The history of Gardner is as fascinating as it is long. Founded shortly after the close of the American Revolution, it was named after one of its heroes, Colonel Thomas Gardner, who died from wounds suffered on Bunker Hill.
A New Nation of Goods highlights the significant role of provincial artisans in four crafts in the northeastern United States—chairmaking, clockmaking, portrait painting, and book publishing—to explain the shift from preindustrial society to an entirely new configuration of work, commodities, and culture.
‘This is a holy book” —Rabbi Lawrence Kushner Graham Hale Gardner died before turning twenty-three and never learned to walk or speak due to severe cerebral palsy complicated by epilepsy. Yet he left a legacy of love and compassion that deeply moved scores of people from widely different backgrounds. How was that possible? Graham’s story, written through the eyes of his father, speaks of the enormous legacy left by a boy who never spoke. A story that raises provocative questions about the “invisible lines of connection” that make us human.
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