Residential furnishings of deceased Greene County, Alabama slave owners : 1845-1860

An understanding of the interior furnishings of mid-19th century residences in the American South requires reliable information on the utilitarian function, quantity, physical characteristics, and social associations of furnishings used at the time. These aspects of interior furnishing were investigated through the analysis of the inventories of the property of deceased slave owners in the probate court records of antebellum Greene County, Alabama dating from 1845 to 1860. The data on the furnishings belonging to 322 decedents were analyzed through the use of Statistical Analysis Systems (SAS) to produce descriptive statistics on furniture, non-furniture furnishings, and constellations of furnishings in interior spaces. The statistical findings were correlated with selected economic characteristics of the decedents in the attempt to identify societal associations for furnishings. Other historical documents provided supplementary information on the sources and physical settings for Greene County furnishings. The furnishing data from the inventories were also compared to 19th century writings on residential furnishing in order to investigate the relationship of Greene County furnishing practices to those identified for American early Victorians.

Because the slave-owning decedents were found to represent a significant portion of the Greene County population, it was concluded that the furnishing forms and constellations of forms in interiors were representative of Greene County practices. Although the decedents were wealthy, the furnishing of their homes was apparently conservative in furnishing forms and materials. Some utilitarian furnishing forms could be correlated with economic class, but most could not. However the physical characteristics of furnishings and the occurrence of discrete function interior spaces were more closely identifiable with economic class. A few furniture forms could be identified as distinctively southern, but Greene County furnishing practices appear to have been consistent with those identified in mid-19th century American publications. Examination of the data on furnishings revealed provision for social intercourse; the role of women in the furnishing of residences; the display of wealth through the ownership of certain furnishing forms and the allocation of interior spaces; personal and social values of the decedents; limited aesthetic and literary culture.