Essays in Early American Architectural History: A View from the Chesapeake
Lounsbury has assembled a very original and significant contribution to the field of architectural studies in general and vernacular architecture in particular. This collection of essays is among the first to provide a clear and detailed picture of the architectural history of early America from the perspective of the commonplace and everyday and to make explicit the methodological approach that has overturned the traditional histories.(Donald Linebaugh, University of Marylandauthor ofThe Springfield Gas Machine: Illuminating Industry and Leisure, 1860s-1920s)Talk about Johnny-on-the-spot. If there was ever a scholar who reliably turns up in the right places at the right time, it has to be architectural historian Carl Lounsbury. This attractive volume of his collected essays finds him Present at the Creation when the "new architectural history" moved south from New England to Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, present at the archaeological rediscovery of Jamestown, present to record the battered remains of historic Charleston in the aftermath of Hurricane Hugo, and, most of all, present for the latest round of research and restoration at Colonial Williamsburg. Reading these pages is to ride in the vanguard of early American architectural scholarship for the past forty years.(Cary Carson, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation)