The American social historian and antiquarian Alice Morse Earle (1851 1911) published this lavishly illustrated book, among the last of her works, in 1902. By this time she had developed a distinctive style of historical writing which made innovative use of material evidence in its focus on the details of everyday life. She was particularly interested in family and society in colonial America, and her views about the importance of ancestry were reflected in her membership of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Her fascination for beautiful things found lively...