Come for the Quilts, Stay for the History

When you think of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, what do you think of? Quilts, Shoofly pie, horse and buggies, farmland, etc...? No worries, I would be more so surprised if you didn't! The stereotypical, tourist view of Lancaster really overshadows smaller offerings of the county though still sometimes draws them in the door.

This summer, I've been interning at LancasterHistory.org. While, yes, it is a website, it is also the name of the Lancaster County Historical Society and President Buchanan's Wheatland. Recently gifted with a beautiful addition to their original building by a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grant, the historical society has really leaped forward in today's age with a green building and many technological improvements such as better cases for displaying quilts and touchscreens so visitors can learn more about individual objects on display.

The exterior of the new building.

Working in such a new and extremely organized building has been an utter joy. Brand spanking new facilities draws in crowds not only for the history, but to see what the new building is. People are inherently curious, you know.

The interior of the new building.

So what have I been up to here? As I described to Pauline Eversmann, our Museum Studies internship director, ... pretty much everything and the kitchen sink! My biggest task was to develop an interpretive plan for the site. My supervisor, Barry Rauhauser, expressed interest in developing one so as to keep the organization on a mission statement driven path and find new areas to better explore and develop, while not getting distracted by events and objects that, despite that they'll bring people in the door, have no relevance to the story the museum is trying to tell. For a couple weeks, myself and another intern worked on this interpretive plan and we recently produced a successful draft for the society to work with.

Another activity I've been involved in has been object research. You need to know about an object so that you can develop a label, a story? I'm your gal! I've done many labels for the society including ones for portraits, coverlets, and furniture. A portion of my research is available for you to read in narrative form on my blog, Learning, Living, Lancaster.

My first blog post featured this beauty -- a flute from the 1800s!

Each week I post once or twice about objects in the collection that intrigue me. I give you not only the information about the object specifically but try to develop a context around it so that you can truly appreciate its significance in the scheme of things. If you'd like to read my blog, please check it out! I'd always love more readers!

Speaking of pictures, I've some photography for the exhibit. While the original gallery was photographed by a photographer using professional grade equipment, I still tried my hand at capturing interesting aspects of two pieces, a Fordney flintlock rifle and a spinning wheel.

Up close and personal with a flintlock.

The "guts" of a spinning wheel.

Not too shabby, I'd like to think! If you visit LancasterHistory.org and check out the touchscreens in the gallery, you can see my photos!

I've helped with other aspects of the institution such as working as a gallery guide, aiding with storage and conservation of items, transcriptions, and inventory. I've truly received a well rounded, curatorial experience, and I am extremely grateful.

One crazy, awesome aspect of the new space is the introduction of an open storage space in the bottom/ground floor of the society. With a grant from the Richard Von Hess Foundation, the Decorative Arts Center is an open storage facility. We all know that museums only display a small, small percentage of their actual collection, right? Well, the open storage area allows visitors to peer through windows to the collection as it rests in storage. You can view items set out for display or gaze at the neatly stacked archival boxes and the rows of wrapped up portraits resting in the back. It is truly revolutionary and something I wish all museums would have! It is like an I Spy and so magical to those who like to hunt for objects and ponder curiously about them. (I would post a photograph, but I don't have one! You'll just have to visit to see it for yourself....)

I have really learned a lot from this experience, and I'm really sad to leave in a week or two. The staff and volunteers at the site have been extremely patient, friendly, and accommodating as I trail at their heels, looking for tasks to do. The experience has definitely helped me determine that the museum field is where I want to be, and I don't mind the hard work that comes with it. It's worth it when you help people and they catch your enthusiasm for the things you so desperately want to save and display (and often times, you catch their enthusiasm too!).

I definitely recommend you all come up to see the site! You can tour the gallery, use the research library, or tour Wheatland, President Buchanan's home (where, seriously, the furniture inside is 70 - 80% original to the home... awesome!).

Thank you so much for reading! If you have any questions or such, please email me at emmiller@udel.edu. (No spam, please!) Have a lovely evening!

