Exhibition Area and program design

Guys, I drew a 3D structure of the exhibition area. Hope this can help all of you on designing the exhibition.

Each of the white square on the floor is 3x3(feet) and the man and woman in the model is the regular size (5'' 9' tall). I think, this is a really small space and with not much place for putting the captions or other materials. 

ps, if you need other angles or information of this model, please ask. 

Program Design

I first build a 3D model based on the site plan we received from Drexel University. The space is obviously limited but there is still possible to put all thirteen objects. The exhibition space is separated into two parts. One is the controlled display area for rare artifacts; the other possible space is along the second glass wall on the other side. Due to the small space of the area. I plan to use only the controlled display area and put five objects in side. The corset is in the middle and four dresses on the side (Wedding Dress Combo, Trousseau Dress, Day Dress).

All the objects are set up vertically on a stand. This set up makes more sense, the corset in the middle is the inner wear of the dress and the dresses are the outfit. The height of the object should be at the height of an average woman in US. This design allows viewers to stand in from of the object as the object is actually worn by a person in front. 
All the other details I will share with you guys in the class.

Reading Blog – Nov. 26th

Reading Blog – Nov. 26^th

Smith, Mark M. Sensing the past : seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching in history. Berkeley : University of California Press, 2007. Print.

Seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, add touching are the basic senses of human. The core question in the reading is, how the senses changed through the history? What roles have the five senses played and how do they affected our society?

We experience these senses in our everyday life without doing anything. We usually just receive the senses through our organs. In page 117, Smith wrote that most historians and museum curators think that the sensory recreation for the past is both not possible and desirable. But I think what these historians and curators mean is to build a program that is only base on senses. For example, use only sounds to present the American history. Maybe it will become the head line of the news but it is not a way to operate a museum. But there are some commercial values in senses. There are shops that sell different smells in bottles. The shops are selling scents like, holy water, wet garden, dust, fire place, and even warm spring. The shop does not only sell the scents that exist. Some scents such as Italian kiss and California love are also in the list of choice.

I think what Smith means in the book is that a history documentary is best in language format, speaking and writing. An official documentary of history in smell or hearing is just not the way to do it. Looking carefully into the current museum program design, we can find out that there are installations of senses

        Smith points out that some scholars begun to insist that sensory history should offer a usable way to help the history “live”. They are hoping to find a better way to present their research and findings to the publics. I believe this is the correct way of the sensory history but it seems impossible to do. The ultimate question is how we recreate the senses in the past. All the materials that can help identify the senses are not exists anymore. Do the people in the past recognize the color like us? Different space-time background, different society, different understanding of fact and standard can make everything so varied. With the help of advanced technology we might be able to reach the goal but how to translate and express the senses objectively will be a big challenge.

        As for my object exhibition, this reading gave me a new direction of conducting it. I am thinking about put the top hat on a turning plate and surround it with some spot light. This design can reveal the unique glossy surface of the hat.

Reading Blog – Nov. 19th

(sorry guys, I uploaded only the partial of my thought few hours ago. here's the full text)

A head & shoulder product is a combination of three things, the ingredients, bottle holds the ingredients, and the label on the bottle. Dan Rose believes that it is a bundled phenomenon as cultural-natural object. The object, which is the Head & Shoulder product in this reading, can be seen as agents because the power of the product is strong enough to changed or influenced our life and behavior.

Dan Rose especially focuses on Wittgenstein’s theory and concludes that large companies use ingredients, package, writing to guide the consumers to follow their ways of living. He argues that verbal language is very concrete and definite, and so are the written words. The purposes of language are sending information and convince others to believe the message. Head & Shoulder product is the example Dan Rose uses here to explain how marketing skill turned the ingredients, container, and written label into a single material that manipulates our society.

object as agent is this weeks theme. an object can be used as a material to change a persons life. the invention of vitamin and its commercial slogan makes most of us start taking pills every morning. taking my object the man;s top hat as an example. maybe there was a company created the trend of wearing hats everyday. different material or accessories of the hat define people's social class. finding out how an object or its bundle objects rules the everyday may be the crucial key of presenting the object in the exhibition.

Reading Blog -- Nov. 12th

The first time I got a pair of blue jeans was a long time ago. I can’t even remember the feeling of getting my first pair of jeans. Actually, wearing jeans is so common that it even becomes a must own clothing in our everyday life. It is really hard to imagine how a pair of pant design for miners now comes in various fits, including skinny, tapered, straight, boot cut and flare. You can also get different colors rather than the original deep blue jeans. Jeans are now a very popular article of casual dress around the world.

