Welcome

Illuminating Design explores how design and technology allowed Edward F. Caldwell and Company to offer a variety of lighting and decorative items in order to attract business and remain competitive. E.F. Caldwell was a New York firm that created and manufactured high-end lighting and interior furnishings in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Examples of the company’s work are in many of the mansions built (or remodeled) during the era including, those belonging to the Vanderbilts and famed architect Stanford White in New York City, the Patterson House, Anderson House, Hillwood, and the White House in Washington, D.C., and others in the Carolinas and Florida.

Company History Timeline

It was an electric era—with electric car lines, the telephone, electric welding, and electric central stations springing into being and swinging


- A MOST ILLUMINATING 50 YEARS: THE STORY OF EDWD. F. CALDWELL & CO., INC.

The Exhibit

SHOWROOM

Edward F. Caldwell & Co. made many clocks in all sorts of styles and sizes. The firm maintained a clock department staffed with specialists who assembled the decorative cases and adjusted all the clockworks which were, either imported from Switzerland or made in the United States often by Chelsea Clock Company of Chelsea, Massachusetts.

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PRODUCTION

This was not a small operation. The showroom in New York City boasted fourteen rooms. Two doormen opened the massive carved wooden doors for their exclusive clientele, and for extra special guests they rolled out a red carpet! Twelve attentive salesmen helped customers discuss possible commissions, browse the design binders, or look at presentation drawings.

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Alt

CUSTOM DESIGN

Edward F. Caldwell and Co. worked with architects like Stanford White and John Russell Pope to design fixtures that harmonized with a building’s design. Their designs were informed by the trend of the time mostly for historic styles. Though often custom, anything designed by the firm could be remade at any time for multiple clients. 

 

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