Cabinetmaking in Federal Baltimore

Cabinetmaking in Federal Baltimore
By the end of the eighteenth century, Baltimore had become one of the five largest cities in the United States. Prosperous and growing rapidly, it supported a large community of artisans, among them more than fifty cabinetmakers. Many were relatively new to the city and brought a wide array of design traditions learned in other urban centers, both British and American. Numbers of their patrons must have been newcomers too, since Baltimore's population quadrupled between 1775 and 1800, reaching more than 26,000 at the century's end. As a consequence, neither cabinetmaking traditions nor taste in household furniture were as firmly established in Baltimore as they were in older cities. Together, these conditions were largely responsible for the unconventional nature of much neoclassical Baltimore furniture.