Death in the Dining Room and Other Tales of Victorian Culture (American Civilization) [Paperback]

Kenneth Ames (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 1992 | ISBN-10: 1566393337 | ISBN-13: 978-1566393331

In this provocative look at Victorian America, Kenneth Ames explores the minds of Victorians by examining some of their most distinctive and fascinating creations. Featuring five once-prominent home furnishings, he reconstructs a vanished culture and demonstrates the centrality of the artifact to historical understanding. Richly illustrated with photographs of surviving objects as well as images from a wide variety of period sources, the five essays discuss specific pieces - hallstands, sideboards, embroidered mottoes, parlor organs, and seating furniture - within the context of broader cultural issues and concerns. Ames reveals not only the major outlines of Victorian culture but also the conflicts and tensions deep within that culture. An extraordinary proliferation of goods characterizes the Victorian world. Throughout the study, Ames considers the relationship of some of these household objects to issues of class, gender, and place. For example, the importance of public image was dramatized by the rituals of the front hall in Victorian homes: its placement within the house, the massive hallstand with its receptacles for calling cards and umbrellas, accommodations for temporary and usually uncomfortable seating. The dining room was a shrine to the notion of "man's" dominion over nature - each elaborately carved sideboard displayed a frieze of slaughtered game and harvested vegetation. Parlor organs, a blending of the sacred and the profane, provided an occasion to display feminine accomplishment and to symbolize the role of the bourgeois Christian lady. Ames also discusses how the prevailing class and gender hierarchy was echoed in the posture of seating furniture and its arrangement. The author is one of the premier interpreters of Victorian culture in America. His witty, provocative, and irreverent commentary on the "quaint" fixtures of the Victorian household will fascinate scholars, antique buffs, and collectors on nostalgia. Author note: Kenneth L. Ames is Chief of Historical and Anthropological Surveys at the New York State Museum and was formerly Chair of the Office of Advanced Studies at the Winterthur Museum.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Ken Ames has always 'heard a different drummer.' Death in the Diningroom explores his unique ideas of how our home furnishings give visitors a message about our status and concerns. Why don't we own a hall tree? Why are dead birds carved on the sideboard? And why are some Victorian chairs so uncomfortable? These and other strange thoughts pop up as you read his latest, well-illustrated book."
—Ralph and Terry Kovel, authors of Kovels' Antiques and Collectables Price List

"[E]ffectively explores and articulates 'the varied tasks and roles' performed by ordinary goods in the everyday life of Victorian America, as well as the complex, contradicted elements of culture they often reveal."
—American Quarterly

"An eminently engaging and entertaining work by one of the pre-eminent interpreters of Victorian culture."
—Antique Review

From the Publisher

A richly illustrated and provocative discussion of Victorian culture through an exploration of common household goods

Outstanding Academic Title, Choice

Henry-Russell Hitchcock Award, Victorian Society of America

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 280 pages
• Publisher: Temple University Press (May 1, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566393337
• ISBN-13: 978-1566393331
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #700,254 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars More of a book about furnishings and their history, May 12, 2000

By 

Rosemary Thornton "Niece of Addie Hoyt Fargo ... (Norfolk, VA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Death in the Dining Room and Other Tales of Victorian Culture (American Civilization) (Paperback)

This is an interesting book and an indepth history of household furnishings and the reason they were important to folks at the turn of this century.

Chapter One is "First Impressions" which deals at length with entry foyer furniture and how it was used. Hall racks, card stands and hall chairs are all discussed in this chapter.

Chapter Two is "Death in the dining room" - which gets it's name from the slain game often depicted on victorian dining room furniture - such as side boards and buffets.

Chapter Three is "Words to Live by" - Samplers, wall hangings and other embroidered or metal stamped messages.

Chapter Four is "When the Music Stops" which covers the societal importance of pump organs and how music was very important to a Victorian woman.

Chapter Five is "Posture and Power" - a chapter about living room (parlor) furniture.

There are a zillion interesting little factoids about life at the turn of this century. And it does give you a good feel for etiquette and expectations and the rules back then.

And it answered questions for me - like "Why was parlor furniture so uncomfortable and rigid?" Because Victorians placed great emphasis on the importance of self-control as an invaluable discipline. Comfortable furniture suggested mental laziness. (My paraphrase)

So it does give some insights into why things were the way they were. Lots of history there.

But when I picked it up, I thought it was a book on old houses, not old furniture. I thought the title was an allusion to the fact that 100 years ago, funerals were held in the dining room, which is the reason many old house dining rooms have an entry door - so the visitors could graciously and easily leave the house after the viewing. It is not that kind of book. But I still enjoyed reading it.

It is a large book with one or more pictures of antique furnishings on every page. A good resource for someone who wants to recreate a historic interior.

Rose Thornton
author, The Houses That Sears Built

19 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Looking beneath the surface . . ., October 3, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Death in the Dining Room and Other Tales of Victorian Culture (Hardcover)

As teenagers, a friend and I used to play a "game": We'd walk into different environments (e.g., restaurant, upscale men's store, hippie headshop, etc.) and pretend that we were standing inside someone's brain. Then we'd make cracks about the personality, motivations, priorities, etc. of the "person," based on our material surroundings. That's really what Kenneth Ames does here -- using each room in a Victorian house.

A few years ago, when we moved into our own 1875 rowhouse, I began buying (indiscrimately) books on Victoriana. This one I picked up in shabby condition at a yard sale -- and for awhile, treated it accordingly. But in the time since, it has become one of the favored anchors of my collection. I find myself quoting it at odd moments for the simple reasons that (1) it offers lots of curious observations (e.g., that Victorian women "rocked" in rockers, while men "tilted" in chairs) that (2) can sometimes be seen as antecedents to behaviors today.

The author variously presents himself as both thoughtful essayist, and avid cataloguer (as when listing all the embroidered expressions--like "Home Sweet Home," "Peace, Be Still"--of Victorian needlework). Economically written--with an eye for the telling detail--and reasonably illustrated with photographs of the period.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Simpler times" were actually pretty complicated, November 27, 2010

By 

Michael K. Smith (South Louisiana) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Death in the Dining Room and Other Tales of Victorian Culture (American Civilization) (Paperback)

As I've noted in other reviews, I have a long and deep interest in material culture -- the physical artifacts produced by the way we live, which often are the only surviving evidence of our everyday history. In college nearly fifty years ago, as a trainee historian but also for its cheap entertainment value, I got in the habit of attending estate sales (even though I couldn't afford to buy anything), just to prowl around the leftovers of some family's earlier generations: Pocket watches and fobs, oddball kitchen implements and mysterious silverware, uncomfortable parlor furniture. I found it all fascinating, and often puzzling. ("What did they do with that?") Ames is a noted essayist on such things and is known for his original perspective on domestic archaeology from the 19th century, not only examining and describing but explaining (for instance) why the American rocking chair developed the way it did, and why tilting one's chair back is fraught with psychological meaning, and the special status of the parlor organ. For that matter, why was it important for the upwardly mobile family moving into a new house to have a back hall as well as a front hall? What was the point of self-consciously embellishing the printed mottoes on the wall (and the titles on the covers of books) to the point almost of unreadability? Design can be subversive, serving other purposes than merely abstract aesthetics, whether it's the furthering of evangelical religious dogma or underlining relative status within the middle-class family. The book's title, by the way, comes from the chapter on the depiction of nature and "plenty" on dining room sideboards, which in the mid-19th century nearly crossed the line into architecture in their sheer size and complexity of carving. This is a great book for thoughtful browsing and for gazing at the period illustrations on every page. There's also an excellent annotated notes and bibliography section.