Nutting, Wallace, 1861-1941

Minister, photographer, expert on and producer of reproductions of early American furniture Wallace Nutting (1861-1941) was born November 17, 1861, in Rockbottom, Massachusetts. He attended Philips Academy (1880-1883), Harvard College (1883-1886), Hartford Theological Seminary (1886-1887), and Union Theological Seminary (1887-1888). On June 5, 1888, he married Mariet Griswold Caswell. Nutting served as minister to several parishes including Freyburg, ME (1887), Passaic NJ (1887-88), Newark NJ (1888-1889), St. Paul, MN (1889-1891), Seattle WA (1891-1894) and Providence, RI (1891-1904). Nutting took up photography in 1897, and soon began to copyright, publish and sell his photographs. In 1904 Nutting suffered a breakdown and gave up the ministry to pursue photography full time. In 1906 he and his wife purchased and restored a farm in rural Southbury, CT, christening it "Nuttinghame". They turned the barn into a studio with dormitory space for the girls who hand-tinted his photographs. In 1912 moved his business to Framingham, MA, and named his home mthere "Nuttingholm". In additional to landscapes, Nutting did photographs of historic scenes, many taken in a series of five historic houses he restored. Nutting became an expert on colonial furniture, publishing seve ral books and giving illustrated lectures on historic furniture. In the mid 1920s, Nutting sold his personal collection of early American furniture to J.P. Morgan, Jr., who donated it to the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford CT. Nutting had begun to manufacture reproductions of colonial furniture, first at Saugus and after 1917 in a factory in Framingham. In 1922 with Vermont Beautiful, Nutting's publishing house began to issue a series of nostalgic travel books, each one focusing on a state or country. Although Nutting extolled the past, he was adept at use of modern advertising techniques and the interrlated nature of his various ventures. Nutting was in demand as a public speaker, and also occaisionally returned to preaching. Wallace Nutting died July 1941. When Mariet Nutting died (August 31, 1944) her will transferred most of her estate to Berea College (Berea, KY), including the furniture factory's tool, equipment, plans templates and rights to the name Wallace Nutting". Berea then sold these to Drexel Furniture Company. Nutting's photographic business continued under Ernest John Donnelly (until 1945) and Esther Svenson. In 1971 Svenson closed the business and ordered the pohtographic plates destroyed. In 1973 Justine Monroe and a group of collectors established the Wallace Nutting Collectors Club.

Clergyman, photographer, and author.

Wallace Nutting was a Congregationalist minister who became a photographer and furniture maker. He also collected antiques and wrote a number of books on the topic, his most noted title being his three volume Furniture Treasury.