Jay Robert Stiefel is an authority on the crafts and commerce of Colonial Philadelphia. A native of that city, he studied history at the University of Pennsylvania and Christ Church, Oxford.
Stiefel’s writings and lectures on social history, and his appearances on streaming platforms and television broadcasts, such as C-SPAN’s American History TV, have restored to the historical record many early craftsmen, artists and merchants whose accomplishments had been obscured by the passage of time. For the publication of The Cabinetmaker’s Account, Stiefel was selected by the University of Oxford as its North American-based Alumni Author.
His other publications include: Rococo & Classicism in Proprietary Philadelphia: The Origins of the “Penn Family Chairs”; “All in the Family: Joseph Richardson’s Earliest Silver”; “Simon Edgell (1687—1742) ‘To a Puter Dish’ and Grander Transactions of a London-trained Pewterer in Philadelphia”; “Simon Edgell, Unalloyed”; "Barnard Eaglesfield: A Prominent Philadelphia Cabinetmaker Revealed”; “‘Beyond expectation, beautiful, graceful and superb,’ Inlaid Miniature Chests of the Philadelphia Circus, ca. 1793”; “Francis Martin Drexel (1792—1863), Artist Turned Financier”; “‘A Clock for the Rooms’: The Horological Legacy of the Library Company of Philadelphia;” and “‘On the Bowling Green at Oxford in ye year 1759’: A Newly Discovered Drawing by Marcellus Laroon the Younger.”
