Culturally Diverse Clothing Storage, Or, A Wardrobe by Any Other Name
In the melting pot that was early America, closet space, at least as we know it, was not common. Thus, a wide variety of furniture forms were available for clothing and linen storage. These forms include the basic blanket chest as well as the chest of drawers. A step up from the chest of drawers was the linen or clothes press, which was essentially a cupboard with sliding trays over a three-, four-, or five-drawer chest. Strictly speaking, however, the linen or clothes press is an English form, the “Cloaths Press” appears in Chippendale’s Director (first edition published in 1754), but by the time George Hepplewhite published The Cabinet-Maker and Upholster’s Guide (first edition published in 1788), the clothespress had become the wardrobe. During the nineteenth century in much of the English-speaking world, the wardrobe evolved into a large, freestanding closet, with large doors, and sometimes retaining a drawer below.
In many parts of the non-English speaking world, and in many areas of early America settled by non-English-speaking immigrants, wardrobes also existed, but went by a variety of names. In the Dutch settlements in New York and New Jersey, cabinetmakers used native gumwood or cherry to make large kasten (singular: kast). “Kas” is popularly used in the marketplace today, however, “kas” is actually a mutation of the Dutch word for “greenhouse”. Typically built with bold cornices and bun feet, kasten were, stylistically, fairly consistent across the Dutch settlements of colonial America.
“Kas” is often used in the marketplace in reference to large clothes cupboards beyond the Hudson River Valley, even those made and used in the Germanic settlements in Pennsylvania, and later, in the Midwest and the Plains, however, “schrank” (plural: schrunken) is the more appropriate term. Schrunken were made in eighteenth-century Pennsylvania in cherry and walnut with bold panels or light wood and sulphur inlay, as well as in vibrantly painted pine and poplar.
In French-speaking areas of North America (Quebec, Louisiana, and some parts of the Midwest), people stored their clothing in armoires (from the Latin “armarium”). Today, however, “armoire” has become a popular term for any large clothes cupboard, even beyond the antiques marketplace (a quick check of Target’s website reveals a wide variety of “armoires” for sale, none of which are remotely French).
While the configuration and decoration may vary, the wardrobe, kast, schrank, and armoire are basically the same furniture form. The key to proper usage of these various terms is to first identify the cultural origins of the clothes cupboard in question. Along with Chippendale and Hepplewhite mentioned above, a number of books might help: American Kasten: The Dutch-style Cupboards of New York and New Jersey, 1650 – 1800; Worldy Goods: The Arts of Early Pennsylvania, 1680-1758; Made in Ohio: Furniture, 1788-1888; Mennonite Furniture: A Migrant Tradition, 1766-1910; The American Craftsman and the European Tradition, 1620-1820; and The Early Furniture of French Canada.
Reference note by p4A.com Editor Andrew Richmond.