Reprint of the original, first published in 1876.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1876.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1876.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1876.

First book on the Centennial in nearly four decades, offering a new insight into this seminal event. The Centennial was America’s first world’s fair, taking place only twenty-five years after the first international exposition in London. The exhibition was a paean to progress by people fascinated by science and technology. The organizers—largely leading Pennsylvania industrialists and merchants—wanted to show the world that the United States was as advanced as any nation in Europe and for the most part their plan succeeded. Everyday Americans attended the fair to be reassured of their nation’s economic and technological past, present, and future. Mystery and Marvel looks at the 1876 Centennial Exposition through the eyes of the ten million visitors to the fair to help us understand the technological enthusiasm of middle-class Victorians. Although this enthusiasm was not unbounded and was occasionally tinged with a combination of nostalgia and uncertainty, overall the women and men of the late nineteenth century were usually happy to be part of a world they thought was as modern and as cutting edge as the one we live in today. In and around the buildings that appeared in the city’s Fairmount Park that spring and summer were the physical embodiments of this culture. The sights, the sounds, and even the smells of the exhibition presaged the coming of a modern America. In 1876 Philadelphia was the nation’s largest manufacturing city and Pennsylvania one of the most important industrial states. The exposition can serve as a wonderful lens to examine America’s shift from the young agricultural republic of 1800 to the industrial empire of 1900.

Victorian furnishers and decorators Collinson & Lock were a model of the art furniture business of the last quarter of the nineteenth century. This book is the first wide-ranging study of this once highly important company. It will give insights into the workings and productions of a London furnishing business in the period. It also provides information on a wide variety of topics including furniture design developments, interior design styles, business practices, working practices and techniques, and the firm’s customers and competitors. Clive Edwards first considers the structure of the London ‘art furniture’ trade and its development to locate the firm in its community. He then traces the growth of the firm’s business, its involvement with important international exhibitions, the designers they worked with, and the furniture and interiors they produced. This important book then outlines and discusses Collinson & Lock’s creations ranging from seminal pieces that were designed for an exclusive clientele, to those displayed at national and international exhibitions between 1871 and 1900, through to batch produced objects that still maintained the quality and design that the firm was famous for. The involvement of the firm with both public and private interior decoration commissions is also examined through case studies, including those in the Anglo-Japanese, Queen Anne, Old English, and Renaissance styles used in the later Victorian period. Drawing on the author's extensive knowledge of nineteenth-century furniture and interiors, this book meets a need for a fully researched and illustrated reference work on this famous firm. If you have an interest in the history of furniture and interior design, if you are involved with furniture collections either on a private basis or professionally, or you simply have an interest in the decorative arts and culture of the period, this book should be on your shelves.

During the nineteenth century in Rome, three generations of the Castellani family created what they called “Italian archaeological jewelry,” which was inspired by the precious Etruscan, Roman, Greek, and Byzantine antiquities being excavated at the time. The Castellani jewelry consisted of finely wrought gold that was often combined with delicate and colorful mosaics, carved gemstones, or enamel. This magnificent book is the first to display and discuss the jewelry and the family behind it. International scholars discuss the life and work of the Castellani, revealing the wide-ranging aspects of the family’s artistic and cultural activities. They describe the making and marketing of the jewelry, the survey collection of all periods of Italian jewelry on display in the Castellani’s palatial store, and the Castellani’s activities in the trade of antiquities, as they sponsored excavations, and restored, dealt, and exhibited antiques. They also recount the family’s involvement in the cultural and political life of their city and country.

From the Cadillac to the Apple Mac, the skyscraper to the Tiffany lampshade, the world in which we live has been profoundly influenced for over a century by the work of American designers. But the product is only the end of a story that is full of fascinating questions. What has been the social and cultural role of design in American society? To produce useful things that consumers need? Or to persuade them to buy things that they don't need? Where does the designer stand in all this? And how has the role of design in America changed over time, since the early days of the young Republic? Jeffrey Meikle explores the social and cultural history of American design spanning over two centuries, from the hand-crafted furniture and objects of the early nineteenth century, through the era of industrialization and the mass production of the machine age, to the information-based society of the present, covering everything from the Arts and Crafts movement to Art Deco, modernism to post-modernism, MOMA to the Tupperware bowl.