For almost 200 years, wallpaper was America's favorite wall covering, from the affordable one-color variety used by the poor to the French scenic papers imported by the rich. Drawing on the extensive collections of the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Design, as well as from sources across America and Europe, Catherine Lynn documents changing tastes in pattern and color preferences, showing how they reflect social, aesthetic, and even philosophical trends. Richly illustrated with 102 color plates and over 245 black and white photographs, this book fittingly surveys a diverse, universal, yet underappreciated art form.