No Need to Cry “May Day”—Museums Offer Free Content Online

Happy May Day! I hope you are staying safe, healthy, and sane! To assist with the last, I thought you might like to know that a number of museums are sharing online content that makes the hearts of history geeks go pitter-patter.

For example, the British Museum is sharing tidbits from its extensive holdings across the ages and the world. One caution: if you move through history too fast (okay, I might have been a bit giddy!), you might experience a little motion sickness in this interactive platform. 

The National Gallery of Art in Washington DC has partnered with Google to provide a perspective on historical fashion in Fashioning a Nation. 

And then there’s the maritime museums. Le sigh. As you may remember, I’m a big fan of tall ships, the tall-masted sailing vessels of bygone years. My dear Marissa once took me to visit Connecticut’s Mystic Seaport (can you tell she knows me well?), so I was particularly delighted to learn that the museum, which recreates a nineteenth-century seafaring community, is making many of its delights available for online viewing. 

The Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport, Maine, is posting excerpts on its Facebook page from the 1892 diary of Ernest W. Perkins as he sails from Boston to Buenos Aires on the barquentine Mabel I Meyers. Fascinating!

The Grays Harbor Historical Seaport, home of my beloved Lady Washington, has also posted a number of videos on its Facebook page showing how to set sails. Oh, but it makes me want to be on the Lady right now!

Have you seen other museums offering online options related to the nineteenth century? Please share!

Cool 19th Century Places to Visit: The Thorne Rooms

Sometimes the coolest things are the smallest. That’s certainly true of the Thorne Rooms, a series of miniature interiors painstakingly recreated. While the rooms were constructed between 1932 and 1940, they depict lifestyles from the late 13^th century to the 1930s, in Europe, Asia, and the U.S.

The visionary behind the work is Narcissa Niblack Thorne, wife of James Ward Thorne connected to the Montgomery Ward department stores. She designed the rooms and commissioned artisans to create the various pieces to populate them. The scale is one inch equals a foot, and the details are exquisite. I recall touring the rooms held by the Art Institute of Chicago. In a tiny library of the Georgian era lay a pair of spectacles on a side table before the hearth.

Peering through the glass boxes that house the collection, one is transported to another time, another place. Many date around the late 1700s/early 1800s. A Regency hero or heroine would be right at home. I certainly feel at home. Thorne’s English Dining Room of the Georgian Period formed the basis for Sir Nicolas Rotherford’s dining room in The Courting Campaign. Margaret Munroe slept in Thorne’s Massachusetts Bedroom, c. 1801, at the Marquis deGuis’s home in the Lakes District in The Marquis’ Kiss.

The Art Institute of Chicago holds the most of these wonderful rooms (68 in all), many of which you can find online to view. The Phoenix Art Museum and the Knoxville Museum of Art also have collections.

Highly recommended. You may never look at a room description the same way again.

Photos in this post were used under a Creative Commons license and taken by Joseph Reagle. 

The Oldest (and Coolest) House in Chatham

This week I had the pleasure of staying with Marissa and her charming family out on Cape Cod. Coming from a place where written history starts largely in the mid-1800s, it’s always a treat to find places that have recorded history more than 200 years earlier. And I always love learning new things about history. So I was delighted when Marissa suggested a visit to the Chatham Historical Society museum.

The Historical Society was originally chartered in 1923 by the Chatham Ladies Reading Club (see, reading + history is a good thing). The ladies of the club were quite concerned that their heritage was going to antique dealers or decay. They soon raised money to purchase the oldest surviving house in Chatham, the former home of a sea captain named Joseph Atwood, which was built in 1752. The house was largely intact (as can be seen above in an earlier photo) and has been lovingly cared for by the Society ever since.

Alas, photographs are not allowed in the house, but I stumbled upon a set online that were taken before the full restoration. Here’s a few things I learned.

This is the kitchen of the house, with stairs leading up to the master bedchamber and sleeping loft for the children. Can you see the little panel in the second riser up? It could slide to the left to reveal a little hole that led down into the space below the house. The family used it to allow the cat to get out and do its duty during cold winter months. Yes, it's an 18^th century pet door!

Here is the parlor, where guests would have been received. The door farthest to the left leads to a small entryway. You can just see on the one next to it that the door is divided in half. Behind it lies a closet with a glass front. It seems that once a year the tax collector came to look over your house and estimated what you owed based on what you owned. However, he was not allowed to open any doors. So, the clever family would safely tuck away its most precious belongings behind the closed wooden door, then open the door to display their worldly goods on other occasions.

This rocking bench (picture copyright the Chatham Historical Society) currently graces a wall of the kitchen. You can see the little ladder that would have held a baby in place, while mother worked with her hands and rocked with her feet. When baby was asleep or grown, the ladder could be pulled up to allow more than one adult to sit on the rocker. Ingenious!

So now, armed with more knowledge and appreciation of what once was, I am hard at work on new projects. Come back next week to learn more about one such project, when we launch Frontier Engagement on Nineteenteen.

Taking a Writer Back in Time: Pioneer Farm Museum

For a historical writer, first-hand accounts of the time period and well-researched history books are wonderful resources, but sometimes the answer to a pesky question can only be found by going back in time.  I would have loved to hitch a ride with the Doctor or hop into Mr. Verne's time machine, but for my current work in progress, set in Washington Territory in 1866, I opted for something a little more easily obtained:  a trip to Pioneer Farm Museum near Eatonville, Washington.

Pioneer Farm is one of those wonderful museums geared toward children, so everything is very hands on.  That’s an incredible bonus to a writer.  In a more traditional museum, many things are behind glass, so you can describe what your eyes see but only guess at the other senses.  At a museum like Pioneer Farm, you get to touch and smell and taste and hear what life was like in the late nineteenth century on the frontier.  I gleefully followed our tour guides around from the general store to the school house to the three cabins, barn, and blacksmith’s shop, peppering them with questions and poking my nose into everything.

So, what did I learn on my visit?

Planked wooden floors creak.  With every step. 

 Forges fired with coal really stink.

Oil lamps aren't really bright enough to read by, but they do warm up a curling iron nicely.

It takes a lot of time and work to grate enough cinnamon for one pie.

A lady could lay in the bottom of a wagon bed and not be noticeable from the street (key plot point, there!).

Pioneer Farm Museum is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing living history, environmental, and cultural education through hands-on activities.  If you happen to be in the area, I highly recommend a visit. 

I know some of you have been to great museums in your area.  Any recommendations to share?