17th Century American Furnituremaking

Tools for 18th and 19th Century

Jay Gaynor and Nancy Hagedorn

Tools: Working Wood in Eighteenth Century America (1993)

William Goodman

The History of Woodworking Tools (1964)

Henry Mercer

American Carpenter's Tools (1929; reprinted 1960)

R.A. Salamon

Dictionary of Tools Used in Woodworking and Allied Trades, c. 1700-1970 (1964)

Material Culture

Victor Chinnery

The canonical reference for English Oak furniture from the 15th Century onward. There's a recent second edition and it's worth the extra cost to get that version though there's nothing wrong with the first one if that's what you can get.

Oak Furniture: The British Tradition 2nd Ed. (2016)

Albert Cummings

The Framed Houses of Massachusetts Bay (1979)

Wallace Nutting

The canonical visual reference of early American furniture. It's gone through various printings and some are better than others when it comes to the clarity of the photos.

Furniture of the Pilgrim Century 2 volumes (1924, reprint 1965)

Timothy Rieman and Jean Burks

The Shaker Furniture Handbook (2004)

Robert F Trent and Jonathan Fairbanks

Hard to find, supposed to be excellent, we'll see. One Day.

New England Begins (1982)

Technical or How-To Books

Jennie Alexander

Alexander and Peter Follansbee did much original forensic woodworking examining surviving joined furniture and attempting to reproduce the items not just visually, but deduce the tooling and techniques. The third edition completed after Alexander's death by Peter and others is the culmination of decades of research and well worth reading.

Make a Chair from a Tree 3rd Ed. (2021)

Peter Follansbee

Where Alexander is known for his chairs, Peter is best known for his joined furniture, especially stools, chests and boxes carved in the Mannerist style of 17th Century Devonshire/New England. This book is an excellent introduction to the joiner's trade and the construction and decoration of 17th Century furniture.

Joiner's Work (2018)

Peter Galbert

If Windsor chairs are your thing, this is the only book you need. Galbert is a master craftsman turning out amazing chairs. He's also a gifted teacher and illustrator. This book is easily the most attractive and well-designed book I have ever seen on woodworking. There are literally 100s of drawings illuminating every step of the chair making process. Even though Windsor chairs are not my thing, I found this an excellent read.

Chairmaker's Notebook (2018)

Charles Hayward

Charles Hayward was the longtime editor of the UK magazine The Woodworker and a resource of woodworking information. His Woodwork Joints book is excellent and the collection of editorial material assembled by Lost Art Press is a treasure trove of information.

• Woodwork Joints (1970)
• LAP Collection

Joseph Moxon

Moxon wrote the earliest known treatise on woodworking in English and stand as a foundational text in many ways. Not the easiest read in the original, but the LAP editions are worth reading.

Mechanick Exercises: or the Doctrine of Handy-Works (1703)

• Entire original text (in PDF) from UMich
• LAP reprinted the section on joinery with commentary: The Art of Joinery, Revised (2013)
• LAP will release a cleaned up reprint of the whole thing in 2022

Roy Underhill

Roy Underhill, former Master Carpenter @ Williamsburg and longtime fixture on PBS's The Woodwright's Workshop, explored all facets of pre-industrial and vernacular woodworking over the 30+ year run of his show. He has published 6 related books, the first 5 are companions to the show, the last is more of a collected wisdom volume. Any of them are worth having.

• The Woodwright's Shop (1981)
• The Woodwright's Companion (1983)
• The Woodwright's Workbook (1986)
• Also available as a 3 in 1 eBook (2011)

• The Woodwright's Apprentice (1996)
• The Woodwright's Eclectic Workshop (1991)
• The Woodwright's Guide (2008)
• These available as a 3 in 1 eBook (2011)

Drew Langsner

Drew along with his wife ran The Country Workshop in rural North Carolina for over 30 years and held classes on all sorts of green wooding and country craft. If you had to pick just one book, choose the 2021 Country Woodcraft volume.

• The Chairmaker's Workshop (1997)
• Country Woodcraft: Then & Now (2021)
• Green Woodworking: A Hands-On Approach, 3rd Ed. (2013)

Shop Life

Charles Hummel

With Hammer in Hand (1968)

Walter Rose

The Village Carpenter (1937)

George Sturt

The Wheelwrights's Shop (1923)

Robert Tarule

Read my blog post review here.

The Artisan of Ipswitch (2012)