Past Speaker Andrew Richmond Vice President Garth's Auction

Andrew Richmond

Mr. Richmond is Vice-president, Garth’s Auctions, Ohio. A native Ohioan, Andrew Richmond received his bachelor’s degree in history from Kenyon College and his master’s degree from the Winterthur Program in Early American Culture. His research has focused on the furniture of early Ohio and the Midwest, and he has published articles in American Furniture and The Magazine Antiques; his current research focuses on the heretofore unknown Marietta, Ohio, cabinetmaker Joshua Shipman and the early furniture of the Midwestern Germans. He has lectured widely on Ohio furniture, including at the 2006 Colonial Williamsburg Antiques Forum and the 2007 Furniture Forum at the Winterthur Museum. Richmond has been in the auction business since 2003, and at Garth’s since 2006. He serves as a licensed auctioneer and certified appraiser. Along with his wife, Hollie Davis, he writes a monthly column for Maine Antique Digest titled “The Young Collector.” Most recently, Andrew has served as guest curator for Equal in Goodness, an exhibition of Ohio decorative arts at the Decorative Arts Center of Ohio in Lancaster. 

About his talk

                 
During the nineteenth century, the sound of German being spoken was a common occurrence in the American Midwest.  Germanic communities dotted the countryside, the residents making and using distinctive styles of furniture.  In reality, to call them "Germans" is incorrect, though most spoke various dialects of German. Throughout the nineteenth century, thousands of immigrants left their homes in Germany, Switzerland, and Alsace (northwestern France) and came to America, bypassing the populated Eastern seaboard, and choosing, instead, to settle in the agrarian heartland.  They established communities like Zoar, Sonnenburg, and Pandora in Ohio, Oldenburg in Indiana, and further west into Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, and Kansas, and as far north as Wisconsin.

Others came from existing Germanic communities in the Eastern United States, particularly Pennsylvania, and came west where land was cheap and fertile. Many of these folks were Mennonites and left places like Soap Hollow for places like Holmes County, Ohio, Elkhart and LaGrange Counties in Indiana, and Kent County, Michigan.

Along with their language, these immigrants brought with them a rich cultural tradition in the form of a furniture style that was often heavy and architectural, sometimes simple and elegant, and often vibrantly painted. Principally because of their language, the communities that these immigrants formed often remained isolated from mainstream American society. As a result, they continued to produce furniture in styles that had long fallen out of fashion elsewhere.