Items from a By-Gone Era

Gabrielle Here:

Recently, I visited a few historic sites with fellow author, Erica Vetsch. I'm always amazed when I go to a museum, or historic site, and find an object that would have been common to people from a by-gone era, but looks completely foreign now. Some items remain timeless (think toilet or bicycle), but many come and go.

I worked at the Charles A. Lindbergh Historic Site for ten years and we had quite a few of those unique objects. One of my favorite things to do was stump our visitors. I'd hold up an item that someone could have easily identified in 1910--and would receive hundreds of guesses.

Here are two items that were common in the early 1900's. Have you seen or heard of them before?

Item #1 is a glove stretcher. This would have been used
most often by a woman. When she washed and dried her gloves,
they would shrink. She would put the narrow
end into her glove fingers and squeeze the handles,
stretching out the material. 

Item #2 is a hair receiver. It would have sat on a lady's
dresser. As she combed her hair, she would take the pieces
which came out on the brush and place them in the receiver.
Hair was commonly used in making jewelry, mourning
wreaths, and hair "rats." A rat would be a clump of hair
that they would pin in place, and then wrap their existing hair
around it to give more volume.

This is an example of a mourning wreath. The flowers
were made of hair from the lady who died.

This was the picture of the "Gibson Girl" she
was the epitome of feminine beauty. Her hairstyle
would have been produced with a hair rat to give it
height and volume.

This is a hair rat in the early stages.
This picture came from Gibson Glamour Blog
and was hair collected over a two week
period of time. Once hairsprays were
invented, the hair rat went out of style.

Your Turn: Have you seen these items before? What modern, every day items do we use now that might become a thing of the past? What did you use as a child that someone today might not recognize?

Gabrielle Meyer lives in central Minnesota on the banks of the Mississippi River with her husband and four children. As an employee of the Minnesota Historical Society, she fell in love with the rich history of her state and enjoys writing fictional stories inspired by real people and events.

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