ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that similar concerns occupied the minds of late nineteenth-century Americans, specifically when it came to natural resources, wildlife conservation, species abundance and fisheries management. It considers what an eco-materialist approach to reading the decorative arts might teach about the environmental anxieties of Gilded Age Americans and their relationships to populations of natural species. The elaborate hand-painted 562-piece service captured native North American flora and fauna in dramatic detail across 130 unique designs. Gilded Age diners distanced themselves from the once living animal by engaging in civilized and highly circumscribed dining rituals, which, as Susan Williams explains, “were a constant, visible reassurance of an established and secure social position in a complex and changing world”. While “eco-anxiety” describes the widespread apprehension felt by twenty-first-century citizens, it could just as easily describe the ecological anxieties of the Gilded Age.
