NATIONAL PARK SERVICE · events

A Closer Look at Charley Longfellow’s “Japan Room"

October 29, 2026 · Source: National Park Service

Charles Appleton Longfellow (1844–1893), the eldest son of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Frances Appleton Longfellow, was a globetrotter and avid collector. During his 20-month stay in Japan (1871–1873), he purchased and shipped home to Cambridge dozens of crates of artworks and decorative objects for himself, friends, and family. Upon his return in 1874, Charley transformed the sitting room at his family home into a “ Japan Room ” with the help of his cousin Alexander Wadsworth Longfellow (1854–1934). One of its most striking features was a ceiling decorated with more than 35 fan-shaped paintings arranged in a “scattered fan” pattern. Although Japanese art and decorative objects had entered U.S. markets by the mid-1870s, their availability and visibility varied considerably by city. Created in 1874, on the eve of the transformative 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, the Japan Room represents an unusually early American domestic interior devoted to Japanese art and design. This lecture examines its remarkable ceiling of fan paintings, exploring their origins and arrangement and considering how this distinctive feature of the room reflects the ways Japanese art was displayed and experienced in nineteenth-century America. This research was supported by the Friends of the Longfellow House-Washington's Headquarters 2025 Art Research Fellowship Program. ————————————— Elizabeth K. Eder, Ph.D. , is a museum scholar, educator, and researcher who has worked at the Smithsonian Institution for more than 20 years, including at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the National Museum of Asian Art (formerly the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery), and the Anacostia Community Museum. Her museum career has also included positions at the Walters Art Museum, the National Gallery of Art, and the American Alliance of Museums. Her research interests include nineteenth-century American art; Chinese, Japanese, and European artistic influences on American art; the history of cultural exchange; and women’s histories. Her publications include books, scholarly articles, and museum print and digital resources. She is currently a Research Associate at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and teaches in the Museum Studies Graduate Program at Johns Hopkins University, most recently History and Philosophy of Museums (in Global Context) . She is also Principal of Elizabeth K. Eder & Associates LLC, a museum consulting practice.

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