Springtime in Portage

The Historic Indian Agency house was built by the United States government in 1832 for John Kinzie, the Indian Agent to the Ho Chunk Nation in Wisconsin. The house was restored by the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in 1932.

This chest of drawers in the late neoclassical (Empire) style is said to have been made in Green Bay ca. 1825.

In late April, I headed up to Portage on a beautiful spring morning to visit the Historic Indian Agency House and meet with the site’s Executive Director, Destinee Udelhoven. I was there to photograph a single compelling artifact–a chest of drawers that, according to early Agency House records, was made in Green Bay around 1825. Although a more specific history is unknown, the use of an unusual wood type (tamarack) and the rough construction methods that lie behind the chest’s  fashionable facade certainly suggest that it could have been made in an early 19th-century settlement in the Great Lakes region. A full catalog entry with several photos will be online in the Wisconsin Decorative Arts Database later this spring.

During my visit, I couldn’t resist snapping some photos of the site in its springtime glory–including a cat from the caretaker’s house who was patrolling the grounds.

Cat in front of the Agency House's split-rail fence.

The tri-lingual welcome sign on the front door of the Visitors Center.

Object Photography at the Grant County Historical Society

Needlework picture attributed to Susan Schnee, Platteville, ca. 1840.

I’ve been on the road quite a bit lately and am starting to get caught up on blogging about some of my latest site visits. Last week I spent a day in Lancaster photographing artifacts at the Grant County Historical Society. One of my favorite items in their collection is a needlework picture depicting Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. The work descended in the family of Susan Schnee and is said to have been made by her in about 1840, after she arrived in Wisconsin from Lebanon, Pennsylvania with her parents in the 1830s. 

I also photographed a set of doll furniture crafted from bird’s-eye-maple by Allen Cartwright, a British-born cabinetmaker who worked for the Morgan Company, a woodwork manufactory in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. According to family tradition, Cartwright made the set as a Christmas present for his great-granddaughter in 1893.  

Doll-sized chest of drawers, Allen Cartwright, Oshkosh, 1893.

Posted by Emily Pfotenhauer.

Object Photography at the Dousman Stagecoach Inn

Walnut or butternut desk and bookcase attributed to Lowell Damon, Wauwatosa, ca. 1850-1860.

Spring has almost sprung in Wisconsin, and with the arrival of nice weather, it’s time for me to get out of the library and back out on the road. Last week I headed to Brookfield, where I spent the afternoon with Marion Bruhn, curator for the Dousman Stagecoach Inn. The inn, completed ca. 1843 by Talbot Dousman (brother of Hercules Dousman of the Villa Louis), was an important rest stop for early settlers heading west from Milwaukee into the Wisconsin frontier. In 1981, in order to protect this historic structure, the Elmbrook Historical Society relocated the inn from its original site at the intersection of the Blue Mound Military Road and the Watertown Plank Road and undertook an extensive restoration project.

 

Only a few of the inn’s early furnishings have survived, most notably several beds used by travelers spending the night in the tiny second-floor bedrooms. Many of the other furnishings on view at the inn were made by early craftspeople in the region, including the late neoclassical (aka Empire or pillar-and-scroll) style desk and bookcase shown above. This stylish piece of furniture is attributed to Lowell Damon, an early settler in the neighboring community of Wauwatosa, whose home has been preserved by the Milwaukee County Historical Society. Other works associated with the area include a horn-handled carving knife and fork marked by F. A. Seaver, a cutlery manufacturer in Lake Mills, and a cherry pin-top table (a very early furniture form in which a removable tabletop is secured to the frame with hand-carved wooden pins) used in Jackson County, Wisconsin.

 

Posted by Emily Pfotenhauer.

 

 

Object Photography at the Mayville Historical Society

On August 11 I spent a beautiful sunny day at the Mayville Historical Society in Dodge County. The Society manages a complex of buildings, the largest of which is the Hollenstein Carriage Factory and House (the Hollensteins linked their business and their residence). I spent most of my time in the home, photographing a wide assortment of artifacts including a spinning wheel made by local wood turner Frank Fell, needlework by Rudolph Sauerhering, and a willow basket by Joseph Leibl. Volunteers Barbara Larsen and Lois Gadow were extremely helpful and spent the entire day with me. Board members Ann Guse and Alyce Wurtz joined us and took me to lunch.

Look for artifacts from the Mayville Historical Society in the Wisconsin Decorative Arts Database later this fall.

Posted by Emily Pfotenhauer.

Object Photography at the New Holstein Historical Society

Detail, Fretwork desk, Charles Trowbridge, Sheboygan Falls, 1911

The New Holstein Historical Society in Calumet County operates two sites, the recently restored Timm House and the Pioneer Corner Museum. At the Timm House, I photographed several examples of furniture made in the region, including a striking desk/display cabinet made by Charles Trowbridge, a dentist in Sheboygan Falls (detail above). Creating elaborate decorative fretwork like the cutouts on this desk was a popular hobby among men in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Trowbridge’s desk is by far the largest piece I’ve seen that incorporates this technique–smaller items like clocks were more typical. The style mirrors the Victorian “gingerbread” architectural ornament popular at the time. This website from a contemporary fretwork hobbyist includes a digital reproduction of an 1895 how-to guide, Fretwork and Marquetry: A practical manual of instructions in the art of fret-cutting and marquetry work, by David Denning.

