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Salem museum puts underwear on display
A museum display gets down to the basics.
SALEM — The Salem Historical Society & Museum may have the most interesting exhibit during Smithsonian Magazine’s Museum Day: underwear.
The day is designed to highlight museums across the nation. Some 651 museums across the nation took part last year, and more than 900 museums are participating this year.
People can go the magazine’s Web site and print out free admission tickets to the museum of their choice.
It’s the fourth year of Museum Day and the first year the local historical society is taking part, said director David Stratton.
The society will present its ongoing exhibit called “Victorian Secrets” that reveals the basics of dressing. It is mostly focused on the Victorian era that began in the 1830s and ended in the early 1900s.
Stratton said the Smithsonian plan may or may not bring in more visitors.
Janice Lesher, the museum’s curator, said people are interested “in how people lived their daily life.”
In fact, the oldest item in the society’s entire collection is a pair of “very early men’s trousers.”
The garment dates to the 1700s. The thin pants are made of linen but also have sewn-on foot covers made of cotton.
The pants that came from Scotland, possibly with someone in them, were called “trews,” which may have been the origin of the word trousers, she said.
In the 1850s, round hoops covered with fabric gave women a bell shape. That eventually turned into the bustle. A mannequin at the museum wears a curved wire basket in the small of its back but under its garments to make its dress protrude at the back.
Lesher said the bustle was simply a new fashion.
How could a woman wearing a bustle sit without falling off a chair?
“It could be done. But she had to be careful,” Lesher said.
Most of the garments that survived were of good quality. Work clothes generally wore out.
The early garments were all hand-sewn, including leather shoes for adults and children.
The same christening garments were used by infant girls and boys.
Lesher said, “They were often heirlooms that were used by generations.”
Perhaps the most racy item is a woman’s undergarment consisting of a series of cloth circles loosely joined together. Lesher described it as “mostly decorative.”
Baths were far from the steamy pleasures of today’s indoor plumbing.
Homes at the time didn’t have indoor plumbing.
The exhibit includes a large metal saucer placed in front of a fireplace, just as it was 100 years ago. A built-in metal box was the seat, and a bucket-sized recess in the center held the hot water.
One of the problems with the Saturday night bath of yesteryear was that the water was probably used by more than one family member, Lesher added.
wilkinson@vindy.com