Includes index.

Introduction -- First flowers of the wilderness : mannerist furniture from a northern Essex county, Massachusetts, shop -- When goo cabinetmakers made bad furniture : the career and work of David Evans -- Early New York turned chairs : a stolendraaier's conceit -- The Lisle desk- and- bookcase " a rhode island icon -- A Salem cabinetmakers' pricebook -- Two early Eighteenth- century schranke : rare survivals of the German joiner's art in the Hudson river valley -- The white house : its historic furnishings and first families -- Early American decorative arts, 1620-1860 : a handbook for interpreters -- Rural New England furniture : people, place, and production .