New Blog of Interest

Walter Ritchie has created a new blog entitled A Documentary History of Nineteenth-Century Interiors in Upstate New York, 1830-1914. The blog is unique in that it will examine residential interiors that have been documented in period paintings, prints, drawings, and photographs. Ritchie explains: "I have found at the Columbia County Historical Society a cache of c. 1890 photographic views of interiors from the McKinstry house as well as a late nineteenth-century photograph of a room in one of Elihu Gifford's houses. I also stumbled upon a c. 1890-1900 photograph of a sequence of three rooms in the Sanford Gifford house. While exploring the Rowles collection I noticed approximately four or five turn-of-the twentieth-century photographs of Hudson domestic interiors. These and other interior views will be discussed and illustrated on my blog."

A Hudson interior from Historic Hudson's Rowles Studio Collection

The post now on the blog provides a history of American Victorian furniture and decorative arts to introduce readers to the styles and types of domestic furnishings that will be discussed in Ritchie's examination of period interiors.