The true character of Americans is mirrored in their homes. (Antiques).

Mederic Louis Elie Moreau de Saint-Mery, Voyage aux Etats-Unis de l'Amerique, 1793-1798

Such insights about Americans as this have come most often from outsiders. Half a century after Moreau de Saint-Mery's visit, the Swedish author Fredrika Bremer came to the United States "to observe the popular life, institutions, and circumstances of a new country." In her travels from New England to Florida she met prominent politicians, authors, businessmen, and artists and she avidly followed the important issues of the day However, she believed that it was from the "threshold of the home" that one could best view "the future of humanity," so American homes became the primary focus of her attention. The Homes of the New World: Impressions of America, the book in which she set down her experiences as a traveler in the United States, was an immediate success when it was translated from Swedish by Mary Howitt and published in New York City in 1853.

The early colonists applied their ingenuity and craftsmanship to fulfilling their immediate needs. First they were involved in the conquest of a new land, then in the establishment of a new government. Simultaneously, they were building houses and public buildings and fitting them out with furniture and other necessities for living. That these activities were considered too important to be left to chance is illustrated by the advice of Gouverneur Morris to President George Washington in a letter of January 1790: "I think it of very great importance to fix the taste of our country properly, and I think your example will go very far in that respect. It is therefore my wish that everything about you should be substantially good and majestically plain, made to endure." Consequently restrained ornamentation and emphasis on line and proportion are the Keynotes of American craftsmanship.

In New England, the middle colonies, and the South materials and requirements were different and, as might be expected, architecture and furniture were ...