All About Beautiful Bookcases

 Once people became educated enough and affluent enough to acquire sufficient numbers of books, a place to keep them all literally came out of the closet.

 Historians note that at first the few people who could afford bound books used small, shelved closets for storing them. Eventually shelves were placed on outside walls for further storage in the more wealthy homes.

 It wasn’t until well into the close of the 17th century that any sort of detached or free-standing type of bookcase came into even limited use.

 In Williamsburg, the seat of government for the American Colonies, the inventory of an estate in 1690 made reference to a “Studdy” which did contain some books.  However the contents of that same room also included bottles, tools, candles and fabric, indicating it was an area for simple storage rather than extensive reading.

 As early as 1733 cabinet makers in Charleston, S.C., were using newspapers to advertise, “Desks, and Bookcases, Chests of Drawers, Clock-cases, Tables of all sorts, Peer- Glass Frames, Swining Frames, and all other Sorts of Cabinet Ware, made as neat as ever.”

 Gradually as the numbers of the “educated” class grew and book production became more extensive and less expensive, the idea of a modest library right in the home took form.

 By the 1750s a small library or study become a part of the design of fashionable homes in places like Virginia’s Williamsburg, which had an exceptional percentage of lawyers, public officials and educators within the population. In 1775, “A Dictionary of the English Language” by Samuel Johnson defined such an area in the home as an “apartment set off for literary employment.”

 Elaborate bookcases, often made of rosewood or mahogany, were seen more frequently in finer homes by the 1760s. Many of them had been crafted in England and stood well over six feet tall. At the same time however many other bookshelves remained built into the walls of the houses with fabric curtains used to protect the books from light and dust.

 Back in England, Thomas Chippendale himself favored the use of highly decorated bookcases during that same decade with classical motifs and elaborate designs. In an invoice of the late 1760s Chippendale described an especially elaborate rosewood bookcase as “richly carved with gilt ornaments on the top and doors, a writing drawer in the under part, and a clothespress and drawers at each end.” This particular bookcase, provided for the Earl of Dumfrieds, was said to have been the most expensive single piece of furniture produced by Chippendale during that decade.

 One of the most fabled bookcases in America was a Chippendale-style bookcase crafted during the early 1770s for naval commissioner John Edwards, who was also a prosperous merchant in Charleston, S.C. The bookcase, itself now a part of the Heyward-Washington House museum, was said to be very highly representative of early cabinet making in that region of the country.

 The large mahogany bookcase was cited in the distinguished book “Furniture of Our Forefathers” by Esther Singleton. The author observed that three drawers of the elegant bookcase were used as horse-feeding troughs by the rampaging British army during the American Revolutionary War. After the war the drawers were said to have been replaced by a local carpenter.

 To Americans who could afford quality bookcases in the years following the Revolutionary War, the trend was toward large and larger. Often the large bookcases were found not just in the library or study, but in the dining room of fine homes. When residents and guests were not dining the overall room could be used for personal reading or for conducting business.

 Bookcases of the latter 18th century were of such significant size and structure that they were frequently a featured item of household estate auctions. One such advertised auction in South Carolina offered, “a Mahogany Library case with eight Doors, four above and four below, nine Feet two-Inches high, and seven Feet wide, has a scroll Pediment Head with detailed Cornice and Frieze, is in nine Pieces for the convenience of moving, and fixed together with Screws.”

n 1786 an advertisement in the Charleston Morning Post for another public auction in the same area offered, “a very complete bookcase, 8 feet wide and 9 feet high; the upper part in three pieces, kept together by a beautiful cornice (top molding). For taste, elegance and workmanship, this pieced is not exceeded by any in the State.”

 With the 19th century came the appearance of the breakfront or “wing” bookcase. Early in the 1800s the so-called glazed bookcase also rose in popularity. Such models came with upper doors fitted with glass. Usually the doors were further decorated with a lattice pattern of woodwork.

 In 1813 craftsman Chester Sully advertised from Norfolk, Va., his extensive inventory of “side board and tables of every description,” plus “ladies cabinets, sophas, bedsteads, and Library Bookcases.” The majority of bookcases of this period were still monumental in size, often reaching over eight feet in height and nine feet or more in width.

 Despite the size, many were still lavished with decoration including neoclassical carving and detailed inlay. Many were further embellished with stenciling and pleated silk curtains.

 Glazed or glass doors on bookcases remained in public favor during the first quarter of the 19th century. Most were fashioned out of mahogany wood, but an exotic assortment of other finishes such as kingwood, tulipwood and satinwood were also sometimes incorporated.

 More and more bookcases were being custom-made for specific locations in elaborate homes by the 1850 and 1860s. In terms of bookcases the Victorian era was a wonderful time.

 “Almost from the start of the Victorian Period, there were few homes without a bookcase of some sort” notes Thomas Ormsbee, author of “The Field Guide to American Victorian Furniture.” “From a simple arrangement of open shelves, bookcase design rapidly shifted to more elaborate ones with large glazed doors, made in Gothic, Louis XV, Renaissance and Eastlake sub-styles.

 “Produced in increasing numbers throughout this period,” the author adds, “they were in direct ratio to the growing number of books published in the United States.”

 The breakfront bookcase remained the choice of Victorians who had homes large enough to accommodate them. Their size, stretching over tiers of drawers or cabinet doors, was inspiring. At the same time small bookcases were also finding their way into American homes. Although most were factory-made, they remained distinctive pieces of household furniture.

 The early 20th century was witness to what could arguably be called the finest line of bookcases ever made.

 Gustav Stickley began building bookcases and other furniture at his United Crafts Workshops in 1902. Over the next half dozen years Stickley and his brothers produced some of the finest examples of American Arts and Crafts style bookcases ever known.

 Typically their twin-door bookcases were crafted of quartered oak or mahogany wood. Most were less than five feet tall and little more than three feet wide. Of course, there were many other bookcases created in the Arts and Crafts style by a wide variety of makers.

 An example of the mass-produced bookcases of this period were those made by Come-Packt Furniture. In 1912 their Mission Furniture Catalog featured eight different quarter oak bookcases, all with glass doors.

 “For the Bungalow home or in a small Mission living room, it would be difficult to choose a more attractive piece than this handsome little case in solid quartered oak,” it said of one model.

 “The simple elegance of these bookcases is strictly in keeping with the canons of good taste,” concluded the catalog. “House your literary treasures in bookcases that, in every outline, suggest culture and refinement.”