Furniture-Making in Manchester: A Surprising Story

Before Manchester-by-the-Sea, there was mill-town Manchester. Brock Jobe, Professor Emeritus of the Winterthur Museum in Delaware, dives into Manchester's history as a furniture-making center. During the early-to-mid nineteenth century, cabinetmaking was the town's chief industry, and its business leaders facilitated a lucrative trade with the American South. Similar to the products of other Massachusetts furniture-making communities, Manchester-made pieces have had a wide-ranging impact.

In 2000 Brock Jobe was appointed professor of American decorative arts in the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture after a 28-year career as a museum curator and administrator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Colonial Williamsburg, the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (now Historic New England), and Winterthur. He has authored or edited seven books, written dozens of articles, and given hundreds of lectures. Brock retired from his professorship in June 2015 but retains an office at Winterthur and continues to study…