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Thread Number: 2503
Blue Monday: Doing Laundry in America |
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Post# 71901 6/30/2005 at 08:34 (6,868 days old) by Unimatic1140  (Minneapolis) |
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Hi-- Found your website and thought the membership would be interested in the exhibition opening here in Lexington, MA next month. In fact, if you have an e-mail list of collectors or enthusiasts who might be interested in the show, I'd be happy to e-mail them with the information if you think that would be appropriate. You have a great site! --Linda Patch For Immediate Release Contact: Linda Patch Lpatch@sprynet.com 781-862-6541 Blue Monday: Doing Laundry in America At the National Heritage Museum, Lexington, MA July 30, 2005 through March 4, 2006 "More young women break down their strength with washing than with any other toil..."Julia McNair Wright, The Complete Home, 1879 In any household, from the 1700s to today, laundry always needs doing. Housewives, writers of domestic advice, and manufacturers have described laundry as a problem, but one that could be taken care of with work, method, good soap, plenty of water and the occasional secret recipe for removing spots. The vast majority of people responsible for solving this problem through the ages were women. Some were rich and some were poor; they lived on farms, in cities or even traveled on the Overland Trail-but they all needed to find a way to do the laundry. "Blue Monday: Doing Laundry in America" premiering at the National Heritage Museum, July 30, 2005 to March 4, 2005, tells the story of how domestic technology, gender roles, and consumer culture have met and mixed around a ubiquitous household task. The exhibition will explore how laundry was done in times past and who did it-be it housewives, servants, laundresses or laundrymen. It also examines the different innovations that inventors have developed to lighten the burden on laundry day as well as how manufacturers and marketers sought to sell soap, washing machines and a whole host of laundry-related products to American women. Mostly, it looks how doing laundry has both changed and remained the same over the last two hundred years. In creating this exhibition, the Museum is working with local collectors Joseph and Lillian Shapiro. Their business enterprise, Lundermac Company, which provides coin-operated washing machines for apartment buildings and dormitories, fueled their interest in historic technologies for getting dirty clothes clean. They have been collecting laundry-related material since 1983, and now have more than 5,000 objects. The majority of the material displayed in "Blue Monday" comes from the Shapiros' collection. The collection has never before been exhibited to the public. Included in "Blue Monday" will be washing tools from the 1700s to the present. Innovative hand and electric-powered washing machines, wringers, mangles, irons, creative advertising, colorful laundry product packaging, engaging store displays, soap crates, and toys that taught children how to do laundry will be on view. Visitors will also see the machines and products that manufacturers sold with promises to make "wash day a pic-nic" with soap that worked "like lightning in the laundry," or a washing machine that was simply a "woman's friend." "Blue Monday" will also introduce some of the housewives, laundresses and laundry workers who got the wash done. These women managed, week after week, to handle the job one home economist called "...the bane of the American housemother's professional life." After seeing how doing laundry has shaped Americans' time and lives, visitors to "Blue Monday" will very likely want to, "go put on a clean dress, brew cup of tea, set and rest and rock a spell and count blessings," as Utah pioneer Sarah Ann Prince used to do after she completed a day of washing in the 1870s. The National Heritage Museum is dedicated to presenting exhibitions on a wide variety of topics in American history and popular culture. The Museum is supported by the Scottish Rite Freemasons in the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction of the United States. The Museum is located at 33 Marrett Road in Lexington, at the corner of Route 2A and Massachusetts Avenue. Hours are Monday through Saturday from 10 am-5 pm, and Sunday, noon-5 pm. Admission and parking are free. Heritage Shop and Courtyard Café on site. For further information contact the Museum at (781) 861-6559. For more information, visit our web site at www.monh.org... . Images for the exhibition are available. Please contact Linda Patch at 781-862-6541, Lpatch@sprynet.com. | ||
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