Americana Insights presents the latest research and discoveries on traditional American folk art and material culture. It is a nonprofit publication dedicated to the study of Americana and American folk art. It was founded in 2021 by Jane Katcher with David A. Schorsch, her longtime friend and mentor in the field, founding editor Robert Shaw, and a distinguished advisory board of museum professionals and scholars. In 2023, curator and scholar Lisa Minardi was appointed editor.Americana Insights produces groundbreaking essays by leading scholars that provide a wealth of new insights on a wide array of artistic traditions. Covering a broad geographic area—including New England, the mid-Atlantic, South, and mid-West—and spanning the colonial era to early twentieth century, these essays enhance our understanding of the diverse American experience. This is the only interdisciplinary publication devoted exclusively to traditional Americana and folk art.
Americana Insights, 2023, covers a range of topics including portraiture, furniture, jewelry, textiles, and works on paper. In the first volume, authors share groundbreaking research on the use of hooked rugs in the colonial revival era; revisit the work of a famed Connecticut portrait painter known as the Beardsley Limner and his namesake sitters; Rufus Porter’s work as an artist and entrepreneur; a distinctive group of paint-decorated dressing tables from New Hampshire; delicate cutworks made by an incarcerated inmate in Philadelphia’s Eastern State Penitentiary; painted tavern signs; jewelry in folk portraiture; New Jersey schoolmaster and calligrapher Thomas Earl; and signature quilts from the nineteenth century.
Contributors: Deborah M. Child, Pamela and Brian Ehrlich, Cynthia Fowler, Emelie Gevalt, Mark D. Mitchell, Eileen M. Smiles, Laura Fecych Sprague.
Hardcover, 288 pages, 8.5 x 11 inches, 250 color illustrations
ISBN: 9798988533108
Published: October 2023
Distributor: University of Pennsylvania Press
$64.95
In this second volume, Americana Insights, 2024, the authors explore the varied makers and materials of early Americana and folk art. They delve into the history and craft of Cherokee rivercane basket weaving traditions and the life and work of understudied folk artists such as the New England portraitist Sturtevant J. Hamblin and the German immigrant Charles C. Hofmann. Venturing out to sea, another essay examines displays of early Americana on mid-twentieth-century ocean liners, which became floating museums of American history. Other essays examine a French American sampler, Pennsylvania German fraktur, carousel carvings, quilts, and gameboards. Each essay offers a fresh perspective on American creativity and ingenuity, taking readers on a journey through the art and artifacts of early America.
Contributors: Trevor Brandt, Paul S. D’Ambrosio, Tobin Fraley, Emelie Gevalt, Christopher Malone, Richard Miller, Matthew E. Monk, Amelia Peck, Christian Roden, Cynthia V. A. Schaffner, Eileen M. Smiles, Jennifer M. Swope.
Hardcover, 284 pages, 8.5 x 11 inches, 253 color illustrations
ISBN: 979-8-9885331-1-5
Published: October 2024
Distributor: University of Pennsylvania Press
$64.95