This week’s reading is Blue Jeans by Daniel Miller and Sophie Woodward. It talks about an ordinary object, Jeans through series of interviews with people. They try to explain the social changes of British society by tracking the people’s thoughts about jeans through the years. The research raised the value of jean further into a normative of the British society.

Almost everyone in today’s society has a pair of jeans. Wearing jeans can make anybody virtually become an ordinary people on the street.

For immigrants, trying to blend in to a new society is a tough thing to do. They wear jeans to look like the locals. Sometimes they will wear certain outfits to show specific identities in different conditions. The struggle of the immigrants is, they are used to wear traditional outfit but knowing those kinds of outfits will only capture attentions from the public. Immigrants want to keep their original identity and also successfully merge into the new community.

What does the social meaning of wearing a pair of blue jeans? One of the reason people wear jeans is because it is more comfortable than other clothing. And this might be the reason why teenagers are more likely to wear jeans. Jeans are more fitted their identity and needs as a teenager.

In this reading, the argument is not about the functionality of the jeans. Wearing jeans is an action of seeking ones social identity. People want to be in the society or group they are familiar with. Wearing jeans is the easiest way to achieve this goal. But people also want to be unique in the society, trying not to be exactly the same as the others. Jeans is the perfect clothing for blend in but also standing out. You can wear blue jeans when you want to be impersonal. You can wear special designed red jeans to be outstanding and unique. 

Practicing Captions

Practicing Captions

#1

Object: Man’s top hat

Material: Silk flesh hat with grosgrain edge band, tiny metal mesh air hole at top.

Description: worn by L. Llewellyn W. Jones at his wedding with Violet W. Andrews in 1896 at St. Mary’s P.E. Church, 39th & Locust St., Philadelphia.

#2

This is a 19^th century man’s top hat worn by L. Llewellyn W. Jones at his wedding with Violet W. Andrews. At St. Mary’s P.E. Church, 39th & Locust St., Philadelphia. (3916 Locust Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104)

The material of the hat is silk with grosgrain edge band , tiny metal mesh air hole at top.

#3

This Man’s top hat was worn by L. Llewellyn W. Jones at his wedding with Violet W. Andrews. At St. Mary’s P.E. Church in Philadelphia. His hat is beautifully made with silk. The hat has a curvy edge decorated with another layer of silk grosgrain.

I will choose number three caption because it written in a tone which is more close to a real conversation. But after a more careful thinking, caption number three seems too complicated for viewers. Maybe a combination of caption one and three will be a better result for exhibition.

Object Exercise 3: Local Historical Context

I visited the St. Mary’s P.E. Church on October 2nd 2012. St, Mary’s church was a small church in 1860. The present church was completed in 1874 due to the need of expansion to fit the growing congregation in 1871.

From 1870 to 1914 is the Second Industrial Revolution. The invention of telephone, light bulb, vehicle, airplane totally changed the way society runs. The industry level and the economy level grow greatly during that time.

St. Mary’s church is located inside the school area of University of Pennsylvania. Behind the church in this picture is the Harrison college house of UPENN. Church itself is surrounded by new buildings and public spaces for students. Modern coffee shops and restaurants are located across the street. Maybe the surroundings of the church is new and unmatched to the church. When walking into the church, roof and its arch structure make it one of the most beautiful church I ever have been to.

The interior of the church does not change since the expansion in 1874. Only the altar was reconstructed in 1890.

The whole altar is a beautiful mosaic which is completed with marble and stone. Standing in the St. Mary’s church, I can almost feel the same atmosphere in January 1896 when Llewellyn W. Jones and Violet W. Andrews got married.

The marriage record of St. Mary’s church is kept in a red cover book. The record is categorized by years. According to the record, only six couple got married in 1896. The signature in the book looks like all the names were signed by the reverend on the church. It will be more interesting if it was signed by the people who are getting married.

The owner of the object was lived in Allegheny, Philadelphia. Like many neighborhoods in North Philadelphia, Allegheny is primarily a poor African-American enclave that has suffered post-industrial decline and disinvestment. I will need to do more research in order to presume the social and economic status of the top hat’s owner.

Reading Blog -- Oct. 29th

“Marx’s overcoat was to go in and out of the pawnshop throughout the 1850s and early 1860s. And his overcoat directly determined what work he could or could not do. If his overcoat was at the pawnshop during the winter, he could not go to the British Museum. If he could not go to the British Museum, he could not undertake the research for Capital.”

