With tickets now on sale for our yearly Tea Party at the Ingomar Club in Carson Mansion,  we wanted to share some more information on the history of tea parties- and some photos of the beautiful tea sets we have in the museum collections!

While nowadays tea and England are seen as inseparable as pumpkin spice and autumn, it wasn’t always that way. Tea was traditionally grown and cultivated in Asia and arrived in England via trade routes, however in the early 1800s, tea was being cultivated in England and decreasing in price, making it more available to the general public. Before widespread sanitation practices, tea could be safer than commonly available drinking water due to boiling the water before steeping the tea.

As with most fashion trends, tea parties started with the royalty. Traditionally, meals in England were eaten twice a day: Breakfast in the early morning and dinner around 8 pm. The Duchess of Bedford (who happened to be a close friend of Queen Victoria of Victorian Era fame), began ordering tea and snacks in the early afternoon to fend off what she called a “sinking feeling” in the afternoon. The afternoon snacking session grew when she began inviting friends for tea and gossip and the concept of a tea party caught on like wildfire. With Queen Victoria’s attendance at some of these teas, they became staples of society and were mimicked with modifications by the middle and lower classes, creating a myriad of tea events such as

While the concept of tea time hasn’t become something of a daily ritual in America as it is in England, the tea parties made it into the American imagination through books like Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, which originated right around the same time as the rise in popularity of tea time.

While looking through the collections to find teacups for this article, I came across this little gem of a cup shaped like a shell. Turns out it was a souvenir purchased in Arcata! 

We hope to see you at our upcoming tea party at the Carson Mansion! If you haven't gotten tickets yet, be sure to purchase them here! Not a member but want to attend? You can sign up to be a member here or stop by the museum to sign up!

This year FLEW by at the Museum, and as we were compiling our annual report, we had the difficult decision of determining what the highlights of our year were. There were a LOT of highlights to choose from, which I take as a great sign. You can see what made the cut in our freshly-published Annual Report here!

Celebrations and festivals around this time of year across cultures focus on the idea of being thankful for the bounty at the end of the harvest season, and celebrating the gains of the last year in preparation for a new year.  

At the Museum, there's a lot to be thankful for this year.  

Here are our staff’s favorite memories from this past year:

Ben, Museum Director: My favorite moment occurred during the Arts and Cultural Festival. While the public was writing personal reflections on what the redwoods mean to them, a woman got teary-eyed while telling me about how important the redwoods are for her, particularly during a difficult time in her life. The event really brought the community together, everyone I saw that day really had a positive experience, I don't remember ever seeing so many happy Eurekans at one time!
Brittany: my favorite memory of 2018 has been helping out with tabling and wheat-pasting for the Clarke's Opera Alley exhibit during the Eureka Street Art Festival and people sharing their favorite memories of the Redwoods. As well as getting to see the Native American collection more in depth and seeing something new every day.
Katie: ​ My favorite memory for this year was hosting our Redwood National and State Parks exhibit opening on July 7! I have a long history with the National Parks and putting together an exhibit and event to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Redwood National and State Parks was a fantastic experience for me. It was a really fun event and I'm happy that the exhibit was received so warmly.

Part of looking back is also looking forward- where do we want to go? What do we want to do next year? What do we want to do differently this next year? We’ve already got fun plans for next year including:

With an action-packed year ahead of us, 2019 is a great year to become a member and get in on the action. Your membership helps us keep the lights on and the doors open, put on fun events and share stories from our county’s past with kids, visitors, and our community,. As we always say: History is for Everyone!

Please consider joining us in 2019 as a member as part of this year’s membership drive- or getting a membership for a friend or family member this holiday season.  

It turns out that our current display of Cora Wright’s works may include the works of two artists-both named Cora Wright, who were both painting around the same time period.

Although some of Cora Wright’s paintings are unsigned, a closer look at the signed ones reveals an interesting detail. The style of Cora’s signatures varies slightly, but usually includes a characteristic side to side squiggle under the g in Wright. The second Cora’s signature is fully capitalized, with a capital G in place of the characteristic squiggle. It also looks like this painting features trees reminiscent of pepper trees, which grow in the southern part of the state where Cora Alice Akers Wright was painting. Check out the comparison photos below:

The Museum was previously unaware of Cora Alice Akers Wright and we are happy to share this new development with you! We would like to thank Eric Klepl for sharing this insight with us.  

If you've been by the Museum in the last week or so, you may have seen a scaffolding set up with a light on top and a person meticulously chipping away at the area around the historic bank clock.

The long-term plan is to restore the building interior to its original appearance, by repainting the wall and ceiling detailing, updating lighting, and re-installing previously removed chandeliers. We always say that our historic building is our number one artifact and, following protecting the building with our recently installed new roof, restoration is the second step we take to ensure that its historical value remains intact. 

Lisa Jarrow
Bob White Electric
​Chuck Petty

We're happy to share the press release about a recent collaboration with Eureka's Redwood Curtain Theater to display part of the Katherin Burleson local Veteran portrait collection, which is housed at the Clarke Museum.

Redwood Curtain welcomes a unique exhibit to their lobby gallery walls for the months of October and November. Working in conjunction with the Clarke Museum, the theatre gallery will feature portraits of Humboldt County Veterans as drawn by local artist Kathrin Burleson. Burleson created a portrait project after getting involved with the Honor Flight program several years ago. Honor Flight is an organization that takes World War II (WWII) veterans to Washington DC to see the memorial built in their honor. While on the Honor Flight as a travel companion, Burleson started drawing portraits of the flight participants. The project grew to document all of Humboldt County’s WWII veterans and there are currently 170 portraits.  

After starting the portrait project, Burleson recognized the historical significance of the undertaking – particularly as most of the veterans she has drawn are no longer living and the ones still alive are in their 90s. This project took Burleson the better part of two years. She found it was a beautiful way to honor service men and women from Humboldt County and to learn many interesting stories along the way and she says it’s been one of her favorite projects.

This November's Arts Alive will feature the opening of a new exhibit of artwork by Cora Wright in celebration of her 150th birthday this December. Below is a short telling of Cora's life in Eureka with her husband Charles and son, Carl. 

 Cora taught classes in easel and ceramic painting in her home studio, and produced a plethora of her own works featuring still life subjects, redwoods, and scenery from the Klamath River area. She was very popular in Humboldt County, with her works collected by Sarah Carson (wife of lumber baron William Carson) and museum founder Cecile Clarke. Some of her artwork was even displayed in the Humboldt County exhibits at state and international exhibitions, including the Panama Pacific International Exposition (1915), California State Fair (1926) and the Golden Gate International Exposition (1939).