Tramp Art Box 1930s
Tramp Art
Zoom This! Tramp art is a woodworking style popularized in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It is characterized by the notch carving and layering (pyramiding) of many small pieces of wood for decorating a variety of objects. This art form is believed to have originated in Scandinavia and/or Germany. Tramp art was very common in many industrial places during the 1900s. A tramp, similar to a hobo, is a person who has not established residency and wanders from place to place without lawful or visible means of support. A tramp art box, like this one from York County, Pennsylvania, was made out of a cigar box that dates back to the 1930s. The most popular box used was a cigar box because in the 1850s they were very easy to come by; wherever cigars were made cigar boxes were made nearby. Tramps commonly used pocketknives to decorate boxes by using techniques called chip carving and whittling. For example, chip carving would have created the pyramid shaped decorations sticking off of the side of this box. Chip carving consisted of notching and layering. In order to create a pyramidal design one had to make each layer just a little bit smaller than the one before it. This took a lot of time and patience. The artist could use more than one box to create things like frames or they could add further decorations one piece at a time. A tramp artist believed that many layers of wood were more interesting to look at than just one layer. They had the desire to produce great detail using only simple tools. Tramp art became very popular because it allowed the artist to use what they had on hand to make anything from picture frames, gifts, jewelry boxes, to full-size chests of drawers.
Tags: 1900s, Crafts, Pennsylvania