The story of the domestic interior and its decoration in the United States is inseparable both from its own architectural development and from the story of English architecture and decoration, from which it was largely derived even long after the American Revolution. Any discussion of United States decorative design, therefore, must refer constantly to the architectural ideas that prompted change on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.
Contrary to popular legend, the log cabin was not the earliest shelter of the first English settlers. The turfed-over dugout hut of mud-chinked saplings, not unlike the Indian wickiup with the addition of a clay-daubed wooden chimney at one end, was probably the first home of the settlers in both Jamestown and Plymouth.
These primitive dwellings were speedily replaced by frame structures, copying the traditional small house of southeast England. At first a single room was flanked by a massive chimney (where brick quickly replaced wood and clay), but a second room was soon added on the opposite side of the chimney. The attic, later expanded into an overhanging second story, was reached by narrow winding stairs between the central entranceway and the chimney stack.
This development in New England is well represented by such vestiges as the Capen House, Topsfield, Massachusetts (1683) or the Old Iron Works (ironmaster’s) House, Saugus, Massachusetts (1636). The interior clearly reflects the structure, with its massive exposed oak corner posts, beams, and joists and its huge open fireplace, which served as the cooking and heating centre of the household. Inside walls were usually of undecorated lath and plaster, covering the studs and their clay or brick filling. Windows were small and originally of casement type, with small leaded panes in a wood frame. Small windows with low ceilings conserved heat in the severe winters. Floors of wide riven boards of pine, smoothed and sanded, replaced the beaten clay of the first shelters.
The furniture, with few exceptions, was simple and sparse. It was decorated with simple carved and turned ornament and touches of earth colours.
By the end of the 17th century, homespun textiles were supplemented by imported woven materials in the houses of the more affluent; these were used for curtains, table covers, bed hangings, and seat pads. Richly coloured damasks and velvets, enhanced by the unpainted wood and plaster surfaces, were found in Puritan New England and, probably to a greater extent, among the less austere New York Dutch and the comparatively wealthy tobacco planters of Virginia.
In houses south of New England, brick and stone tended to replace wood as a building material, though there were many smaller timber structures that have largely disappeared. In the Hudson River region, the traditional cottage of the Flemish and Huguenot settlers, long and low with steep pitched roof and extended eaves, became the typical farmhouse. At the same time, the narrow Dutch town house of brick with its stepped gable ends gave New Amsterdam, even after the English occupation, an appearance completely different from that of the English settlements to the north and south.
In the Dutch houses, windows tended to be larger and ceilings higher. The early fireplace, with its tiled border, surmounted with a deep hood, was flush with the wall instead of deeply recessed. Dutch features such as the horizontally divided door, the monumental cupboard, or kas, the built-in bed, and tiling and dishes of delftware gave the early New York interior an individuality that withstood English influence until well into the following century.
Similar national characteristics must have distinguished the early Swedish settlement on the Delaware, where, later in the century, the log cabin of the pioneer may have first appeared. The Swedish contribution was only temporary, for the settlement was absorbed by both the Dutch and the English. The early settlements of the English in east New Jersey were founded by migrants from New England who at first designed typical central-chimney houses but before the end of the century largely abandoned them for the Flemish type of house in the neighbouring Hudson River region. The first settlers in Pennsylvania, arriving in Philadelphia at the end of the century, built the type of town dwelling devised for the rebuilding of London after the Great Fire of 1666.
In Virginia and the South, scant evidence remains of the early 17th-century house. Bacon’s Castle in Surry County, Virginia, with its projecting two-story porch in front and rear stair tower, built in brick about 1665, is all that remains of a colonial version of the small English Jacobean manor, though there must have been several other examples. From surviving evidence and deduction it is believed that panelled walls, carefully designed beamed ceilings, and ornamental plasterwork in colour were employed in larger Virginia houses. Yet, while the milder climate made loftier ceilings and larger rooms possible, it is unlikely that the ordinary early dwelling differed from its Northern contemporary except in its greater use of brick and in placing chimneys at the ends instead of at the centre of the structure.
Among the wealthy the principal articles of furniture were undoubtedly English imports; the more humble settler probably had to make do with articles of the simplest sort, but since few articles survive from this period, little is known about it. Certainly the scattered or rural character of the Southern settlements and their concentration on tobacco planting failed to encourage the early development of skilled crafts found in villages and towns of the Northern communities. By 1720 the design innovations of Inigo Jones and Sir Christopher Wren, as reflected in the Queen Anne style with its strong mingling of Dutch and Flemish elements, had already crossed the Atlantic. Wren’s influence is increasingly evident in the tendency to employ symmetrical design around an accented central feature and, particularly in the interiors, in the greater insistence on classic arrangement in the positions of openings and of panelling. Panelling, usually of pine in the north, was generally painted. Relatively deep and strong tones—red, blue, green, brown, and yellow—were used either singly or in combination, producing an effective background for the walnut furniture of the period.
Additional colour was introduced by more elaborate use of woven and embroidered textiles, in upholstery as well as draperies. Though woven carpets for floor coverings were rare even at midcentury, frequently their effect was achieved by stretched canvas painted with allover repeat patterns.
Throughout the colonies, furniture became more plentiful and varied. Chairs without arms took the place of stools, the cabriole (curved leg) largely replaced the turned leg, and small drop-leaf tables replaced the fixed-frame type. Bedroom furniture became differentiated with the development of the high chest (highboy) and the dressing table (lowboy), and later the case-top desk or secretary became the principal ornament of the living room. Tall mirrors with crested tops replaced the small, square, Jacobean style looking glasses of the 17th century, and portraits and prints came into more general use, sharing the wall space with bracketed candle holders or sconces. Artificial light still came mainly from small wick and grease lamps, but tallow and wax candles held in sconces, in adjustable metal and wood floor stands, or in candlesticks of brass or pewter (and occasionally in brass chandeliers) were used by the wealthier.
Though domestic comfort was improving, north of Virginia the large formal house or mansion remained a rarity until about 1750. In the South the wealth of the slaveholding planter made it possible for him to copy the early Georgian type of manor house in England. Great houses of two or three stories with side dependencies (outbuildings) became numerous. Stratford in Westmoreland County and Westover in Charles City County, Virginia, built about 1735 by the Lee and Byrd families, are early examples of the type. The elaborately panelled rooms of these mansions were furnished according to the latest London fashion. Probably only later in the century were these English pieces mingled with those from the cabinetmakers of Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. Between 1750 and the Revolution this Georgian phase reached its highest development. Though generally smaller and lacking the forecourt and dependencies of the southern mansion, the larger houses of the north, such as the Wentworth house in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, mark perhaps the most distinctive achievements of colonial design and decoration by their apt translations into wood of brick and stone Georgian forms.