From the Antebellum Era through the Gilded Age, New York City's leading art institutions were lightning rods for conflict. Art Wars examines three protracted battles that linked art institutions and disputes about taste to major social and political struggles of the nineteenth century.

Introduction. The Importance of Taste: Intellectual Roots 1
Chapter 1. Paintings in Public Life: The Rise of the American Art-Union
Chapter 2. The Limits of Cultural Stewardship: The Fall of the American Art-Union
Chapter 3. Art and Industry: Debates of the 1850s
Chapter 4. The Art of Decoration and the Transformation of Stewardship: The Making of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Chapter 5. Metropolitan Museum on Trial: Antiquities, Expertise and the Problem of Race
Chapter 6. The Battle for Sundays at the Museum
Epilogue. Edith Wharton's Museum
Notes
Index
Acknowledgments