Resources
Associations | Dictionaries,
Directories and Guides | Libraries
and Archives | Museums
Museums
American Textile History Museum
Bata Shoe Museum includes images from the collection
Bayou Bend Collection contains gallery rooms and images from the Museum's extensive collection of American decorative arts.
Chicago Historical Society Decorative Arts Collection
Colonial Williamsburg, via the "Explore & Learn" portion of its site, provides links for Clothing, Museums, Archaeology, Gardens and more. Especially useful are the links to the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library catalog, the historical glossary linked from "Teacher Resources," and bibliographies scattered throughout the pages.
Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution
The Gardiner Museum in Toronto is entirely devoted to ceramics. Their collections database is searchable online and provides images and detailed descriptions of the objects.
The Gibbes Museum of Art, a collection of South Carolina art.
Gomez Mill House, the oldest surviving Jewish Homestead in North America
Hampton National Historic Site preserves a Maryland estate dating from the 1700's. Choose the IN DEPTH bar for information and to "Take a Tour" of images of the late-Georgian mansion.
Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection from the School of Human Ecology at the UW-Madison.
Historic Kenmore & George Washington's Ferry Farm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, American Decorative Arts Collection
Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Decorative Arts Collection
Mint Museum leads to the pages for both the Mint Museum of Art and the Mint Museum of Craft & Design. The Collection focuses on the Americas, with a large ceramics and decorative arts collection.
Monticello presents information on Thomas Jefferson and his home. "The House" section includes floorplans and information on the architecture and decoration. "The Gardens and Grounds" section provides information on the landscape architecture and historic plants. "The Plantation" section has biographies of people who lived and worked at Monticello. "Research and Collections" includes a link to the online searchable catalog of the Jefferson Library. (Note that the library of books belonging to Thomas Jefferson was sold to the Library of Congress. An inventory of Jefferson's collection is available online.)
Mount Vernon Estate and Gardens, George Washington's Virginia home, provides virtual tours of the mansion and grounds, as well as an online exhibit of objects from "Library and Curatorial Collections."
Museum of Early Trades & Crafts is dedicated to the history of pre-industrial New Jersey.
National Gallery of Art, Index of American Design includes a collection of over 18,000 watercolor renderings of American Decorative Arts from Colonial times through the 19th century. Some images are available online as a virtual exhibit.
New York Historical Society has collections of furniture and decorative objects, including the Henry Luce III Center for the Study of American Culture. Some images are available.
Old Salem Online is the official website for Old Salem and the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts. The MESDA link includes information on MESDA's Summer Institute on Southern History and Southern Material Culture.
Pilgrim Society's Pilgrim Hall Museum: America's Museum of Pilgrim Possessions. "The Pilgrim Story" links to an account of the colonizing, and "Beyond the Pilgrim Story" includes electronic documents from the library collection. The "Collections" section includes images.
Rhode Island School of Design: Museum
Renwick Gallery is a part of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The gallery collects American crafts and decorative arts from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries. Search or browse the collection of 14,000 digitized images from the Smithsonian American Art Museum (not all decorative arts).
Stratford Hall Plantation, the ancestral home of Robert E. Lee in Virginia, dates to the 1730s. The "Preservation" section includes virtual tours of the Great House, other buildings and the gardens. A wealth of additional historical information is provided, including a collection of online historical documents under the "Education" section.
Virginia Historical Society includes online exhibitions and the ability to search both the library and the collections.
Wadsworth Atheneum. Choose "Collections & Highlights," then "American Decorative Arts," for information on their collection.
Winterthur, an American Country Estate, holds a collection of 85,000 objects made or used in America between 1640 and 1860. The site includes highlights of the collection and their ten period rooms. The Library Resources page provides links to Wintercat, the online catalog, and iSeeDAPC, a browsable database of objects including some study images. Fellowship and publications information is available online as well.
Wisconsin Historical Society includes links to the library and archives, as well as links for Wisconsin historic places and sites.
Worcester Art Museum, Early American Painting Collection includes a timeline and bibliography.
Copyright 2001, Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System, Memorial Library, University of Wisconsin Madison Last Updated: 1 December 2006