Mahogany: The Costs of Luxury in Early America

by Jennifer L. Anderson

In the mid-eighteenth century, colonial Americans became enamored with the rich colors and silky surface of mahogany. This exotic wood, imported from the West Indies and Central America, quickly displaced local furniture woods as the height of fashion. Over the next century, consumer demand for mahogany set in motion elaborate schemes to secure the trees and transform their rough-hewn logs into exquisite objects. But beneath the polished gleam of this furniture lies a darker, hidden story of human and environmental exploitation."Mahogany" traces the path of this wood through many hands, from source to sale: from the enslaved African woodcutters, including skilled "huntsmen" who located the elusive trees amidst dense rainforest, to the ship captains, merchants, and timber dealers who scrambled after the best logs, to the skilled cabinetmakers who crafted the wood, and with it the tastes and aspirations of their diverse clientele. As the trees became scarce, however, the search for new sources led to expanded slave labor, vicious competition, and intense international conflicts over this diminishing natural resource. When nineteenth-century American furniture makers turned to other materials, surviving mahogany objects were revalued as antiques evocative of the nation's past.

Jennifer Anderson offers a dynamic portrait of the many players, locales, and motivations that drove the voracious quest for mahogany to adorn American parlors and dining rooms. This complex story reveals the cultural, economic, and environmental costs of America's growing self-confidence and prosperity, and how desire shaped not just people's lives but the natural world.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Grad School, Material Culture, Economics

420 pages, Hardcover

First published September 17, 2012

Reviews

[Tuck]

Oh my god, I didn’t realize we have practically wiped out mahogany on the earth or how much there was at one time on Jamaica, cuba, hispanola, central amer, south amer, and Africa. We have pretty much extirpated it over the last 500 years, but mostly from 1700-1890, the great time of killing, veneering, resource raping, furniture making (masterpieces many of them) , and bio-region destroying. This Harvard u press, professor written book is VERY academic style, pretty dry really, but all you’ll ever need to know about mahogany (topic only about in western hemisphere, very very little about Africa) . has fairly inadequate maps, great and varied illustrations, comprehensive endnotes, and no bibliography! (wtf?)
ultimately, a terribly sad story, poor poor trees, when humans set their sites on trees, they are doomed and cannot run away, i guess much like syrian women.

[Charles Heath]

Straight up one of the best books I have ever read. NO HYPERBOLE

The cultural history of a Caribbean American hardwood, in the hands of an artisan like Anderson, is subtly made manifest, polished across five centuries, until it reflects the once-hidden stories of man and environment.

Like all commodities, this hardwood (the tree itself a central, noble character in the work) is, as Marx said, "a very queer thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties," that in fact mask the environmental and social costs of bringing it to market. From the jungles of Jamaica and Hispaniola, to the Bay of Honduras; to the workshops and dining rooms of Philadelphia and Newport; from the advent of steam; and to the prose of Dickens, Austen, and Melville, Anderson painstakingly presents the prized wood's cultural significance throughout history.

Anderson is an excellent writer. I wish I could write like this. Her voice, grammar, and style so informed and accessible. This is not one of those "big history" books (not that there is anything wrong with that for undergrads) but one of thoughtful analysis and empathy.

[Angelina Jao]

Absolutely fascinating, mind-boggling exposition of British et al degradation of massive scale, causing systemic ecosystem collapse and extinction of species.

A must-read for anyone interested in:
fashion & design
global trade
woodworking
history of capitalism
luxury products/conspicuous consumption
ecosystems
horticulture
ethics
British/European history
legacy of slavery/human trafficking
class & race

[Sophie Gale]

Meticulously researched and well-written. If you are interested in the Age of Sail, the colonization of the New World, the development of slavery in the colonies, and the terrible environmental consequences of extracting natural resources like there's no tomorrow...or if you are just interested in the making of mahogany furniture, this book is a keeper.

[Abere Ullrich]

Great academic book on mahogany and how the same issues of exploiting the natural world are a problem today. It is a little dry, but I find most economic history to be that way. The only thing I wished had been covered more was faux painting (not just of furniture but how it was used in house construction, presumably as supply ran out).

[A. H. Reaume]

This book was so well researched and written. I read it as research for a project and it gave me a lot to sit with.

[Andrew Fischer]

Wood

[Suzanne]

Walt's book - he liked the story of this unique and special wood and how it influenced history.

[Mike Emett]

Required reading for the "Atlantic World" graduate seminar.