Marx’s coat shapes his entire life. The connection between Marx’s cloth and his life is not just a simple relation. There are more materials needed in Marx’s writing that is also connected to his coat. Marx needs writing material such as newspapers, books, pen, ink, and paper to write his book. The supply for these essential materials for Marx is relying on whether his coat is in the pawnshop or not. In Marx’s thinking, the functionality of his coat is not keeping warm; there is some other value of it. Marx’s coat explained not only the structure of the exploitation relationship between capitalist class and working class but also the on how tools effect workers.

Stallybrass argues that Marx’s theory on commodity should not be that straight and obvious. The study of materials around our life is the study of reaching human values and real life. Marx wrote about a cloth as a cell-form of capitalism in Capital. Stallybrass believes that other than the abstract value and the oppression of labor, clothes and objects construct people’s life and self-recognition. Marx’s clothes determine his everyday life. His coat not only controls whether he can go to the British museum but also control whether he has enough money to buy writing materials. We can say clothes have different meanings rather than just a cover of our body. Different age, social class, sex, occupation of the person who is wearing the clothes can make the clothes has varieties of meanings..

Along with the progressing of materials and the pattern of the clothes, people began to call this the language of the clothes. The multiple categories of the clothes and the social differences of the person created a reflection of our social world. But McKracken argues in his article that not every design is represented that significantly. For example, a dress is commonly known as a female’s clothes but a design that demonstrates the social status of a person will be relatively harder to categorize. McKracken thinks that describing clothing as a language is not accurate enough. The expressive properties of clothing will be vanished if we understand clothing as a language. In McKracken’s view, language is just a tool of communication. Which is not powerful enough to represents the cultural and social ability of the clothing. In my point of view, McKracken is taking the method of language of clothing too serious. The saying of “language of clothing” should be just discussing about the symbolic functionality of the clothing , not actually overlaying the method of language onto material culture.

        When studying on an object that is one or two hundred years ago. Illustrate what it is the first important thing to do. Giving the viewers the details of the object would be the first essential goal of presenting the object. These basic information such as the material used, who’s the owner, what year it’s made should be giving to the viewers before researcher start telling the story of the object. The story of the object I define is the most important in introducing an object. The social meaning of the object and the connection of the owner with the object are the two factors that are necessary.

Reading Blog -- Oct. 15th

The nineteenth century bourgeoisie played a big role in the politics and economic development. They are educated and wealthier than most of the people in the society. When the bourgeoisie population grows larger and wider, Bourgeoisie spent a lot of time on signifying their clothing opposed to the working class. The most important function of Bourgeoisie’s clothing is to distinguish their identities, for example to emphasize the difference between Bourgeoisie and the working class.

The nineteenth century textile industry influenced the contemporary dress deeply. It improved the living standard and the development of the ready-made industry. This makes middle class people own their dresses easier than before. The lifestyle of bourgeois is like a starter of cloth making industry. They change the situation that only wealthy people can hire a tailor to design and make clothes for them.  

        After the French Revolution, men’s clothing was mainly dark green and dark blue. Wearing darker color shows the difference between the idleness and sumptuousness of aristocratic than the austerity and asceticism of bourgeois. The ideal of proper gentleman rose between the bourgeois. After destroying royal absolutism and winning the right to sit in Parliament, they dressed in darker color to show their taste and the ability to consume. The social class of bourgeois is between aristocrat and working class, which make bourgeois want to separate them from the lower class but still maintain the nobility sense of their identity.

        What is interesting in this book is that women were the ones who express her husband’s wealth. A man would wear black or any dark color but the woman would wear something pink and colorful to display their family’s glory and power. I am not sure about if this phenomenon still existing in today’s society but a woman’s appearance is still more brilliant and vivid than her husband.

Philippe Perrot wrote in the book that in nineteenth-century streets the top hats covered every bourgeois head. Although top hat’s physical shape makes any physical activities completely impossible. The top hat is designed to incorporate bourgeois propriety, through its stiffness and material. And by abandoning feathers or embroidery, the top hat makes bourgeois more propriety than aristocrat or working class.

        This gives me a more clear view on how does the top hat developed since nineteenth century from fancy hat for nobles to a more clear and humble hat for bourgeois. Clothing can not only reflect but also inculcate beliefs, values, and aspirations. Maybe a top hat is a small and common object in nineteen century society but the meaning of wearing it should be something important and essential.

Reading Blog -- Oct. 8th

When people try to exhibit something in the museum, the history will be detached into pieces and we use the ethnographic way to retell the story. In “Objects of Ethnography,” Barbara Kirschenblatt-Gimblett mentioned: There are two ways of exhibiting objects. One is In Situ and the other is In Context. The In Situ method creates a simulated environment to describe the surrounding of the object. The goal is to duplicate a full or part of the real life of the exhibiting subject. When the object is exhibited through an in context method, other arrangements such as labels, charts, diagrams, and commentary will be used in the exhibition. Different than In Situ method, using an in context approach should contain more information along the object.

