The Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts: an introduction

The articles included in this issue of The Magazine ANTIQUES present the collections of the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA) in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, from a variety of perspectives. Some look at cultural influences, some at the chronological evolution of artistic expression. They all share their authors' commitment to the mission set forth by the museum's founders: identifying the regional characteristics found in the products of artisans working in the early American. South and disseminating this information through the museum's exhibitions, publications, and programs.

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MESDA is the realization of a vision shared by two extraordinary individuals: Frank L. Horton and his mother Theodosia "Theo" L. Taliaferro, who were pioneering antiques dealers and collectors who dedicated most of their lives to raising awareness of and appreciation for domestic objects made in the South (Fig. 2). (1) MESDA is the fruition of their aspirations--a museum solely dedicated to the preservation, scholarship, and connoisseurship of southern decorative arts and material culture.

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During the first half of the twentieth century, southern antiques were mostly dismissed by scholars and ignored by collectors. Misinformation and preconception reinforced stereotypes and assumptions. Scholars who pioneered the field of American decorative arts focused primarily on treasures made in colonial Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. The southern exception, Baltimore, was viewed as the last stand of civilization before entering a vast wasteland of utilitarian domestic products stashed among a bounty of imported goods purchased by antebellum southern planters. (2) A movement to challenge the existing attitudes--cultivated by a handful of influential southern collectors, dealers, and museum professionals--began in 1949 with the first Williamsburg Antiques Forum at Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia, which included a seminal session that called attention to the lack of information about southern craftsmanship. The intense study of specifically southern antiques began with the 1952 Williamsburg Antiques Forum, which coincided with the first definitive exhibition of southern furniture, Furniture of the Old South, 1640-1820, held at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, and culminated with the opening of MESDA in 1965. Frank Horton did not attend the 1949 forum, but he was an essential contributor to the subsequent events. (3)

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So, what is MESDA? Its period rooms--many acquired by Horton and his mother while assembling their antiques collections--provide a context for the objects in time and place similar to Henry Francis du Pont's Winterthur and other museums with period-room installations (see Figs. 1, 6, and 7). (4) A significant difference, however, is that MESDA's period rooms and galleries do not stand alone. MESDA is a cohesive part of Old Salem Museums and Gardens, which was chartered in 1950 to preserve and interpret the historic Moravian congregation town of Salem, North Carolina, and is one of the most authentic living history museums in the United States (see Fig. 5). (5) Horton served as the first director of restoration, a position he held for more than twenty years. The relationship between Old Salem's Historic Town of Salem and MESDA provides for a thought-provoking synergy: MESDA's interpretation of the decorative arts made throughout the early South establishes a context for Salem's distinctive material culture. The skilled tradesmen working in the restored shops of Old Salem allow visitors to observe firsthand the tools, materials, and techniques utilized by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century artisans to create furniture, pottery, silver, guns, and other products. (6) With this dynamic tableau, MESDA and Old Salem together create a unique museum experience.

Before MESDA opened to the public on January 5, 1965, several matters of business had to be resolved. In 1960 a generous donation allowed for the purchase and restoration of a former Kroger supermarket on the south end of Salem's historic district in which to house the museums holdings. (7) Also in 1960, Horton and his mother officially offered to loan their collections to the new museum, (8) and in 1964 they established an endowment to fund MESDA. (9) Finally, the parameters of MESDA's mission had to be delineated. This last issue had been percolating in Horton's mind for a number of years. (10)

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Defining the American South has been a source for heated debate for many years. To Horton, and for MESDA, the early South includes Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and Kentucky. (11) Moreover, it can be divided into three culturally distinct regions: Chesapeake, the low country, and the backcountry (Fig. 3). And what exactly does "early" mean? Since MESDA's fundamental interests lie in cultural styles exhibited in southern decorative arts, objects made through the technologies of the industrial revolution are excluded from study. Thus, while the museum has backed away from a firm cutoff date, MESDA's time period of interest ends softly in the nineteenth century when regional characteristics give way to more homogeneous, nationally based designs that resulted from advances in manufacturing, transportation, commerce, and communication. (12)