American Furniture is an interdisciplinary journal dedicated to advancing knowledge of furniture made or used in the Americas from the seven-teenth century to the present. Authors are encouraged to submit articles on any aspect of furniture history, essays on conservation and historic technology, reproductions of transcripts of such documents as account books and inventories, annotated photographs of new furniture discoveries, and book and exhibition reviews. References for compiling an annual bibliography also are welcome.
Manuscripts must be typed, double-spaced, illustrated with 8" x10" black-and-white prints or transparencies, and prepared in accordance with the Chicago Manual of Style. Computer disk copy is requested but not required. The Chipstone Foundation will offer significant honoraria for manuscripts accepted for publication and reimurse authors for all photography approved in writing by the editor.
The conferences were held at the Winterthur Museum in 1975 and 1985 respectively.
Ian M. G. Quimby, ed., Material Culture and the Study of American Life (New York: W. W. Norton for the Winterthur Museum, 1978). Cary Carson, “Doing History with Material Culture,” in Ibid., pp. 41-64.
Gerald W. R. Ward, ed., Perspectives on American Furniture (New York: W. W. Norton for the Winterthur Museum, 1988).
One of the most forceful arguments along these lines is “New Connoisseurship,” a lecture presented at the 1995 Williamsburg Antiques Forum by Jon Prown, Assistant Curator of Furniture at Colonial Williamsburg.