"A collection of essays that examine early American cultural, political, and social history through a material lens, exploring the meanings of objects ranging from artworks and domestic furnishings to Penn's Treaty Tree"--Provided by publisher.
Introduction : culture, society, and the material world / Margaretta Markle Lovell -- Picturing Penn : portraits, public memory, and the political culture of late colonial Pennsylvania / George W. Boudreau -- Ascending the stair : Charles Wilson Peale's Staircase group, reimagining a grand-manner portrait in federal Philadelphia / Carol Eaton Soltis -- Artists' materials and the transatlantic craft traditions of eighteenth-century American portrait painting / Ellen G. Miles -- Clock making in southwestern Connecticut, 1760-1820 / Paul G.E. Clemens and Edward S. Cooke Jr. -- Face, place, and power : James Logan, Stenton, and the Anglo-American gentleman's house / Stephen G. Hague -- Trophy heads at Monticello / Margaretta Markle Lovell -- "Painting" faces and "dressing" tables : concealment in colonial dressing furniture / Jennifer Van Horn -- Mommy dearest : Britannica, American, and mother-daughter conflicts in eighteenth-century prints and medals / Nancy Siegel -- "The family of Derby has a taste in this way" : the homes of Elias Hasket and Elizabeth Derby, 1762-1799 / Emily A. Murphy -- From region to nation : M.F. Cornè's Landing of the pilgrims and the circulation of images in the early republic / Patricia Johnston -- Remembering the "olden time" : John Fanning Watson's cultivation of memory and relics in early national Philadelphia / Laura C. Keim.