Isolation

I was trying to find some good images of homesteading to compare with the isolation some may be feeling currently. Since I am working in isolation it is a bit more challenging, although I do have online connection to some of the Historical Society’s collections.

Early homesteaders might find themselves isolated for months at a time in the winter, and even fair weather often meant hard work, getting food and supplies to weather winter, and prove up. Imagine being in a small one room cabin with spouse and kids. Heat comes from a woodstove, or fireplace, which also doubles for cooking and heating water. No indoor plumbing, a root cellar for perishables. No wifi. Sometimes the only book might be a Bible.

Not a homesteader but a seeker of gold, Peter Tofft painted an ideal scene of himself hunkered down by the fire, reading. Cozy view, though if you look you will see corner of bed at right and table, food and clothing suspended from ceiling and walls to avoid nesting and nibbling of mice and other varmints. That’s not a TV over the fireplace, but a painting, connection to others is through books or imagination, occasional trips to town for necessities, mail, and news.

My Cabin, Montana, 1866, by Peter Tofft, watercolor, MHS 1996.89.01

Ledger Art

Prairie Edge sent me a tease for Ledger Art, as a place in history, and the lives of the Plains Indians. It joggled my poor brain and brought to mind the winter count we have in the collections here.

As I understand, winter counts were (are) records of events that happen over a period of time. Usually one image for an important event each year.

I must put in a disclaimer here, that I am a simple exhibit designer, not a historian. And though I pick up information from my more scholarly co-workers, I might express it somewhat sideways (less than factual).

Our winter count shows images for a flood (1825), for a meteor shower (1833) the year that “the stars fell”, inter-tribal tiffs, victories, hard winters, and 1838, second year of smallpox.

We are living this historic event, but so too did people in the past. How might you depict an accounting of your life.

Winter Count by Waníyetu Wowápi Tȟá Matȟó Wakȟáŋ (Medicine Bear), Yanktonai Sioux, deer hide, ink, paint, ca. 1823-1911. Gift of Lee Enterprises, ex Col. Mathew Lohmiller, MHS 1976.14.01

Behind the Scenes

There is a process occurring behind the scenes here at the Montana Historical Society. Work comes in to be catalogued, condition-reported and carefully put away. When we look at objects, or art, for possible exhibition, we assess items for their looks, sure, but also for their back story (their provenance), their condition (in need of conservation, or good to go?), and how well they fit the story we are trying to tell.

We look at their mount needs (how we will display them) and case needs (how we will protect them). We think about how long an item will need to be on exhibit and plan ways to mitigate exposure on items susceptible to damage caused by light. Clothing might need a mannequin; artwork, matting and framing; other items small mounts or supports to allow an item to “shine.” Archival and fragile items may need rotation.

It is a process we are used to, but from the outside it may seem as if, in between mounting exhibits, that we aren’t we’re doing much. Protecting and sharing our history is a charge we take seriously. And like so many professions, what one sees is only a small part of what we do.

Long Sleeve

We have in our collections a beautiful Chinese shirt, which we sent out for conservation before our Forgotten Pioneer exhibit. When the shirt came back, the conservator made the comment that the person who wore it must have been a gorilla because the sleeves were inordinately long and the shirt itself quite broad.

For each exhibit we produce, we try to respect the customs and culture depicted. Our Chinese exhibit challenged us in many ways to try to depict the Chinese in Montana and show the clothing in our collections to our best understanding. In my scramble to understand this shirt and other items of clothing I had to reach into my poor memory banks—for I was sure I had seen images of Chinese wearing clothing with overlong sleeves. And indeed, I did find that the Chinese had quite rigorous protocol for clothing, color, and symbols which reflected social status and profession. This lovely shirt with its overlong sleeves may have been worn/owned by a scholar, definitely someone of a higher status since the sleeves would interfere with manual labor.

Each exhibit we do, especially when depicting another culture, challenges my cultural bias—forcing me to try to be as sensitive as possible to representing our collections in the most respectful way I or we understand. We try to include consultants to help us in that endeavor, and to correct things when we get them wrong.

MHS catalog Numbers: 1986.79.21, 1986.79.94, 1986.79.105, and L2014.08.05 (even this image may misrepresent how this shirt was worn, mixing clothing items from different classes to represent the human form.) 

Loss and Darkness

This place of loss and darkness—we’ve been here before…in transitional stages, birth, adolescence, school, vocation, war, marriage, …to death, whether those we love, or ourselves. What gives us strength, the courage to continue?

One hears on the news that people are returning to family time, creativity, connection, stories. Past cultures gathered together in slow times (winter), those times when story, community, family, played a larger role: time of rest and replenishment, especially of the spirit.

Miners in the Stope, Paul Sample, MHS Museum

What We Carry

Our predecessors, and even ourselves, carried or kept some mementos to help them move forward during hard times. A soldier or warrior might carry a Bible or cross, an amulet or power shirt, maybe a photo of loved ones, a lock of hair. Pioneers carried what they could, sometimes having to jettison possessions along the way. There are stories of abandoned pianos and other furnishings littering the plains as the struggle toward a new land proved harder than was imagined. Pared down to the essence, still we humans hold on to that one most important “thing”—photo, amulet, book, lock of hair—kept secret, kept close to bide one through the darkness.

I muse on this, as this morning I put on earrings, gifts from good friends, and my mom, to shore me up on another day, working remotely, in isolation. I am fortunate to have my dogs, my friends and birth family, to work at a job I love, with passionate and dedicated people. We are not so much different from our predecessors living in remote homesteads, or camps, looking forward to spring and gathering together again in community.

Journey through collections on our home page MHS.mt.gov to see what has been carried, saved, treasured. Journey through your own life to find what carries you.

Immigrant's Trunk,  MHS 2013.76.01

Baking Bread

Baking bread yesterday I got to thinking about bread baking in the past. I guess, it is a “thing” right now to be baking bread when everyone is trying to limit outside ventures, but in the past usually if one wanted bread, one made it themselves. My understanding is that there was a reliance in capturing “wild yeast” (sourdough), since neat little packets of dry yeast, or even cake yeast was not readily available. Sometimes a starter was shared and kept nurtured. Interesting to note that some sourdough was replaced by “berm” from beer making, and that baker’s yeast has been available for less than 150 years. (thanks to our friends at Wikipedia).

Here’s an image of Evelyn Cameron making bread in her kitchen, 1904-1908 (slow rising bread). Note her multiple-use surfaces. No fancy appliances, or marble counter tops.

I remember from my early days of baking that older recipes would talk about baking in a slow, moderate, or hot oven—wood stoves had 3 temperatures—slow/moderate/hot. Moderate was roughly the temperature one wanted for baking of bread—maintaining and regulating temperature was a skill. I bet the learning curve produced some chewy results!