An occupational-biographical study of William Winter (1863-1936): an analysis of a furniture maker and furniture making process in Clarke's Beach, Newfoundland

Boyd, Cynthia (1992) An occupational-biographical study of William Winter (1863-1936): an analysis of a furniture maker and furniture making process in Clarke's Beach, Newfoundland. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

This thesis illustrates the versatility and creativity of a rural craftsman in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the small community of Clarke's Beach, Newfoundland. By analyzing this furniture maker from an occupational-biographical approach, his life and work are presented in order to understand not only the furniture made but the craftsman who made the furniture. -- William Winter's furniture making enterprise is examined from an occupational folklife perspective with particular reference to this craftsman's canon of work technique. Winter's furnishings exemplify, in form and decoration, the desires and aesthetics of both consumer and producer, as well as the influences of factory-produced furniture and local furniture models. Of particular importance, Winter's furniture was solidly built for the homes and residences of a diverse clientele from merchants, fishermen, to priests. His furniture was similar to other examples of Newfoundland outport furniture in its use of numerous styles, designs, and decorative embellishments. Yet Winter's decorative details, in the form of applied, carved, and handpainted motifs, have been borrowed by other contemporary craftsmen as represented on pieces collected by artifact researchers and antique dealers. -- William Winter's lasting contribution to the culture and heritage of Newfoundland is not only in surviving examples of his own manufacture but in examples of other furniture models that his work no doubt inspired. His furniture has adorned the living rooms and graced the bedrooms of homes throughout Newfoundland since the early 1900s. This craftsman will be remembered for his ingenuity in creating and constructing furnishings that not only fulfilled the needs of men and women in the 1900s, but of people of the present day.

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