From collection Furniture
Kas
The kas, a large free-standing wardrobe used for the safekeeping of textiles and other valuable household goods, was the most important and impressive piece of furniture in Dutch households. Often bequeathed from one family member to another, or included as part of a woman’s dowry, the kas served as a reminder of one’s heritage, class, and identity. By the 1640s, the Dutch North American colony of New Netherland, centered in New Amsterdam in lower Manhattan, expanded across the East River onto western Long Island into present-day Kings and Queens Counties. Migrating Dutch settlers brought their cultural and craft traditions with them. The convergence of Dutch and English settler populations on Long Island led to intermarriage between the groups. This kas is one of many examples with English Quaker histories of ownership from the Oyster Bay area—material evidence of the diffusion and persistence of Dutch cultural practices on western Long Island into the eighteenth century.
