University Press of New England - Dartmouth College

Harmony in Wood
Furniture of the Harmony Society
philip d. zimmerman
An innovative approach to furniture history through
the collection of Pennsylvania’s Old Economy Village
The Harmonists, an economically successful nineteenth-century utopian
society, created a remarkable material world. Many of their artifacts survive
intact at their third and final community, now known as Old Economy
Village, in western Pennsylvania. The extensive furniture collection, most
of it dating from the years between 1805 and 1835, has long daunted scholars
because the objects are unsigned, unmentioned in the society’s accounts, and
went uninventoried when individual members died. Philip D. Zimmerman
overcomes these obstacles by using object-based analysis to identify core
features that distinguish Harmonist-made furniture from that made by
craftsmen elsewhere in the region and the nation. He combines this with
information from surviving written records and provenances, most from
the twentieth century. His strategic approach yields a compelling story of
the built environment and the wide range of artifacts made by ordinary
woodworkers who were members of the society.
This interdisciplinary study will appeal to students and specialists in
the fields of furniture history, material culture, American studies, western
Pennsylvania history, utopian societies, and museum studies. In addition,
it will be a valuable resource for museum curators, collectors of nineteenthcentury
furniture and other goods, and tool historians.
philip d. zimmerman, a nationally known authority on American furniture,
earned his M.A. in the Winterthur Program in Early American Culture at
the University of Delaware and his Ph.D. at Boston University.
also of interest
Samuel McIntire
Carving an American Style
dean t. Lahikainen
Cloth, $85.00 s
978-0-87577-209-7
Philip D. Zimmerman
Friends of the
Old Economy Village
June
256 pp., 250 color illus., 9 x 12"
Cloth, $65.00
978-0-9843097-0-2
Harmony in Wood
Furniture of the Harmony Society
antiques & collectibles /
american furniture / history
At Home With
Gustav Stickley
Arts & Crafts from the
Stephen Gray Collection
edited by eLizabeth
Mankin kornhauser
and Linda h. roth
Cloth, $50.00 s
978-0-918333-24-7
The Arts www.upne.com · 800.421.1561 23