Book Review: Folk Furniture of Canada's Doukhobors, Hutterites, Mennonites and Ukrainians

Authors

Ervin Beck, Goshen College

Date of this Version

2005

Document Type

Article

Comments

Published in GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY 25:4 (Fall 2005). Copyright © 2005 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

Abstract

Folk Furniture makes a fine coffee-table book, with its oversize format and more than one hundred gorgeous color photographs by James A. Chambers. Leafing through it is a visual feast, with otherwise humble pieces of furniture dignified by dramatic lighting that discloses the texture, line, and form of historic everyday household items. But the book is an important contribution to material cultural studies, since it not only places furniture in its cultural context but also "reads" furniture like a "text" to discover how it expresses the history, psychology, and ideology of the people who made and used it.