The Baker's Wagon

William P. Chappel

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Against the backdrop of the potter William Marshall’s shop and the widow Bumstead’s corner home, a baker drives his cart full of fresh bread down Hester Street in the tenth ward. A staple of the American diet, a simple loaf of bread could be a very serious matter. Since the city’s settlement, government officials regulated the price, quality, and weight of bread made by licensed bakers, who had to initial all their loaves. The bakers often argued that the city’s fixed rates, or assizes, were too low and pushed for free-market pricing, which they eventually achieved by the 1820s.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art