Undertaking Research in Western Furniture History

Searching for Primary Texts or Sources

You are to undertake research in the field of furniture history. This means you are to undertake a search for a primary text on the broad subject of western furniture history. As explained by the library at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. primary texts or sources “are immediate, first-hand accounts of a topic, from people who had a direct connection with it. Primary sources can include texts of laws and other original documents, newspaper reports, by reporters who witnessed an event or who quote people who did, speeches, diaries, letters and interviews - what the people involved said or wrote, original research, datasets, survey data, such as census or economic statistics, photographs, video, or audio that capture an event”.  Some examples of primary sources are John Stalker’s and George Parker’s A Treatise on Japanning and Varnishing published in London in 1688, Thomas Sheraton’s furniture catalogue, of 1803 and also published in London or one of the many advertisements for the Dunbar Furniture Company found in the mass publication such as House and Gardens in the 1950s and 1960s, and undertake a close reading of the text and write an essay that considers the purpose of the document, the circumstances of its publication and its significance to the study of furniture as cultural and social expression. The task here is to find a text and assess its meanings, historical and critical. You may not write on the texts listed above as examples. You are required to provide a digitally accessible, printed or image copy of the text.