ABSTRACT
The main characteristic of a refined house was a parlour that represented the ‘front space’ of a family’s lives. The parlour was furnished and decorated in a manner that appeared to deny the world of business or production. The parlour was originally a smaller room set apart from the medieval great hall, designated as a space for private conversation and display of property. Its particular reinvention for most levels of society in the nineteenth century was crucial to the culture of domesticity. The cold, hard, unfeeling white marble mantelpiece, surmounted by the inevitable mirror, the fireplace a marvellous exhibition of the power of iron and blacklead to give discomfort to the eye. An example of an American respectable working-class home describes both the attempt at parlour-making and the necessity of convertible furniture.
