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- _____Jll][l______ "Interior Decorators Were Not Yet With Us" ADVICE LITERATURE ]Ih' VEN Texans who created the most idiosyncratic U interiors also sought to approximate national decorating trends. That pursuit introduced elements that effected the way Texans shaped their domestic environments once they were aware of the cultural marketplace - broadly defined as ideas, advice, expertise, and goods. Such influences were clearly outside one's personal identity. How did these sources of advice and goods contribute to the look of Texas homes? And what happened when builders were consulted in the process of building and making a home? Late-nineteenth-century Texans had wide ranging options for decorating advice and furnishings. They wholeheartedly embraced the spate of magazines with pages full of information on home decoration, child rearing, food preparation, and beauty tips. Women's magazines such as Ladies' Home Journal and Woman's Home Companion were enormously popular in Texas judging from their numbers in the collections of women's papers in museums and libraries around the state. Some Texas women participated in the magazines' exchange columns that offered advice on a range of subjects including home decoration: Mrs. T. M. Paschal of Castroville told readers how to secure a waterproof fiber cloth, while Mrs. C. L. H. D. of Castell in Llano County shared her technique for crystallizing grasses for use in decorative vases. 1 Texas had an important general ladies' journal in Holland 's Magazine, published by Farm and Ranch Publishing Company in Dallas. Marketed throughout the Midwest, Holland's focused on topics of regional interest, included articles by writers who contributed to national magazines, and featured essays on home decoration elsewhere in the country. While serving Texas, the magazine promoted nationalism and helped to dissolve geographical barriers. A host of periodicals devoted their contents to matters of household art and decoration, suggesting a readership 273 Inside Texas 274 of women with leisure, more than middle-class means, and a seriousness of purpose. The Art Amateur, the Art Interchange, the Decorator and Fur,,!isher, and the Household made up a fraction of this advice literature. Many Texans often subscribed to or read more than one. Nannie Fulton Holden of Fulton subscribed to both the Art Amateur and the Art Interchange whose design studies inspired her handpainted china.2J. E. G. of Sherman queried the Art Amateur editors for a preparation to "render impervious to the weather paintings or pen-drawings 'on fair or russet leather.' ,,3 But in 1889 another reader, Mrs. 1. M., fretted about a larger dilemma. Her concerns centered on which "aesthetic " colors to paint her interior, and she reveals how fashionable she was - or was at least pretending to be. The inquirer lived in San Diego, seat of Duval County, which, although more than 1,800 square miles in size, had fewer than 8,000 inhabitants.4 She wrote: We are so isolated in this place that it is impossible to procure skilled labor; but I have thought out a simple plan of decoration for four rooms which I wish to submit to you for correction or approval. As is customary in this climate, the walls and ceiling are ceiled, and it is very difficult to know how to relieve their "woodiness." The parlor and adjoining bedroom are 14 feet square, ceilings, 10 feet. I thought of having the walls of each painted a light buff brown, with ceiling of a lighter tone; predominating color of frieze in parlor red, in bedroom peacock blue or olive green. Two small rooms - library and diningroom - are 12 x 14 feet. The latter opens into a parlor and north gallery. It is rather dark, there being but one window, which opens upon a deep vinecovered south gallery. For this I thought of ivory or cream white, with a pretty bright frieze. The diningroom has east and south windows, the latter protected by the gallery. For the sake of coolness, I thought of having the walls of this sage green, ceiling soft light gray and frieze either red or pink. If the latter, I would paint clover in the two small panels below - glass in door. On the four panels of another door I thought of painting snow-balls. Would it do to have all the other wood-work, doors and casings painted ivory white, or what would you suggest for the different rooms? I have not determined about the friezes. I would paint them myself if the walls were more worthy. Would the ordinary wall-paper frieze...

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