Roberta McKern
When we enter the East Linn Museum, thoughts of England’s Queen Victoria don’t come readily to mind. Still, her era’s influences directly reflect on our area and many of the artifacts on display here.
For one thing, Victoria reigned from 1837 to her death in 1901. England was then reaching its peak as a commercial and colonial power, and that era has become conveniently associated with Victoria.
“Britannia ruled the waves” and “the sun never set on the British Empire.” As far as our area goes, when Victoria became queen, Oregon was on the verge of being settled. Upon her death, we had a state and prosperity was being encouraged.
An interesting aside involves our relationship with England and its trade with China. In the 1830s and ’40s. England conducted the Opium Wars with China, primarily to force open the doors of trade. England had opium from India and wanted to trade for tea from China. The Chinese government banned opium, and war ensued. Chinese junks (sailing ships) were no match for the English Navy and England got trade ports, including Hong Kong. American merchants followed right behind.
In 1833, England banned slavery throughout the commonwealth, but with China in the offing, a new source of labor was found: the “Coolie” system. Work gangs from China and India were organized, and “coolie” labor was shipped to various colonies.
Following suit, Americans hired up to 10,000 Chinese to work, mainly on our western railroads. They were dollar-a-day men, brought in to labor but not to linger, although some did, adding to our diversity.
That’s how Chinese workers ended up on the Santiam Pass in the 1890s, building – it was hoped – Col. E.T. Hogg’s Yaquina-to-Ontario railroad, financed in part by English investors. In the end, on the pass by Hogg Rock, all that remained was a railroad car with a load of one sack of beans and a mile of track. A mule pulled the car daily along the track as a working line in order to maintain a franchise. And the “gin jugs,” the Tiger whiskey jugs on the organ in the museum’s family room, also stayed behind.
In Victoria’s era, not all railroads succeeded, but it was an age of steam and fossil fuels as time progressed. Here at the museum, we are mostly concerned about the queen and her domesticity. For her time she was a symbol of motherhood and marital fidelity. Never mind her being the granddaughter of King George III, who lost the American colonies. Her role as a wife and mother proved very influential. This was also despite her being married to her cousin, Albert.
The couple produced nine children and shared a happy home life. When Albert died at age 42 of typhoid, Victoria famously went into perpetual mourning, setting a worldwide trend.
Considering the lack of peace among European nations eager to gain and maintain colonies around the globe with a little war here, a mutiny there and an ongoing skirmish or two, plenty of widows were left to emulate Victoria. America, too, had an uncivil civil war.
This involved wearing black jet buttons and mourning jewelry for ladies copying Victoria. In our modest East Linn neighborhood, black glass buttons sufficed, worn in profusion. Some can be found in the museum’s sewing section.
During Victoria’s time, the middle classes received increasing importance due in part to growing trade networks as colonies opened up and transportation improved. If the British led, the Americans and other nations were right in the race. Although it was a miserable time for some – especially those at the bottom of the labor market – manufacturing proliferated. Never before had there been so many things to choose from. Flaunting possessions proved a good way to boast of wealth and status – not that anyone would do that here, of course!
If Queen Victoria ruled England when the country was very close to the peak of its powers, both as far as colonizing and merchandising went, we here in America happily aped English trends toward opulence and status. This has been called the Gilded Age. Even the East Linn area could be caught in the ripple effect traveling outward, carrying Victorian influences. So as we traverse the museum, we can come across examples of Victoriana, relatively unassuming as they may be.
That’s false modesty. Some are quite nice, although Victoria certainly would not have felt at home here. But maybe where she lived, the developed Victorian trend of piling excess on excess didn’t apply.
We can start with two parlor organs, one leading into the museum’s household room while the other graces the parlor. Each is a cathedral of music, tall with decorative trim and shelving upon which lamps can rest. We can envision them pumping out “Nearer My God to Thee” or “Red Wing.” The 1896 Sears catalog, advertises similar instruments at prices announced as “$41.50 buys a $100 organ” and “$56 buys a $250 parlor organ.” People who took pride in owning such possessions used to haul their organs into a front yard so they could be photographed with them.
Another piece of Victoriana in the parlor is the lounge. Lounges with raised headrests have been called fainting couches by some, and they seem to be in line with what we know of Victorian corsetry. Ladies were often tightly and uncomfortably laced up to achieve an 18-inch waist. A lounge might allow them to loll in place while trying to relax despite prodding stays.
