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Article: Newport in the nineteenth century. (Newport, Rhode Island)
- Article from:
- The Magazine Antiques
- Article date:
- April 1, 1995
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1995 Brant Publications, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Henry James wrote that the first half of the nineteenth century "was the PURE Newport time, the most perfectly guarded by a sense of margin and of mystery."(1) Before the advent of the Gilded Age at the end of the century, Newport's style was characterized by the innocence of its amusements - bathing, boating, picnicking, tiding, and amateur theatricals - and its artistic and literary pretensions. Hudson River school painters, Boston literati, descendants of the old colonial families, and southern gentry were united in their love of Newport's seventeenth- and eighteenth-century "old town" and the arcadian vistas of the sea on the outskirts.
The summer colony first ...