Customer Reviews

Kitchens, Smokehouses, and Privies: Outbuildings and the Architecture of Daily Life in the Eighteenth-Century Mid-Atlantic

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4 star:		(1)
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2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Author Michael Olmert won his reputation writing Emmy award winning documentaries and scholarly, yet readable, books. Copiously illustrated with almost 100 black and white photographs of survivings outbuildings, Olmert's book gives an excellent overview of the various dependencies which served the large 18th century Tidewater or Chesapeake plantation house - their origins, evolutions, and functions. The book focuses on the kitchens, smokehouses, laundries, dairies, offices, icehouses, and dovecotes of large estates and prosperous plantations with little discussion of the types of outbuildings found on the typical small holders' farms. The book's subtitle, "Outbuildings and the Architecture of Daily Life in the Eighteenth-Century Mid-Atlantic" is misleading. The Mid-Atlantic region includes New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland. However, this book focused almost exclusively on the architecture of the Tidewater Virginia and Chesapeake Virginia and Maryland regions. There were absolutely no photographs of the Eighteenth-Century outbuildings constructed by the English and Dutch Colonists in New York and New Jersey, or by the English,Germanic, and Swiss settlers of Pennsylvania, nor was there anything written about these regions. As a resource for Mid-Atlantic architecture, this book is an enormous disappointment, and is not recommended. Had the book been marketed under a different title, revealing its true content, "Outbuildings and the Architecture of Daily Life in the Eighteenth-Century Tidewater Chesapeake Regions," I would have given it a higher rating. Unfortunately, a greedy publisher, attempting to appeal to a broader audience, chose deception in sub-titling this book. If you are looking for a book on interesting outbuilding of Virginia and Maryland, by all means buy this book. However, if you want a good book on the outbuildings of the Mid-Atlantic Region, this is not the book for you. "Architecture of the Pennsylvania Dutch Country, 1700-1900" by Henry J. Kauffman offers an illustrated and well-annotated introductory overview of the English, German, and Swiss architectural designs found in southeastern Pa. Included are photographs of barns, furniture, smokehouses, icehouses, springhouses, summerhouses, privies, bake ovens, caves, and churches. This book is a better choice for those interested in the outbuildings of the Southestern Pennsylvania region.)Architecture of the Pennsylvania Dutch Country, 1700-1900

Although I apreciate having the many photos of these outbuildings and drawings pulled together in this one book, I was a little disappointed. I was hoping for a more in depth orginal study. It appears to be mostly a summary of the work of other scholars, which is a laudable task, but I find it exceedingly hard to trace the information presented back to the original sources, which is what many of us would like to find and cite. Also, although the format is very attractive, and gives the appearance on line of a large coffee table book, be aware that it is actually only about 7" by 8" in size.

Real footnotes would make this volume much better and intellectually transparent. Instead, at the end of each chapter, he just has a "Notes and Further Reading" section.

Of the 101 illustrations, 24 are of reconstructions or fanciful restorations. An additional 19 are stock/poster shots (i.e. Williamsburg, Mount Vernon, Monticello) or tenuously connected historical engravings (i.e. Dürer's St. Jerome in his study; Jean-Baptist Greuze, The Laundress.) Thirty-five are of the restoration at Colonial Williamsburg. Eighteen are of European origin.

Of the 101 illustrations, only four are documentary photos of unrestored interiors: the laundry at Green Hill, the privy at Bowman's Folly, the privy at Westover, and the dovecote at Shirley.

Some of the material is re-cycled from Colonial Williamsburg magazine; the entire book is written in the airy style that characterizes that sort of popular lightweight periodical.

Although Olmert discusses laundering at some length, he skirts such a basic question as what exactly was a washtub like (wood staves or copper?). There is much discussion also about the unpleasantness of slave life and chamber pots and privies. Nevertheless, the question of who went where and where the pots were emptied is largely avoided. Although Olmert suggests (p. 125) that pots were carried from the house to the privy by slaves, absent documentation it does not seem likely that slaves were encouraged to carry out their messy work inside a gentry-finished privy. The negative evidence suggests that Olmert has very little experience with his topic beyond the fairy-tale restoration at Williamsburg.

The reproduction level of the photographs is very poor, many of them dark and murky. They appear to lack any manipulation of the images in the modern electronic darkroom, to the extent that they are seldom helpful.

Anyone interested in American 19C folkways is probably already familiar with the much better researched work of John Michael Vlach. Architectural historians stand in awe of Carl Lousnbury's Illustrated Glossary of Early Southern Architecture and Landscape. In addition to those works, a few minutes of research in the online HABS collection of the Library of Congress will yield much more interesting and accurate material than Olmert's book.

Excellent topical study of Old Dependancies. While it's nearly impossible to have one book that covers it all, this book, Kitchens, Smokehouse, and Privies is a must have for those who enjoy the study of historic architecture and early American life.

Bravo - on a book I'm glad to have added to my old home resources.

This book is extremely useful for anyone interested in the above or below ground remnants of 18th and 19th century tidewater plantations. The reviewer above is correct- this volume is most relevant to the southern sector of the "Mid-Atlantic". As a bonus, it's beautifully written!

Beautiful book! Arrived in good condition in a timely fashion. I am thrilled with this purchase! Thank you.