Death in the Dining Room and Other Tales of Victorian Culture

American Civilization

by Kenneth L. Ames

Takes a look at Victorian America, and explores the minds of Victorians by examining some of their most distinctive and fascinating creations. The five essays in the book discuss specific pieces - hallstands, sideboards, embroidered mottoes, parlor organs, and seating furniture - within the context of broader cultural issues and concerns.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Material Culture, Grad School, 19th Century, American History, Art

280 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1992

Reviews

[Ryan Murtha · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm loathe to admit that I really enjoyed reading hundreds of pages on Victorian hat racks and armchairs, but here we are.

[Alexandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have I ever been more shook by furniture?

[Sheri Ezekiel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book on Victorian age furniture. It explains how furniture was used to determine social status and gender. It even led to behaviors that continued into present day.

[Michael Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

As I’ve noted in other reviews, I have a long and deep interest in material culture -- the physical artifacts produced by the way we live, which often are the only surviving evidence of our everyday history. In college nearly fifty years ago, as a trainee historian but also for its cheap entertainment value, I got in the habit of attending estate sales (even though I couldn’t afford to buy anything), just to prowl around the leftovers of some family’s earlier generations: Pocket watches and fobs, oddball kitchen implements and mysterious silverware, uncomfortable parlor furniture. I found it all fascinating, and often puzzling. (“What did they do with that?”) Ames is a noted essayist on such things and is known for his original perspective on domestic archaeology from the 19th century, not only examining and describing but explaining (for instance) why the American rocking chair developed the way it did, and why tilting one’s chair back is fraught with psychological meaning, and the special status of the parlor organ. For that matter, why was it important for the upwardly mobile family moving into a new house to have a back hall as well as a front hall? What was the point of self-consciously embellishing the printed mottoes on the wall (and the titles on the covers of books) to the point almost of unreadability? Design can be subversive, serving other purposes than merely abstract aesthetics, whether it’s the furthering of evangelical religious dogma or underlining relative status within the middle-class family. The book’s title, by the way, comes from the chapter on the depiction of nature and “plenty” on dining room sideboards, which in the mid-19th century nearly crossed the line into architecture in their sheer size and complexity of carving. This is a great book for thoughtful browsing and for gazing at the period illustrations on every page. There’s also an excellent annotated notes and bibliography section.

[Samuel · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Kenneth Ames’ Death in the Dining Room & Other Tales of Victorian Culture, the author identifies and discusses “five classes of little-studied objects, five groups of ordinary things of Victorian daily life, to learn something about Victorian Americans’ sensory, emotional, and cognitive experiences.” While each chapter branches out to discuss a variety of related objects, the five primary forms of material culture Ames examines include hallstands, sideboards, framed needlework mottoes, parlor organs, and chairs and postures of the American Victorian era. Ames contextualizes these objects in their appropriate times and rooms of “specialization” in order to explore and explain multiple meanings of the culture that produced and consumed them. His method is explicitly “Aristotelian” meaning that he will focus primarily on the forms and functions of the objects to extrapolate their meanings and only tangentially discuss how their meanings are portrayed in art, advertising, and other sources. His conclusions tend to suggest the class, gender, and social relations embodied in the objects confirmed but highlighted exceptions to the general historical understanding that the Victorian home was a feminized place while life beyond the house fence was the sphere of masculinity. Ornate carvings depicting the hunt and its spoils on Victorian sideboards for example demonstrate the masculine sphere entering the feminized dining room space. On the other hand, rocking chairs—which tended to be associated with nursing—could be brought outdoors and enjoyed by men and women to enjoy the outdoors and convey their prosperity in photographs. Overall, Ames’ method and analysis are articulate, interesting, and convincing, demonstrating that looking at what people used can tell a great deal about what they valued.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is awesome, I don't care that it is big and takes up too much space, I'm keeping it. Ames has so many great illustrations in here to accompany his writing on the Victorians and their mind-sets and the material possessions they cared about.
Ames sticks to a simple layout here, he discusses five elements of Victorian culture: hallways and their furniture, dining room decoration, mottoes, parlor organs, and posture in chairs. He does get a little too psychological sometimes, delving into Victorian minds and trying to figure out what made them appreciate certain things. For example, he has this whole theory that the dining room used to be a male space, and that's why you have these big elaborately carved sideboards with images of dead deer and birds and the hunt. Then the dining room became a female space and they repressed all those 'manly' hunting images and domesticated the dining room. Sideboards became plain and bland. I don't know if I totally buy this, after all, men may also have decided that the old sideboards were gaudy and ridiculous. It may have been more of a class thing than a gender thing. But it's an interesting argument, nonetheless.
I love the whole analysis of tipping vs. rocking in chairs and how that had to do with gender and class. And my favorite thing about the book is all the old 19th century family photos. I love those photos where the family is all out on their lawn with some furniture, and some guy is leading a cow, and grandma is rocking in a chair, those pictures are so bizarre and interesting.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loving microhistories and object semantics, this seemed like the perfect choice for a chapter-at-a-time read. I've rarely had a book be so interesting and sleep-inducing at the same time! The subject is lively enough, so it may be the author's style, or it may just be me. The book is divided into chapters specific to Victorian furniture (the sideboard, hall stand, card receiver, etc.) and what it culturally communicated - or may have communicated - at the time.

My favorite chapters concerned the parlor organ and the perforated cardboard motto fad, although the Kenneth Ames does stretch feminist theory a bit much to equate cardboard as "masculine" and fabric as "feminine." Really? In fact, his theories are applied a bit unevenly throughout. While on the one hand he puts Victorian culture in a neutral, if not beneficial light, on the other hand he blitz-attacks the Victorians, religion, capitalism...the usual suspects. He does this in a way that is almost unsettling, leaving the reader to wonder, "Where did THAT come from?"

All in all, I believe the author is a bit hard of the Victorians, who were just trying to define themselves with objects in the world, as every culture does. That said, if you love furniture and the cultural machinations of this time period, the book is definitely one worth checking out.

[Shala Howell · Rating 4 out of 5]

It didn't answer the question that prompted me to open the book in the first place (although to be fair, it was not a question the author promised to answer in any way); but the book sucked me in anyway. It contains a fascinating discussion that uses material objects as the pathway to understanding Victorian attitudes toward gentility, music, religious convictions, even the food that they eat. Very much enjoyed it. Maybe even learned something. :)

[Alaina · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent material-culture history. I suspect I will change this to four stars in time. The writing is plain, often to the point of seeming amateurish, but Ames' ideas and analysis prove that he is a true scholar.

[Stacey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Full of all kinds of little tidbits that help me explain all things victorian in my building at work.

[Natalya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting read, especially the captions which are very revealing.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read Conc.

[Sarah Duggan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A detailed material culture analysis that is also fun to read! Ames gives a good overview of mid-19th century decorative arts trends while delving into the deeper meaning behind our home furnishing decisions. I especially appreciated how he goes beyond photos of parlors - he makes great use of cartoons, trade catalogs, paintings, and needlework kits. If you ever enjoyed the ,Little House on the Prairie tales of Ma's china shepherdess, you'll appreciate this book.