The McAdams Family of Cabinetmakers and the Cultural Palette of East Tennessee’s Rope and Tassel School of Furniture
Amber M. Clawson, PhD
The rope and tassel inlay found on early-nineteenth-century furniture made in East Tennessee’s Nolichucky River Valley reflects the region’s ever-evolving cultural identity. Patriotism, religion, ethnic diversity, migration, and the physical environment all played a role in the changing discourse of material life in the first decades of Tennessee statehood. The cabinetmakers of the rope and tassel school created furniture that spoke to the social and material aspirations of Nolichucky River Valley residents as expressed through Republican and agrarian symbolism. As an example of the imaginative entrepreneurship that formed the material landscape of the early American Backcountry, the rope and tassel tradition reflects a particular time and place. This article provides such context by introducing readers to East Tennessee’s rope and tassel tradition and the shop of Hugh McAdams, the first cabinetmaker who made examples of rope and tassel furniture. The intent is to employ that context and attribution … Continued