Interdisciplinary Use

Social Studies and History

The pieces of furniture featured in this module are all nineteenth century pieces ­ 1825 to 1889. The

timeline on the front page helps to place them. It can also help to place the pieces in the lifetime of

famous people studied in history, such as Abraham Lincoln. The styles can be compared to those

seen in local historic houses in your area. The furniture styles owned by prominent or less promi-

nent people are not just props. They reflect the status, the attitudes, the aspirations, the craftsman-

ship (in some cases), and the care that the owners felt.

The activity on identification of objects can be used with any object to study social and industrial

history. It is fun for students to bring in an object from home and see how much they can learn about

the object, owners, and society from it. They can use the WWW to find out background information

on manufacture, use, price, and other topics.

Language Arts

Several language arts activities are included. One is to write a first `person' narrative from the point

of view of a piece of furniture, taken from The Story of an Old Piano written by the daughter-in-law

of Helen Gilchrist, the owner of the piano. The second is a description of a piece of furniture using

vocabulary-building adjectives that can be as simple or sophisticated as suits your students.

Grade levels of Activities

Younger children can recognize differences among styles and talk about aspects such as size, shape,

color, and motif. The mantel is appropriate to use with elementary students because of its pictorial

designs of Adam and Eve and fruit and flowers in its many panels. Students could produce a colored

drawing of an original design made up of panels of fruit and flowers and/or a scene of a story.

Symbolism could be introduced.

Newspaper and catalog ads (such as those that come in the mail) are good sources for images of

furniture sold today. The comparison activity that asks students to find motifs similar to those on the

furniture in the module can be used in grades as low as fifth and sixth.

Resources on Furniture Styles

https://www.vam.ac.uk/Explorer/

This wonderful virtual exhibit of a Swedish arts and Crafts House

features comparisons of styles and showing contexts for design in an interactive format. You need to

click on "the crypt" to reach the archived virtual exhibits, the on the "Larsson Exhibit" (window

will pop up) when you arrive at this Explorer section of the complicated new Victoria & Albert

Museum Web site.