There are many different ways of making an exhibition. For example, the In Situ and In Context method are not in conflict. The point is to send the message to the viewer clearly. Is doesn’t matter how people classified the objects. What matters is how to give a straight and meaningful story to the visitors. If the fragments of the history are not connected successfully, the story will not make sense and viewer will not understand the exhibition completely.

Museums need to cut the history into pieces in order to exhibit the object easier. These detachments sometimes are limited to only smaller objects because things such as performances and big event are impossible to be recreated indoors or described through words.

In late nineteen century, museums shift their focus in an exhibition onto labels. This is the result of giving most of the attention into object studying. Even in today’s museum, I still found out that the exhibition is surrounded with explanations and labels. The objects in the museum are basically served as the evidence for the literal setups in the exhibition.

Ken Yellis takes two famous but controversy exhibitions in the history and tries to seek what visitors experienced in the museum. He starts with three reasons to do exhibitions in a museum,” you have a new story to tell or you have a new way of telling an old story, or our culture has changed so dramatically that the memory of the story has been lost or hopelessly corrupted.

The museum needs to balance all the visual and non-visual materials used in the exhibition because every visitor experience these senses differently. In all these senses, most people access deep emotions more through sound, taste, touch, and smell. But these senses are particularly hard to deploy in the museum.

Museums are the educator and the communicator of the present and past. Museums teach us “how do we know how to think about the past, the present, the future? How do we know how to think about the world, about others, about ourselves? “ All the stories, methods for classifying and analyzing help us to understand the history piece by piece and rethink about the current events and maybe think more about the future. The goal of a great museum is to send the message to the visitors, to answer their questions and even raise better thoughts that are related to the topic.

Our society is moving forward and so does the history. Museums need to renew the exhibition once a while. But only renewing the content is not enough, the future museum, as John W. Durel suggests, should add more new innovations to the exhibitions. One of the purposes of the museum will be giving nationally recognition for the children emphasizing the greater good that serves the public interest. The exhibitions will be no longer only indoors. There will be more historic site tours and living history experience programming. The point is to give visitors an easier way of understanding history rather than just theory and explanation on the label. By using new technologies and method, museums should be able to give a more flexible and experimental approaches such as sharing collections through internet. By sharing documents and images through internet, visitors can access to the information that are related to the topic. All in all, museums should find a way to help the public develop a more complex and subtle understanding of history.

After finishing this week’s reading, I start to think about how to exhibit my object (the man’s top hat). Maybe the top hat will be surrounded by pictures of man that wears similar hat in 1900s. 

Reading Blog -- Oct. 1st

The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth

Looking back to the creation of the United States of America. It is hard to ignore the American spirit of the “ordinary people”. These people built the early structure of the American economy and industry. The people play an important role in the nation’s creation because America is a country truly founded by the people and is filled by other immigrants from other country.

In this book, The Age of Homespun author tries to answer the question how does the female economy raised and had the industrial revolution changed not only women’s work but work itself? Because in 17^th century New England, weaving was a male occupation and only few families owned spinning wheels but at the late 18^th century, cloth-making was common seeing and the important foundation of the society.

This reading tries to analyze the American life of the early Americans. Especially the connections between homemade objects and professional made objects in shops.   

Quilts, Old Kitchens, and the Social Geography of Gender at Nineteenth Century Sanitary Fairs

Early in the fall of 1863, a group of Brooklyn women organized the Sanitary Aid Society for the purpose of working to benefit Union soldiers. The purpose was to raise money to assist soldiers and their families through the sale of handmade items and refreshments.

The quilt making is a symbolic practice in America. Understanding the history of these common things in American life can leads us to know the relation between the making of objects and its meanings.

        One of the most important meaning is that the raise of the women conscious. Those party and organizations looks like just a part of social activities but actually were the external expression of female consciousness. In the kitchen or the quilt making party in the nineteen century not only shows the efficiency and the elegant of women but also shows the social status of women start getting close to men.

The Architecture of Racial Segregation

The Challenges of Preserving the Problematical Past/ Robert R. Weyeneth

Racial segregation happened after civil in 1960s. Even the constitution of the United States protects people’s rights; the life of black and white Americans were totally different at the racial segregation period. In this reading, whether we need to preserve buildings built under the racial segregation period.