Other items I photographed in New Holstein included willow baskets made by the Schildhauer family, an icebox manufactured in Fond du Lac and decorated to look like an Eastlake-style cabinet, and a large vase hand-painted with birds.

Posted by Emily Pfotenhauer.

Object Photography at the Fort Winnebago Surgeons’ Quarters

Carved and painted eagle said to have been made by soldiers at Fort Winnebago ca. 1840.

I recently returned from another visit to Portage to photograph artifacts at the Fort Winnebago Surgeons’ Quarters (operated by the Wisconsin branch of the Daughters of the American Revolution), including several examples of furniture original to the fort. One of my favorite pieces was this hand-carved wooden eagle, reminiscent of the work of noted woodcarver Wilhelm Schimmel of Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Posted by Emily Pfotenhauer.

Object Photography at Vesterheim

Earlier this week I visited the Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum in Decorah, Iowa. Vesterheim’s extensive collection of artifacts related to Norwegian immigrants in America includes many examples of furniture made by Norwegians in Wisconsin, most notably the early immigrant cabinetmaker Aslak Lie of Dane County and the well-known rosemaler Per Lysne of Stoughton.

I spent two days at Vesterheim photographing furniture and other artifacts with the help of curator Tova Brandt. I also had the opportunity to visit Vesterheim’s Jacobson Farmstead, about 7 miles outside Decorah, with Deputy Director Steven Johnson. Pastor Abraham Jacobson and his family lived in the Town of Perry in the southwest corner of Dane County, Wisconsin from 1868-1878. They brought many of the furnishings from their Perry home to Iowa when they relocated to a farm near Decorah in the late 1870s. The walnut center table (above) and cane-seat rocking chair used in the Jacobson’s parlor in Perry (see image below) are now among the furnishings at the Jacobson Farmstead.

Interior of Perry Lutheran Church Parsonage, ca. 1877. Photograph by Andreas Larsen Dahl. Wisconsin Historical Society WHi-27217.

Posted by Emily Pfotenhauer.

Object Photography at the Marathon County Historical Society

After my visit to Portage, I headed further north to Wausau, where I photographed collections at the Marathon County Historical Society. I spent the day with volunteer curators Kathy Jansen and Linda Forbess, who sifted through the Society’s extensive holdings for some interesting artifacts, including a wafer iron made by a local blacksmith and several examples of crochet and other needlework. One of the most exciting things I got to see was a group of books printed by the Philosopher Press, a fine printing press operated by Helen Van Vechten and William Ellis in Wausau around the turn of the twentieth century. The Marathon Historical Society recently acquired several books produced by this important press, including a gorgeous full-color version of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (the book’s frontispiece is shown above).

While in Wausau, I also had the chance to get a sneak peak at the Yawkey House (below), which reopens to the public this weekend after an extensive restoration by the Marathon County Historical Society. The house was built in 1901 by Milwaukee architects Henry Van Ryn and Gerrit de Gellke, but remodeled in 1908 by George Maher, resulting in an unusual combination of a Classical Revival-style exterior and an Arts and Crafts interior.

Posted by Emily Pfotenhauer.

Object Photography at the Sauk County Historical Society

Sauk County Historical Society Museum, Baraboo, Wisconsin (WHI #29088).

I spent the afternoon in Baraboo at the Sauk County Historical Society, working with Curator Destinee Swanson and Staff Assistant Mary-Farrell Stieve to photograph artifacts. I shot a variety of things, including ceramics attributed to the Pointon Pottery, an Oneida stamped basket, and a carved lion’s head that once decorated the mantle of the Ringling mansion in Baraboo.

The Sauk County Historical Society’s museum is currently located in a Tudor-style mansion built for Baraboo banker Jacob Van Orden in 1903. The Society is renovating the former offices of the Baraboo Woolen Mill in order to create the Sauk County History Center, expected to open this fall.

Artifacts from the Sauk County Historical Society’s collections will be online in the Wisconsin Decorative Arts Database later this summer.

Posted by Emily Pfotenhauer.

Object Photography at the Oconto County Historical Society

Last week I spent a day with a group of volunteers at the Beyer Home Museum in the town of Oconto. Constructed in 1868, the building was one of the first in the community to be made from brick. The interiors have been restored to the period of the 1890s–the time when lumber baron George Beyer transformed the home from an Italianate mansion into a Victorian showplace.

I photographed several examples of local furniture, including a small hanging corner cupboard attributed to John Van Rens (above). It’s decorated with fine marquetry and inlay, and the shelves are lined with red velvet paper. Other artifacts I documented were some examples of porcelain hand-painted by local women, three quilts, and an unusual handmade banjo decorated with half-moons.

I also got to see another object of historical import–a five foot animatronic fiberglass pickle that once served as the mascot for Oconto’s Bond Pickle Company! Too bad it’s outside of my date range for this project. The pickle reminds me a bit of “Big Dreamers,” a documentary I saw last month at the Wisconsin Film Festival about a small town in Australia and its quest to build a giant fiberglass rain boot in hopes of attracting tourists.

Posted by Emily Pfotenhauer.