Tag: Museum of the American Revolution

J. Alfred Prufrock, the title character in T.S. Eliot’s poem about the existential doldrums of a life lived under crushing routine, moans that he has “known the evenings, mornings, afternoons / I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.” Consider, perhaps, the possibility of revolution contained in that coffee spoon. The multi-tier ceramic tower had small platforms, usually in the shape of seashells. In the 18th century, porcelain was still largely an exotic, Asian material relatively new to the Western world. Difficult to manufacture on a large scale, colonists who wanted it in their homes had to have it imported. “It’s a mark of independence,” said Erickson. “To own it was showing your empathy for independence and for American being its own free state.” An original Bonnin and Morris pickle stand is in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Around the turn of the 19th century, there was a lively social campaign, begun in England, to urge Abolitionists to match their money with their ideals. Similar to modern campaigns to buy free trade coffee, the sugar bowl urged the woman of the house to spend more money on sugar produced in a more humane way. “These things were communicated on the objects,” said Erickson.