Edward S. Cooke, Jr.
Edward S. Cooke, Jr., the Charles F. Montgomery Professor of American Decorative Arts in the Department of the History of Art at Yale University, has published extensively on both historical and contemporary furniture. Among his books are Making Furniture in Pre-industrial America: The Social Economy of Newtown and Woodbury, Connecticut; New American Furniture: Second Generation Studio Furnituremakers; Furniture by Wendell Castle; and Upholstery in America and Europe from the 17th Century to World War I. His scholarly articles include: "Making Furniture in the Salisbury Iron Region: The Case of Bates How," in The Yale Journal of Criticism; "Talking or Working: The Conundrum of Moral Aesthetics in Boston's Arts and Crafts Movement" and "The Aesthetics of Craftsmanship & the Prestige of the Past: Boston Furniture-making and Wood- carving," in Inspiring Reform: Boston's Arts and Crafts Movement; "Turning Wood in America: New Perspectives on the Lathe" in Expressions in Wood: Masterworks from the Wornick Collection; "The Social Economy of the Preindustrial Joiner in Western Connecticut, 1750-1800," in American Furniture 1995; "Scandinavian Modern Furniture in the Arts and Crafts Period: The Collaboration of the Greenes and the Halls," in American Furniture 1993; "Beyond Aesthetics: Wood Choice in Historical Furniture," in Conservation by Design; "Wood in the 1980s: Expansion or Commodification?" in Contemporary Crafts and the Saxe Collection; "Arts and Crafts Furniture: Process or Product?" in The Ideal Home, 1900-1920; and "The Study of American Furniture from the Perspective of the Maker," in Perspectives on the Study of American Furniture.

At Yale, Cooke teaches lecture courses on American decorative arts and domestic architecture from the seventeenth century to the present and offers seminars on a variety of topics including material culture theory, American furniture, American silver, craft and design in post-World War II America, and the Arts and Crafts Movement. He has served as Director of the Yale Center for the Study of American Art and Material Culture since 1992 and was appointed the Chair of the department in summer of 2000. He holds a B.A from Yale College, a M.A. in Early American Culture from the Winterthur Program of the University of Delaware, and a PhD in American Studies from Boston University. He was formerly the Associate Curator of American Decorative Arts and Sculpture at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Email: edward.cooke@yale.edu