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New Exhibit! Victorian Halloween and Death by Fashion

9/30/2018

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For the month of October, we will be featuring a new 2-part mini exhibit in the Museum’s Victorian Room, with a display on Victorian Halloween parties and dangerous fashion trends from the Victorian period.
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Many of the Halloween traditions we have in the United States today can be traced back to the Victorian period. For example, early origins of the trick or treat tradition come from this period, where the tradition of giving food to the poor to ward off evil spirits that might otherwise cause mischief while the veil between the living and the dead was thinnest, was still alive and well. In future decades, this would turn into giving children candy as part of trick or treating.  In true Victorian fashion, this time of year was a popular time for parties.

Victorian Halloween Parties

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A Victorian bat costume. Oftentimes, dresses were altered to become costumes.
The big focus for Victorians at Halloween however, was hosting parties and playing parlor games. In Halloween parlor games specifically, the Victorians focused a lot on different methods of divination, trying to determine their own futures and the futures of their friends and family. This was connected to the rise of Spiritualism, an American religious movement that focused around communicating with spirits and using these communications to predict the future, oftentimes by using divination practices derived from other cultural and religious traditions. Halloween games during this period were typically played by the younger generations of Victorians, many of whom ascribed to Spiritualist ideas, whereas older generations saw the divination games as designations of a lack of intelligence.
In the Parlor, we have an example of one of these Halloween traditions geared towards divining. A fruitcake would be baked with tokens inside: a thimble, a ring, a key, a button, and a coin. Each attendee would get a slice of the cake, passed out by the oldest person in the room, and if you got one of the tokens, it was said to predict your future for the next year as a spinster or bachelor (thimble), married (ring), wealthy (coin), finding love (button) or going on a journey (key).
Another popular game involved a woman standing in front of a mirror in a darkened room with a knife and an apple. Different versions of the game exist, however a more common version was peeling the apple in front of the mirror, which would reveal the person that the woman would marry or a skeleton if they were to die before they were married. Apple bobbing was also popular, with the belief that whoever would get an apple first would be the next to get married.  ​
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Photo Courtesy of Mimi Matthews

Death by Fashion

The Victorian Period was a time of rapid change. Mass production fueled by the Industrial Revolution in Britain increased access to a number of products and altered many parts of Victorian life, including fashion. These advances, however, took their toll on the people producing them, namely factory workers. There are records of many fashion trends killing those who worked in the factories and clothing industries, and we recognize some of those fashion trends here.
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A cartoon commenting on the deadly nature of Arsenic Green dresses
With the rise of the electric light, women were interested in brighter colored fabrics for evening dresses, including green. With improvements in chemistry, synthetic dyes were being created, including vibrant, emerald shades that were produced using a common household product at the time: Arsenic. Green arsenic powder would be dusted onto fabric, artificial flowers, wallpaper, and more to produce an alluring green color. The production process, however, led to the deformation and eventual gruesome death of hundreds of factory workers who dusted the arsenic powder on the items day after day. Arsenic ingestion causes a number of problems, including rashes and sores, delirium and eventually death. Once the powder was on the product, it could also affect those that interacted with the item, producing sores and scabs on the skin. It was estimated that a single arsenic green dress contained enough arsenic to kill 20 people.  Children who spent a lot of time around arsenic products also fell ill, and died in some cases.  One of the origins of the term femme fatale came from a term for wealthy women who wore arsenic green dresses. Following the discovery that arsenic green was hazardous and deadly, a long tradition of avoiding green in the textile industry followed, as it was believed that using green fabric was bad luck.
The Victorian period is also known as a time when upper class women wore layers and layers of rich, heavy fabrics to illustrate their wealth. These fabrics were supported by a crinoline, a cage-like undergarment worn under heavy skirts to support them and add volume. While they did reduce the layers of petticoats (underskirts) that women had to wear to add volume to their dresses, the crinolines created their own set of problems for the wearer. 
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A cartoon commenting on the effect of windy days on crinolines
They allowed the wearer to pile on elaborate folds of fabric that extended outward, which could be unexpectedly caught under carriage wheels, in machinery, or unexpectedly bump into lit candles or fireplaces, lighting the wearer on fire. Some estimates claim that in a 14-year period (1850-1864), almost 40,000 women worldwide had died from crinoline-related fires. These fires were often also attributed to flammable fabrics used in dresses.

