Material Culture Moment: The Jelly-Jar Bookshelf

Once upon a time, my grandmother kept a wooden bookshelf in her basement upon which she stored jars of jellies and preserves. Prior to taking up residence in her basement, the bookshelf lived on the porch of her childhood home. I discovered it in the storage unit my family kept following my grandmother’s death and the emptying out of her house – and I promptly fell in love. My love affair was immediately subjected to much ridicule from my sisters and my mother, who decried my find as ugly, dark, and hideous. Love knows no boundaries, so I ignored them and whispered sweet nothings to my new bookshelf while I cleaned years of grime from its every surface.

The cleaning did not noticeably change (improve?) the appearance of the four-shelf bookshelf. But I have carted it around with me for many years (three different houses) until it is back in the same neck of the woods from which it started.

Since it is January, and the cold temperatures enable the stubborn snow to stay on the ground, there’s not much I can do outside at the moment. So yesterday I decided to rearrange furniture, and the jelly-jar bookshelf was moved from one wall to another. As I cleaned it, I wondered again about its past.

I am not a furniture expert, though I have definite opinions on what I like and what I do not like. My family’s long history in Kentucky, combined with an unwillingness to spend much money (cheap!) and a dislike of discarding anything meant that everything that surrounded me from childhood (with the exception of mattresses and linens) was an antique. Or just old, depending on your perspective.

My mother’s taste runs to early Kentucky cherry and walnut pieces, which I think is why she and my sisters took an instant dislike to my treasure of a bookshelf. Early Kentucky it is not.

If I were to try and classify my jelly-jar bookshelf (which is hard to do, as it is obviously a unique and rare piece of woodworking art), I would call it Eastlake. This term comes from Charles Eastlake, a British architect who penned the widely popular Hints on Household Taste in Furniture, Upholstery, and Other Details, published in 1868. If Eastlake was alive today, his Instagram following would be HUGE.

Eastlake espoused furniture and interior decoration that was carved, angular, and notched  – lots of brackets, spindles, turned wood, incised geometric ornament – in short, pieces that are very hard to dust and keep clean. But it was a new style, and went perfectly with heavily ornamented Queen Anne style houses in the late 19th century. And it was all machine made, so it was affordable.

In 1872, Eastlake’s book was reprinted in America and went through six editions in 11 years. Apparently this side of the pond loved what Eastlake had to say. Between 1870 and 1890, Eastlake furniture and décor was all  the rage.

My imagination runs rampant – did my great-grandmother or my great-great-grandmother buy this bookshelf? Did a local carpenter make it for them? Was it purchased by one generation only to be consigned to a back porch and then a basement by a later generation as tastes changed?

Also – what sorts of jellies, jams, and preserves lived on my bookshelf?

To my chagrin, I don’t even know what sort of wood my bookshelf is made from – though I imagine it has been varnished to be darker than its natural shade.

Despite knowing very little about my bookshelf other than its time as a jelly jar holder, it is one of my favorite pieces, and is home to a collection of my architecture, history, and garden tomes. It is a bit wobbly, and it is best if it is covered with many books so the dust it attracts is not as visible.

Perhaps an aficionado of late 19th century Eastlake pieces will see this and gravely inform me that my humble bookshelf was manufactured in great quantities in 1896, and is notable only for its ordinariness. If that is the case, I shall retort that no other piece has experienced such a wide range of habitats and occupations, and to me it is priceless.