Emily

Journeying West: Distinctive Firearms from the Smithsonian Institution

By Ashley Lynn Hlebinsky
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History recently loaned 64 firearms from the National Firearms Collection to the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, a Smithsonian Affiliate, in Cody Wyoming for a special display. This loan is the culmination of the efforts of many individuals from the east and west. Without the vision of Cody Firearms Museum Curator, Warren Newman, and the dedication of NMAH Associate Curator of firearms, David Miller, and the team at Smithsonian Affiliations, this exhibition might not have occurred.

Miquelet Lock Musket given to President Thomas Jefferson in 1805. Photo Courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of American History, Washington, DC.

Over the past two years, I have worked as the liaison between the two organizations, selecting firearms, writing text panels and labels, and aiding Newman with the design of the overall exhibition. Among these artifacts are numerous patent models documenting innovations in the field, international imagination, and historic distinction.

Included in this exhibition is a seven-foot-long gold Miquelet lock musket that was given to President Thomas Jefferson in 1805 by the Bey of Tunisia after the Tripolitan Wars. Another selected firearm is an embellished Jaeger rifle that belonged to Catherine the Great of Russia (1729 – 1796). A velvet cheek piece added to this firearm ensured her comfort while shooting.  

Jaeger Rifle owned by Empress Catherine the Great of Russia. Photo Courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of American History, Washington, DC

This loan joins the Smithsonian Institution and the Buffalo Bill Center of the West together in an exhibition opening on May 4, 2013 titled Journeying West: Distinctive Firearms from the Smithsonian Institution. It has been an honor to be a part of this project, which brought a part of the Smithsonian Institution to a new audience.


Hlebinsky has been working as a firearms researcher and assistant between the National Museum of American History and the Cody Firearms Museum for the past few years. She is also completing her Masters Degree in American History and Museum Studies at the University of Delaware this May 2013.

For more information on this exhibition please visit the Buffalo Bill Center of the West's webpage.

Vineland's Closet

While driving through the farm fields and small towns along Route 40 in Southern New Jersey last January, my pulse raced with excitement in anticipation of what we might find in the costume collection of the Vineland Historical and Antiquarian Society (VHAS) in Vineland, New Jersey. Charles K. Landis founded Vineland in the early 1860s as a utopian community, and residents established its historical and antiquarian society complete with a purpose-built structure soon thereafter.

Vineland Historical and Antiquarian Society entrance (Photo, UD Museum Studies)

Since the 1860s, VHAS has served as the community’s chief repository for its material and intellectual history including an extensive local glass collection, an unpublished utopian novel, personal items owned by Landis and another early VHAS booster, Frank D. Andrews, and more. Who wouldn’t be excited about working at such an institution for two weeks?

Upon my arrival at VHAS, I sat and listened eagerly to UD Museum Studies director Prof. Katherine Grier and VHAS’s curator Patricia Martinelli as they explained the “SWAT Inventory” project’s plan of attack. Some of my colleagues would be working on inventorying over 4,500 books, and others would be creating a curatorial workroom. Additional projects included inventorying the contents of the Andrews Room, assessing light levels and pest presence, and much more. I had the pleasure of coordinating the costume inventory and cataloguing project. And so while one half of my consciousness listened while Prof. Grier and Ms. Martinelli told us where to find pencils and brass safety pins and how to locate the restroom, the other half speculated about the nature of the treasures that might be waiting for us in the storage rooms.

The VHAS costume collection was not shrouded in total mystery; we had some idea as to what we would inventory and catalogue thanks to a fall scouting trip. At that time, Museum Studies Sustaining Places SWAT Inventory students, faculty, and staff assessed the costume collection casually. We spied eighteenth-century brocaded shoes and nineteenth-century silk bonnets, giving us good reasons to look forward to breathing new life into the collections there. But it wasn’t until the project commenced in earnest that we developed a more comprehensive overview of the contents of Vineland’s “closet.” Within minutes of diving into the striped silks, printed paisley wools, and beaded bodices, we came upon mid nineteenth-century women’s dresses in near pristine condition, early twentieth-century Ku Klux Klan uniforms, a collection of civilian clothing worn by a Civil War veteran, and a treasure trove of nineteenth-century children’s clothing, to list just a few highlights.

We worked steadily and seriously, setting up vacuuming, photographic, and other “stations” to help the work progress efficiently.

