Hints on Household Taste, published by the English architect and arts writer Charles Eastlake in 1868, heralded a reform movement in household design and cultural values. Although today considered quaintly ornate, the popular "Eastlake style" was a rejection of overwrought design, especially "unhealthy," lumbering, and heavily carved and machine-made furniture. Adapting medieval and Japanese designs, Eastlake counseled readers to develop a taste for incised motifs, geometric ornament, flat surfaces, and fretwork in their household furnishings. The popular Eastlake style constituted an important early element in the broader Aesthetic movement sweeping the Western world.
Eastlake's designs found much favor with the rising middle classes in the United States. With rising living standards and more leisure time, middle-class families could dedicate themselves to the pursuit of art and culture. Through the inspiration of art applied to the textures, surfaces, and objects of the house the family itself was defined-and, indeed, refined. Under the tender care of women, houses were aesthetic creations reflecting and encouraging their occupants' imagination and interests. Collections of art, sculpture and books reflected the family's dedication to cultural sophistication, while embroidery and other handiwork symbolized talent and self-expression. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, American families lavishly ornamented their homes with goods increasingly available through department stores, mail order catalogues, and other retailers.
Yet, as the nation's sage Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in 1870, "The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it." A family's aesthetic achievements required an approving audience. The social custom of calling required keen attention to the details of dress, decorum, and decoration, reflected in the use of the hall stand to check one's appearance, calling cards and card trays for visitors and the servants who announced their arrival, and, of course, the fashionable parlor to convey the tastes and enhance the hospitality of host and hostess.