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Coloring Their World: Americans and Decorative Color in the Nineteenth Century

Wright, Kelly F.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1407404477

Abstract Details

2014, PhD, University of Cincinnati, Arts and Sciences: History.
Certain events in recent history have called into question some long-held assumptions about the colors of our material history. The controversy over the cleaning of the Sistine Chapel posited questions about color to an international audience, and in the United States the restoration of original decorative colors at the homes of many historically significant figures and religious groups has elicited a visceral reaction suggesting the new colors challenge Americans’ entrenched notions of what constituted respectable taste, if not comportment, in their forebears. Recent studies have even demonstrated that something as seemingly objective as photography has greatly misled us about the appearance of our past. We tend to see the nineteenth century as a faded, sepia-toned monochrome. But nothing could be further from the truth. Coloring Their World: Americans and Decorative Color in the Nineteenth Century, argues that in that century we can witness one of the only true democratizations in American history—the diffusion of color throughout every level of society. In the eighteenth century American aristocrats brandished color like a weapon, carefully crafting the material world around them as a critical part of their political and social identities, cognizant of the power afforded them by color’s correct use, and the consequences of failure. In their “classless” and not fully literate society glossy colorful carriages spoke with grandiloquence about their owners’ place in the world. In an aristocracy of the untitled, verdigris parlors bore the same power to intimidate as a gilded family crest. But their time was the last time that color could be so easily wielded. From the first flushes of pink and green in the early nineteenth-century homes of American elites, to the industrialized, commodified, synthesized hot pinks and electric blues available to literally everyone by century’s end, color collapsed class lines. No longer even remotely a trapping of aristocracy by the beginning of the twentieth century, color’s caché was replaced by a confidence in its easy access and ubiquity. But this access came with new rules, and self-appointed arbiters of taste dictated its use more and more. This process took place in several stages which form the parts of this dissertation. Part One explains how color first made its way into the interior of the country from 1800 to 1840, a process facilitated by the Market Revolution. Part Two describes how the harnessing of steam power and industrialization gave every class of Americans unprecedented access to all forms of decorative color. Within each phase Americans manipulated and consumed decorative color in distinctive ways, and the evidence of that is built into their material culture. As shocking as it may be to some, our past was a colorful place. Scarlet, not sepia, was its color. This dissertation is an attempt to explain why.
Wayne Durrill, Ph.D. (Committee Chair)
Frederic Krome, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Christopher Phillips, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
381 p.
American History
color; Market Revolution; industrialization; material culture; photography; textiles

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Wright, K. F. (2014). Coloring Their World: Americans and Decorative Color in the Nineteenth Century [Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1407404477

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Wright, Kelly. Coloring Their World: Americans and Decorative Color in the Nineteenth Century. 2014. University of Cincinnati, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1407404477.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Wright, Kelly. "Coloring Their World: Americans and Decorative Color in the Nineteenth Century." Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1407404477

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ucin1407404477
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This open access ETD is published by University of Cincinnati and OhioLINK.