Victorian America - Hardcover

Wendell Garrett

4.15

13 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0847817474 ISBN 13: 9780847817474

Publisher: Rizzoli, 1993

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The Victorian age in America calls to mind classic images of heavily upholstered chairs, extensively carved woods, multicolored veneers, rococo and Gothic arches, and Moorish-influenced decor. It was a marvelously eclectic period noted for an undisciplined exuberance and unlimited riches made possible by the emerging Industrial Revolution.
With stunning new photography of magnificent period houses, most open to the public and many never before published, Victorian America: From Classical Romanticism to Gilded Opulence presents the finest examples of Victorian American architecture and decorative arts from the 1850s, through the Civil War, and into the turn of the century.
Here are authentic and spectacular Victorian interiors as seen in the Putnam-Balch House of Salem, Massachusetts, Wilson Castle of Proctor, Vermont, Victorian Mansion of Portland, Maine, the Bush House of Salem, Oregon, the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace in New York City, Rosedown in Louisiana, Vizcaya in Miami, the Hermitage in Tennessee, the Pabst Mansion in Milwaukee, and the Villa Finale in San Antonio, among other great houses.
Author Wendell Garrett, noted American historian and former editor of the magazine Antiques, presents perceptive and knowledgeable descriptions of the houses, their interiors, and their furnishings while providing a more detailed social and economic background essay that places these elegant residences in historical context.
This is Victorian America as it has never been presented before - over fifty splendid historic houses that preserve the grandeur of the Gilded Age.

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From Library Journal:

This survey of America's stately homes is a coffee-table book par excellence. It is divided into three sections: the Agrarian South, the Industrial North, and the Frontier West (everything west of the Hudson River, that is). An introductory text to each section summarizes the political, social, and cultural forces that enabled the building of these opulent mansions. The excellent color photographs include both interior and exterior views, and, of necessity, give only a taste of the treasures to be found in these 53 houses. All the homes are maintained in period style, and many are open to the public. While not a necessary purchase for many libraries, this book will provide readers with a tantalizing glimpse into a way of life that even in its time was experienced by only a few. Recommended for public libraries.
- Constance Ashmore Fairchild, Univ. of Illinois Lib., Urbana-Champaign
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist:

Although the elegant color photographs by Paul Rocheleau--interior and exterior views of where and how the rich and famous lived in the nineteenth-century U.S.--will he admired by readers, the text is also to be commended. Former Antiques magazine editor Garrett has chosen no small task in describing the intellectual, social, historical, and design mindsets of the U.S. in the 1800s. He sets the stage, then, for tracing, via the photos, the hodgepodge of architectural styles existing in the country at that time. More than 50 homes and mansions--some famous (Andrew Jackson's Hermitage, for example), others simply big and costly--are profiled, with accompanying blurbs on furnishings and construction. Most are now public places (addresses are listed in the appendix). For larger design and architectural collections. Barbara Jacobs

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