Clifford E. Clark

Henry Ward Beecher: Spokesman for a Middle-Class America

If there was a media preacher of the late nineteenth century in America, it was Henry Ward Beecher. Indeed, the Beechers seemed the Protestant family of the era. Clifford Clark of Carelton College believes that Beecher represents the ideas and values of the rising middle class of urban America. He served as the epitome of Victorian culture in America. From pulpit and lecture halls Beecher brought reassurance that social stability could be maintained.

House Furnishings as Cultural Evidence: The Promise and Peril of Material Culture Studies

IN THE PAST TWO DECADES, SCHOLARS OF AMERICAN MATERIAL CULTURE, a field now generally defined as the study of societys values, ideals, and assumptions through artifacts, have produced an exciting body of innovative writing. I Focusing their attention on physical objects that range from paintings and buildings to home furnishings, clothing, machines, and landscape, they have expanded the knowledge of the built environment and have created new methodologies for the analysis of a wide variety of artifacts. 2 Scholarship in this field has been a collaborative, interdisciplinary effort, drawing upon the expertise of museum curators, social historians, geographers, anthropologists, art historians, American Studies specialists, and others. Although the interdisciplinary nature of material culture studies has produced innovative scholarship, it also has been a source of problems. Specialists who work in one field, social history for example, are sometimes unaware of the most recent writings in other fields, such as art history.