Be sure to stop by and see our mini-exhibit during October!

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And We're Back!

9/16/2018

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After a needed hiatus, the Clarke Museum Blog is back! There's been a good amount going on around the museum as the summer wraps up, from events to school tours, to new interns and building construction. Here's the update:

Raise the (New) Roof

Thanks to the Benbow Inn, the Lytel Foundation, the McLean Foundation, Alves Inc. and Bruce Pettit, the Clarke was able to get a brand new roof installed on the historic Bank of Eureka building side of the museum. It's sure to protect our historic building and museum collections for decades to come!

Pillars Get a New "Light" on Life

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A few months ago, we received a donation of two pillars that once stood in the Amelia and Sumner Carson Mansion. The Pillars were wired for lights, however the fixtures had been removed. We were able to find two light fixtures in the collection that were originally from the Mansion that were installed onto the pillars, creating a wonderful effect on our museum entry space. Thank you to Board Member Chuck Petty and Museum Director Ben Brown for setting those up!

Opera Alley Display a Huge Hit

Thanks to Arcata High School photography students, Redwood National and State Parks staff, and Darcy Brown, we were able to enlist the help of the public to put up a fun and touching public display of Redwood Stories on our Opera Alley wall. Stories were accepted during the opening night of our Redwoods Provide(d) exhibit on July 7 and during the Eureka Street Art Festival in August. Hundred of people stopped by the see the wall and close to 100 people contributed their stories. You can view all the stories here along with the photos on the wall that were taken by Arcata High School photography students under the direction of Johanna Mauro and Emily Evans.

Our Second Annual Labor Day Block Party...

...was a roaring success! This year's party included shish ke-babs with veggies and chicken, Al's Oysters,
 beer from Six Rivers, Lost Coast and Mad River brewing companies, wine from Violet-Green Winery. The Latin Peppers brought their sweet and spicy tunes out to Clarke Plaza while Wynsome Winds provided relaxing flute music to Nealis Hall. Thank you to all those who volunteered to help with this event and thank you to all those who came out to support! 
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The Clarke Goes Green!

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We've partnered with the Eureka Visitor Center and the Redwood Coast Energy authority to source 100% of our electricity from local and renewable resources through RCEA's REpower+ program. You can learn more about the conversion here!

Upcoming Exhibits

With changing seasons comes changing exhibits! The Victorian Room is getting a holiday makeover, with mini exhibits on Victorian Halloween traditions in October and Christmas Traditions in December.

​The Art Wall will also be changing to feature the works of local artist Cora Wright in celebration of her 150th birthday in December. The exhibit will be open for display on November 3.

With the end of summer, we're planning out next year's exhibits for the museum. The main hall exhibits will change three times in 2019, with exhibits on:
  • Humboldt Industries
  • Quilting and Community
  • Prohibition in Humboldt County (in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the beginning of Prohibition)
Nealis Hall exhibits will also be changing so stay tuned!
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Upcoming Events

The summer may be finishing up, but events at the Clarke are not!
  • October 6, 12 noon to 4 in Orick: Stand for the Redwoods Festival at Bald Hills Road-The Clarke hits the road to participate in the Stand For the Redwoods Festival in Orick in partnership with Save the Redwoods League and Redwood National and State Parks.
  • October 20, 10-4: Archaeology and Cultural Awareness Day- Learn more about local Native American cultures through the Cultural Passport event, see flintknappers in action, and learn more about what Archaeologists do around Humboldt County.
  • November 17, 1 pm at the Clarke Museum: Myrtle Grove Cemetery Talk by Milt Phegley
  • Early December: Clarke Museum Tea Party at The Ingomar Club (Carson Mansion)!- More details TBA, follow us on Facebook or check back on our website for more information and to get tickets once they go on sale.

Stop by the Clarke and See What's New!

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    Keep up with the Clarke through our Blog!
    Posts are sent out once a month with our monthly newsletter, but they post here throughout the month so check back each week for something new!

    ​Posts created by Katie Buesch, Interim Director-Curator unless otherwise noted.

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Clarke Historical Museum
240 E Street
​Eureka, California 95501
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(707) 443-1947
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