Existing comment:
Colonial Cultures:
For many colonists living in the Americas, paintings, furniture, silver and other objects conveyed both personal and communal values. In the private sphere, family portraits -- which comprised the vast majority of colonial paintings -- recorded likenesses, documented familial ties, and created a comforting continuity between successive generations. In the public sphere, such portraits documented professions, as well as social standing and aspirations. The possession of these luxury objects (one in 100 colonists owned a portrait) projected an image of prosperity, cultivation, and class status. These objects also symbolized political and cultural ties to ancestral nations across the Atlantic Ocean.
Traditionally, Americans have viewed colonial cultures, not through primary source documents, but through the lens of the later Colonial Revival movement and its popular culture. The movement flowered following the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition (1876), held in the nation's first capital, which inspired renewed nostalgia for the past through its reconstructions of historic buildings and period rooms. In contrast to the devisiveness associated with the Civil War, the colonial period was distinguished by national unity and gradually became the most revered period of American history.
The Colonial Revival was most strongly embraced by descendants of early Anglo-American Protestant settlers, who pointedly ignored the earlier Spanish and Catholic colonial heritage of the United States. These descendants used colonial genealogy, historic house museums, and antiques to preserve and promote the values of a disappearing social order. More recent immigrants and their descendants, who lacked colonial pedigrees and heirlooms, were encouraged to acculturate by adopting the values of the Founding Fathers, as well as reproductions of their colonial homes and furniture. The enduring mythology of the Colonial Revival serves as a reminder that our vision of the past is continually reshaped by subsequent generations of viewers. |