This would not do in polite company, which makes the couches a little hard to understand. Anyone lolling would likely look wanton, which might destroy illusions of propriety. And propriety counted in Queen Victoria’s time. Some models of similar couches were actually made with hidden bathtubs inside.
One thing any good parlor of that era would have to include would have been a what-not shelf, or a “cabinet of curiosities.” Either would fit in with seeing the 19th century as a particular time of expansion and exploration, reflecting the broader knowledge of the world being gained geographically and scientifically.
Souvenirs decorated Victorian parlors, and shells, vases, rocks and stuffed birds often vied for space with porcelain from the Orient, brasses from India and conch shells from the Philippines.
The museum has Norval Rice’s what-not-shelf and could use a conch shell or two. The what-not frame is definitely in the “spool” style, having been constructed of collected and stained spools for sewing thread arranged on a heavy wire. A parlor trick for an obstreperous child would be to make him or her count them.
One what-not knick-knack is a squirrel nutcracker. Unusual nutcrackers list among gadgets loved by Victorians. No doubt these contraptions proved useful when a dinner menu included everything “from soup to nuts.” Apparently, it was the style for men to linger at the table after dinner, smoking and cracking nuts. The ladies went off to chat elsewhere and, presumably, servants cleared away the remains of dessert.
If George Washington had a squirrel nutcracker, he would not have cracked walnuts with his teeth and perhaps would have avoided ill-fitting dentures.
Compared with photographs of Victorian parlors, the museum’s limited example is austere. Victorian decor lavished excess upon excess. Wherever there was drapery, there was also likely to be a bow, especially if a mantel were involved.
The Hottentot stove in the museum’s parlor is something of an example. Topped with a nickle-plated finial, the stove also sports discretely raised scrolls on its exterior. Its name, Hottentot, reflects the 19th century opening up of Africa, as it was the name of a people there. Scroll work could appear on anything. A seed separator displays painted scroll work in the museum’s back room.
In line with the squirrel nutcracker is a bookend stand on the first organ inside the household room, along with the Hogg Rock gin jugs. Representing a rollicking buccaneer armed with a sword, it pulls up an image, perhaps, from Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel, “Treasure Island.”
Or, even more perhaps, it might represent Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., in an early movie role based on the tale of piracy featuring Long John Silver and an image of derring-do popular among Victorian romanticists.
A nearby platform rocker offers a more domestic point of view, however. Its style matches that of the parlor organs. A small chair upholstered in dark blue velvet, it’s more formal in feeling than a chair befitting a roly-poly grandmother. In fact, despite its age, it looks as if it’s to be admired more than used; maybe that’s why it’s well-preserved.
By the end of Queen Victoria’s reign and lifetime, the 19th century also drew to a close. And in many respects, the bloom was off the Victorian rose. Excessive exploitation of people and environments were already dimming the exuberance which once marked the world of Queen Victoria, Empress of India.
In truth, much of the Victorian times did mean gritty hard work for those at the bottom of the social ladder. Yet often these were the craftspeople who mass-produced the castor sets holding cruets of oil and vinegar and salt-and-pepper shakers like one in the museum’s front room. Included, too, were the glassblowers who hand-finished vases and whimsies for the what-not shelves. The automobile, urbanization, and muckraking attempts to break up unfair monopolies in the United States were coming.
When we think of Victoriana, we don’t often have the resolute, double-chinned queen and her numerous progeny in mind – at least, not for the most part. There are times when we might recall how, like the little turtledove, she mourned for her mate.
This might bring to mind, for some of us, the image of a Prince Albert tobacco can with the picture, supposedly the Prince, in a cutaway suit jacket like the red, black and white can in the museum’s mining room. The sturdy little can was once nailed to a tree and held papers marking a mining claim. For some of us, these cans may bring back other memories of when they were still available. Because they were flattened to fit into a pocket and had hinged lids, they sometimes served for carrying fish worms.
However, Albert was a dearly beloved husband, and his queen lived a long and representative life that saw many changes. Plus, she gave her name to an era and a way of life somewhat represented through a few pieces of furniture and artifacts at the East Linn Museum.
We sincerely thank all who made the museum yard sale a success, all who donated goods, helped set up the sale, tended it, made purchases and aided in clearing up. It is our big fundraiser, and means the museum will go on.
Thank you, indeed.