Abstract
In the 1780s, when Daniel and Catherine Van Voorhis had their silver and jewelry store on Hanover Square and lived there as well, their shop was located on the first floor at the front of the building, and their workroom was behind it. The couple and their younger children probably slept on the second floor above the store, the older children, apprentices, journeymen, and help sleeping on the third floor or in the attic. The women in the household prepared meals in the kitchen that was in the building’s back basement, and household members ate them in the combined dining-and-sitting room in the front basement. They started their day with breakfast and had their main meal—dinner—at midday. After evening supper, they often had their friends in for tea.1
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Notes
These descriptions of the use of space in the Van Voorhis, Bowne, and Robson homes are reconstructed from contemporary accounts and modern interpretations. The reconstruction of the use of space in the Van Voorhis home and workplace is further enhanced by Laidlaw’s interpretation (1986:18–19; 1988:32) of the inventory for the shop and dwelling of Garret Schanck, the silversmith who was Van Voorhis’s third cousin, who was, at different times, his apprentice and partner, and who died intestate in New York in 1795. This reconstruction of the use of space in the Van Voorhis shop and dwelling is derived from her interpretation of the inventory in combination with that of Wright (1981:34–36) and Blackmar (1989:47–48).
Reconstructed from Blackmar (1989:47–48), Wright (1981:34–36), and Gill (1972:67).
Reconstructed from Blackmar (1989:48), Hamilton (1834:100), Trollope (1984:299), and Wright (1981:34–36).
See also Strasser (1982:296) and S. Williams (1985:52) on the importance of family meals.
Barbara Carson (1990) uses written sources similar to the ones used in this chapter in her rich examination of social life in Washington, D.C., during the same period. Her research on meals, conducted completely independently, generally confirms the interpretations made here. The approach for the next chapter is adapted from Douglas and Isherwood (1979:74, 76) and Hodder (1982:10).
Hall (in Pope-Hennessy, 1931:19) noted that the dishes were uncovered; Beiden (1983:5, 41) and S. Williams (1985:152) both noted that the amount of food was a measure of a meal’s importance. Diagrams of the table are included in Beiden (1983:20), Carter (1796:256–260), Pope-Hennessy (1931:66), and Rundell (1823: facing p. 8); the service is described in Beiden (1983:21, 35) and by Hall in Pope-Hennessy (1931:21).
Hall remarked on the problems of French service and servants in America (quoted in Pope-Hennessy, 1931:188); see also Watson (1856:87).
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© 1994 Springer Science+Business Media New York
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Wall, D.d. (1994). The Ritualization of Family Meals I. In: The Archaeology of Gender. Interdisciplinary Contributions to Archaeology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-1210-7_6
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