Table furnishings and foodways, Chester County, Pennsylvania, 1800–1860: Beyond the biological imperative

The first half of the nineteenth century encompassed a dynamic transition period during which foodways and related material culture, along with other interacting cultural systems in the United States, were experiencing historic change. The inhabitants of Chester County, Pennsylvania, experienced these transformations in common with the wider American culture, however adapted that change was to prevailing local norms. This study has focused on the distinctive shape of that change in the still largely rural, agrarian county, on the cultural processes that governed those transformations over six decades, and on the cultural meaning embodied in the changing tableware consumption patterns of three generations of Chester Countians. Through discovery in these three areas, it has been possible to address the connection between artifact, behavior, and cognition and reach this study\u27s larger goal—a better understanding of the study culture\u27s mentalité as revealed in the artifactual behavior of its people. Prerequisite to achieving these goals was the identification, description, and quantification of Chester County table furnishings, 1800-1860, and analysis of consumption patterns relating to their manufacture, distribution, ownership and use. These artifacts were important elements in grounding subsequent theoretical constructions. The project is ethnographic in tone, interdisciplinary in method, and largely descriptive and narrative in presentation. Representative tableware assemblages are incorporated within \u27artifactual portraits\u27 which balance statistics with thick description. This holistic approach uses deep context to integrate specific artifactual behaviors into larger cultural systems within the county. Between 1800 and 1860, tableware consumption embodied the continuation of very gradual transformations in Chester County away from persistent traditional perceptions, attitudes, and values toward a less holistic, less static view of the world—then further, at increasing rates of change, into the dynamic, modern mentalité of an industrial age. Not until the third decade of the century did these slow-moving trends in the county develop into an important shift, no less striking for being moderate in character. Fundamental change in the county was modified by the region\u27s still largely rural, agrarian, middle-class population, slowed by the conservative values of land-based money, and consistently adapted to prevailing local norms