A view of the textile SWAT operation at VHAS (Photo, UD Museum Studies)

But we also had some fun. What better excuse to indulge in some girlish giggles after alighting upon not one but two 1890s “bust improvers,” or "falsies," (objects with which I was unfamiliar until working at VHAS) with local provenance (history of ownership)? 

Nicole Belolan with an 1890s bust improver with local provenance at VHAS (Photo, Katherine C. Grier)

Historically, women wore far more pieces of under garments than they do today. In the nineteenth century, most women wore corsets--which were sometimes rigid and shaped a woman’s torso into the fashionable silhouette of the moment--underneath dress bodices or shirtwaists. Corsets, unlike the stays that preceded them, also served the purpose of delineating two separate breasts.

Corset, 1830s-1840s, decorated with silk embroidery, history of ownership with  

Kittie Gallup Andrews (1842-1880), wife of Frank D. Andrews (VHAS Collection)

Sometimes women donned corset covers over their corsets to help smooth the rigid corsets or to prevent outer fabrics from revealing too much skin. Some women with smaller busts also wore bust improvers like those found at VHAS outside their corsets and beneath their clothing to enhance natural bust lines and to conform to the late nineteenth-century fashion silhouette that often emphasized the bust (as seen in the fashion plate below).

"Godey's Fashions," Godey's Lady's Book, April 1890 (Accessible Archives)

Whose busts did these intimate objects improve? Women—in this case, two Vineland women—wore these undergarments to help fill out their busts. Both bust improvers were made from plain-woven white cotton fabric and were embellished with decorative white cotton trim. One bust improver marked as having been owned by Emma B. Andrews (probably the older sister of Frank D. Andrews) retains its horsehair stuffing. (Horsehair was also used to stuff everyday objects such furniture upholstery.)

Bust improver with horsehair stuffing, underside, 1890s, inscribed "Emma B. Andrews" (VHAS Collection)

The other bust improver was marked has having been used by Lavinia A. Norton (probably the mother of Frank D. Andrews) in 1891.

Bust improver, upper surface, inscribed "Lavinia A. Norton/Vineland/N.J./1891." on underside (VHAS Collection)

Bust improver, underside detail of bust improver pictured above (VHAS Collection)

The VHAS counts these personal items among the many fascinating costume treasures with local provenance in its collection. Extant objects such as these bust improvers suggest the intimate ways ordinary women engaged with the fashion of their times, personal habits that would be challenging to untangle without material culture evidence.

From bust improvers to mundane cotton day skirts to rare men’s paisley dressing gown, the contents of Vineland’s closet impressed us at every turn. We gave each item the careful attention it deserved, describing it thoroughly, taking its photograph, assessing its condition, and packing it away for when VHAS will call upon it again to help tell Vineland’s stories.

VHAS costume collection carefully packed away, awaiting to be moved to more permanent storage in the new curatorial work room (Photo, UD Museum Studies)

What might we learn about bodies and hygiene from a purple silk dress, stained with perspiration? How might we better comprehend some Americans’ late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century reasons for donning Ku Klux Klan uniforms? How might the carefully recorded family provenance and genealogies, spelled out on tags and index cards, inspire current Vineland residents to save special items from their own closets for subsequent generations to learn from? The questions we can bring to the VHAS costume collection are endless, and answers to those questions will change each time we ask them. If Vineland's closet had not been full, we would not have been able to pose any questions in the first place.

~~~

Just a few weeks ago, the Vineland City Council invited us back to thank us for our volunteer effort. When all was said and done, as a group, we contributed over 1,000 volunteer hours. By any measure, we donated a lot of energy and expertise to VHAS and the City's cultural heritage more generally. We earned the accolades we received for helping "sustain" Vineland's cultural heritage as a unique "place." But as a participant in the project, I benefitted too. I learned about Vineland's history and costume types (such as bust improvers) with which I was previously unfamiliar. I also I enjoyed the discussions I had with my colleagues about collecting philosophies and practices. And so I cannot thank VHAS staff and board members enough for welcoming us into their space and for allowing us to take a long, careful look through Vineland’s closet.

I look forward to taking that drive down Route 40 again soon!

Learn more about SWAT 2013 here!