Delaware Antiques Show 2021

Louise Brigham’s Box Furniture: How to Make a Hundred Useful Articles for the Home (1909) is a collection of instructions for making simple, modular furniture from recycled wooden boxes (fig 1.) . In the book, Brigham proposed using the detritus of everyday life to make multipurpose furnishings, thereby engaging with the history of “making do” that has long been crucial to the identity of the American household. While Box Furniture is an instructional manual and advice book on thrift, home decoration, and design, the impact of this text extended beyond its covers. Brigham led carpentry workshops for immigrants and working-class people in New York City through an organization called the Home Thrift Association, with classes held in the Gracie Mansion (formally, the Archibald Gracie Mansion and currently the official residence of the Mayor of New York City). Brigham participated in the settlement house movement and dedicated her time to social work, advocacy, and the arts. She brought these pursuits together in Box Furniture . Through making box furniture and teaching, Brigham combined thrift, handicraft, recycling, a modernist aesthetic, and a do-it-yourself mentality with her commitment to social engagement. The scope of Box Furniture and the project that surrounded it was decades ahead of its time and difficult to put into a box. Winterthur Library holds two copies of Box Furniture: a 1910 edition and a 1919 edition, which was Brigham’s personal copy containing annotations, edits, and a pamphlet of her illustrated lectures. While examples of box furnishings have not survived today, the book itself—as a text and surrogate for box furniture itself—can reveal much about what Brigham was trying to achieve, aesthetically and socially. “The Possibilities of a Box”: Louise Brigham’s Box Furniture By Jena R. Gilbert-Merrill Fig. 1. Cover of Box Furniture . New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1910. Winterthur Library NK2408 B85 1910. — 13 —