Artifact: Latch
Materials: Metal
Dimensions:
Date: Eighteenth Century
Origin: Ruckersville, Georgia
Collection: Liz Jandoli via WikiMedia Commons
License: Public Domain
Ledger Entry: Latch
Department: Building
Customer: John Gist
Ledger Page: 35
Imported From:
Product Description
Like other pieces of building hardware, latches were part of the visual status cues of the colonial British American built environment. Earlier in the eighteenth century, latches were common. They ranged from simple to highly decorated. As time went on, however, these devices came to be seen as unrefined. Locks that elegantly hid the works of a latch became the new fashion.
Citation: Cary Carson & Carl R. Lounsbury, ed., The Chesapeake House: Architectural Investigation by Colonial Williamsburg (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, in association with the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 2013).; Gabrielle M. Lanier & Bernard L. Herman, Everyday Architecture of the Mid-Atlantic: Looking at Buildings and Landscapes (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997).
Historical Price: 1 shilling, 8 pence; Modern USD: $18.6
Product Variations
The databases record five latch purchases sold in quantities of one to two. In price, these range from six pence for two latches to fourteen shillings for one.
