For the attention of Mr Miner:
Further to Mr. Ciotola's excellent response to your search for "artifact
literature", I have a few suggestions.
First, I cannot personally recommend a single book that would answer all of
your needs. You seem to be wanting a quick fix for dating all artifacts from
all periods, places and materials. Mr. Ciotola mentioned Schlereth who would
serve your purposes well but I would suggest that your students not rely on
a single volume, but encourage them to seek out their own resource materials
to help date and describe the history of an object. Archealogical research,
period pattern books and catalogues, contemporary diaries and letters,
contemporary prints and paintings all can help to date an object that may
not neatly fit into someone else's general guide to artifact dating. If an
artifact appears to date from the American Colonial period, I would consult:
IVOR NOEL HUME's A Guide to Colonial Artifacts of America. New York:
Vintage Books, 1969.
This book is the result of many years at Colonial Williamsburg from the
archealogist's perspective.
For more recent periods, when pattern books and general catalogues were
published, I would suggest that these comtemporary publications are the
student's best, first-hand guide to artifacts. Of course, there is no single
solution, but that I would suggest is all part of the thrill of research.
You mentioned that you found research books dedicated to specific materials.
While these books may be useful, I think that focusing on the style of a
period and a location would be more useful in determining the age of an
object (especially if you cannot identify what it is) than by consulting a
general book on glass, for example.
In response to your second question, I can understand the difficulty you
have had in tracking down methodologies for artifact research. It would take
a whole new thread of conversation to discuss why this is, so I shall leave
that to someone else. Even so, I would suggest two sources for you:
1) Zimmerman, Philip D. "Regionalism in American Furniture Studies" in Ward,
Gerald W. R. ed. Perspectives on American Furniture. New York: W. W. Norton
& Co., 1988.
2) Fahy, Anne ed. "Collections Management" in Leicester Readers in Museum
Studies. London: Routledge, 1995. (I think).
Although Zimmerman focuses his discussion on regional furniture studies, I
would suggest that his four clearly defined methodologies could readily be
applied to virtually all types of artifact research; Zimmerman's basic
approach was applied to furniture, but as objects of material culture and
social history a table or a chair may be described in terms of its maker,
materials, age, location of manufacture, provenance just as one might
approach describing and dating a clay pipe or a silver salver.
While I am unsure if you might find your answer in Fahy's "Collections
Management", I am quite sure that the issue of methodological approaches to
artifacts is covered in the Leicester Readers in Museum Studies series. I am
sorry that I cannot be more specific; my library is packed away at the
moment.
I sincerely hope that this helps you. I apologise for the long-winded nature
of my response. All I can offer in my defence is that this is a subject
about which I feel very strongly... as if you could not tell that for
yourself!
Kind regards,
Laura
L.W.S. Petznick, Ph.D.
539 Indian Lake Road
Hendersonville, TN 37075-5221
615-824-7371
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