Moving Rooms

the long version

"This book documents the break-up, sale, and re-use of salvages in Britain and America, where the fashion for so-called 'Period Rooms' became a mainstay of the transatlantic trade. Much appreciated by museum visitors, period rooms have become something of a scholarly embarrassment, as research reveals that many were assembled from a variety of sources. One American embraced the trade as no other - the larger-than-life William Randolph Hearst - who purchased tens of thousands of architectural salvages between 1900 and 1935"--Jacket.