts exhibition is installed, I’ve been spending a lot of time in front of the computer and in the library stacks, researching and writing about the objects I photographed at several sites over the past several months. My most recent additions to the database are 11 artifacts from the Sauk County Historical Society in Baraboo, including a pre-1840 Oneida stamped woodsplint basket and a straw case made to hold the first temperance pledge signed in Baraboo in 1844.

Early ceramic production in Baraboo is represented by four items attributed to the Pointon Pottery, including the covered jar shown here. Born in England in 1808, Philip Pointon operated a pottery in the community from 1851 until his death in 1857. According to the Society, Pointon’s pottery produced “enough jars, jugs and other wares to keep three wagons delivering to the surrounding towns in central Sauk County. [He] used local clay obtained at ‘Gillson’s slough’ west of the city.” An 1851 advertisement for the “Baraboo Pottery” in the Sauk County Standard states that “Philip Pointon has now on hand a large assortment of Jars, Crocks, Jugs, Dishes, Stove coolers, garden Pots &c., and other kinds of pottery ware, which he now offers for sale 75 per cent below the prices usually charged for such articles.”

The four pieces attributed to Pointon in the Society’s collection are all unmarked, and are dramatically different from one another. This makes it challenging to confirm these attributions. The history associated with this covered jar provides the strongest evidence for the Pointon attribution. A handwritten note pasted to the underside reads: “This jar was made by Philip Pointon in the spring of 1853 in Baraboo Wis in a Pottery that was on the corner of Second Av and West St. It was given by Mr. and Mrs. Y. B. Gibbes who have lived in Baraboo 56 years. 1896.”

The Sauk County Historical Society is in the midst of a major expansion project–the transformation of the former Island Woolen Company Office Building into a new history center is currently underway. When the history center is completed, the Society’s current home, the Van Orden Mansion, will become a historic house museum.

Posted by Emily Pfotenhauer.

Now Online: Marathon County Historical Society

26 catalog entries for objects from the Marathon County Historical Society in Wausau are now online, including this whimsical lion (above) made by decorative painter Carl Hummel for the Lemke Photo Studio. Many of the Marathon County objects reveal interesting stories about local people, such as this quilt (below) made by members of the Marathon County Homemakers’ Clubs for Vangel Russell, the county’s Home Demonstration Agent in the 1920s. Russell must have been well-liked by club members, who made this special quilt for her as a parting gift when she married John James of Madison in 1928.

A newsletter update on the University of Wisconsin-Extension’s activities in 1925 reveals the popularity of the Homemakers’ Clubs among Marathon County women:

In spite of a heavy shower of rain in the forenoon and another in the afternoon, more than five hundred people gathered at the farm home of Rufus Runke, near Wausau, for the annual get-to-gether summer meeting arranged in Marathon County by Home Demonstration Agent, Miss Vangel Russell. A good program, enthusiastic people, fine music and delightful hosts made the day one long to be remembered. The Women’s Club of the Town of Maine had charge of the day. The program was carried on almost entirely by local talent, Mrs. Nellie Kedzie Jones, the State Leader of Home Economics Extension, was the only speaker from without the county.

From Among Ourselves: A House Organ for the staff of the College of Agriculture 3:18 (University of Wisconsin College of Agriculture, 1925). Via the State of Wisconsin Collection.

Posted by Emily Pfotenhauer.

WDAD featured in the Scout Report

The Wisconsin Decorative Arts Database is one of the online resources featured in this week’s Internet Scout Report. According to their website, the Scout Report is  “one of the Web’s oldest and most respected current awareness services. Published every Friday since 1994, it is read by more than 250,000 readers every week.” It’s part of the College of Letters and Sciences at the University of Wisconsin, but their readership is nationwide.

Here’s their writeup of the database:
Finns, Germans, Italians, and countless other groups have contributed mightily to the decorative arts traditions within the Badger State, and this lovely online database pays homage to those works, while also offering scholars and others access to this important collection. Inspired by the fieldwork undertaken by the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts in the 1970s and 1980s, this project brings together decorative arts objects made or used in 19th and early 20th century Wisconsin. The objects were culled from institutions across the state, and currently the database contains well over 600 items. There’s quite a range of items here, including an altar cloth with crocheted lace, a collage of memorabilia from a wedding in Peshtigo, and a dining suite manufactured by the Northern Furniture Company in Sheboygan. Students of material culture will welcome this site with open arms, and lovers of Wisconsin history will no doubt do the same.

Posted by Emily Pfotenhauer.