Woman Guard your Kitchen!

The dog - wish I could say 'hot dog' (dachshund) - is stealing Mrs. Weiser's sausages in this watercolor by Lewis Miller.

"Mrs. Cathrine Weiser frying a Sausage and A Hound came and stole it out the pan for his Breakfast. Woman Guard you Kitchen. The dog devoured with much greediness while Mrs. Weiser was out for a Dish and a fork to Serve it on the table.  Teach a dog and put him in a way to fulfill its demands, and you make him a moral Agent."

Lewis Miller (1796-1882) was born and lived in York, Pennsylvania.  He drew a couple thousand images of his neighbors from this German area. 

In his watercolor album The Chronicle of York: “All of the Pictures Containing in this Book ***are true Sketches, I, myself being there upon the places and Spot, and put down what happened. And was close by of the Greatest number. Saw the whole scene enacted before my eyes…”  “Written by Lewis Miller, Jr., in South Duke Street, York, Penn., April 6, 1816”

His York drawings are in the Historical Society Museum of the York County Heritage Trust which put out a wonderful book in 1966 - Lewis Miller, Sketches and Chronicles: The Reflections of a Nineteenth-Century Pennsylvania German Folk Artist.

Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia Historical Society, and the Montgomery Museum also have images since Miller spent his last years in Virginia with his brother Dr. Joseph Miller and drew scenes of Virginians.  Lewis Miller’s Guide to Central Park album is at The Henry Ford Museum.

©2014 Patricia Bixler Reber
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