The Jim Crow Laws between 1876 to 1965 rules the law against all colored races especially African Americans. The law rules that all public facilities need to be separated into different sections for white and colored people. The Jim Crow Law was not against the constitution because everything was only separated into two sections but still equal to each other. But the truth is that mostly white people can get better service and support. This difference makes African Americans suffering a worse condition educationally, economically, and socially.

Racial segregation was established architecturally in two major ways: through architectural isolation and through architectural partitioning. Architectural isolation represented the enterprise of constructing and maintaining places that kept whites and blacks apart, isolated from one another. Architectural partitioning represented the effort to segregate within facilities that were shared by the races.

The values of preserving the architecture in the Jim Crow era are to let people understand about the race relations in that time and can be actually seeing the separate doors in one entrance. Thinking about how people were treated during that time should be a effective way to engage racial issues.

White and Black Landscapes in Eighteenth-Century Virginia

Dell Upton

In the second reading, author describes different point of view in an eighteen century plantation complex in Virginia. The complex was mainly designed according to owner’s needs. The big complex or mansion would be on the top of the hill and the slave house would be down the hill away from the main house.

From the view point of the white owner, everything is connected easily and close to his mansion. He can even build any new route to any places he wants. From the black people point of view, all the places are disconnect and inconvenient to move from one place to another.

Conclusion

The first two readings are about gender issue and the other two are about racial issue. All four readings are about the life of American under some sort of oppression and how do they respond to the environment. Using objects such as homespun, quilt, buildings, and slave houses to understand the life of people is an approach similar to archeology approach because they all starts with something small and tries to find out a bigger view. This week’s reading actually gave me a thought on researching about how to others feel when they see someone is wearing a top hat like the one assigned to me.(the object I got is a man’s top hat). What was the meaning of wearing that expensive top hat? Was it just a hat or people will consider the person who’s wearing it a wealthy man?

Reading Blog -- Sept. 24th

Reading blog

Meaning in Artifacts: Hall Furnishings in Victorian America

Kenneth L. Ames /Journal of Interdisciplinary History, ix:i (Summer I978), i9-46.

The goal of this research is to examine artifacts and the things in the hall in Victorian America. By doing research on the hall furnishings we can understand the past better than through verbal approaches. Like other object researches, the goal is to gain the insights on understanding the objects and its relation to the surroundings.

       

Within this research, the study of hall furniture needs to start with understanding about the hall. The function and the relation of the hall in a house can explain the furniture deeper and wider.

In this reading, Kenneth L. Ames said that the trade catalog is the most valuable resource for pictorial records of individual objects. It’s almost impossible to find the records for my object. But since the owner wore that top hat in his wedding, It should be able to find some record in the St. Mary’s P.E. Church because church will record every wedding and funeral taking place in the church. Maybe there won’t be any photo in the record but I should find a more detailed record in the church archive.

Through the reading I found out that in nineteenth-century hats and coats were very important objects for daily appearance. It’s interesting to know that “The peak of popularity for the hallstand coincides with that of the top hat, which in its most extreme form became the "stove-pipe" hat of Lincoln and his generation. Laver has argued that the top hat was what we would call macho today, an assertion of masculinity most extreme at the time of greatest role differentiation between the sexes. Its gradual decline he associated with that of male-dominated society.”

Reading Blog

Sheumaker, Helen. Love Entwined: The Curious History of Hairwork in America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007. Print.

Hairwork does not only mean wig but also means those jewels made with hair (doesn’t need to be human hair. ex. woven hair). And those pearls or jewels are called “a hairwork device”. Portrait miniatures are small pieces of metal which the portrait of a person is in the front and was backed by hair. This shows the personal bond between individuals. In other words, compared to an only portrait miniature, the one backed by hair means stronger connections between the two people. All in all, through chapter one, hair is something that presents a person’s care about someone. Sometimes it’s just a way to express him or her selves and sometimes hair can enforce the connections between two friends (ex. Hair in album). Because a gift is not just something that you give to others, it’s something meaningful for the person. A hairwork is sometimes hard to turn into something that is meaningful “to the person who receives it”. As a result, hairwork normally is a gift only for someone is close. Both hairwork and photograph are popular but at the time, hair work was still a better thing to represent the person’s feeling because (p.49 line 21) hairwork was a product of hands and emotions, and therefore understood as a truer representation of one’s self. What people want is something that contains emotions as a gift. Not something contains only reality (ex. photo).

The trend of making fancywork (which is making something useless into something that is useful and impressive) resulted in making hairwork at home. These fancyworks can also represent a woman’s obedience and other characters. Women basically made similar shapes and models as the real professional. Making hairworks at home allows people to express a stronger feeling through the hairwork, because it was home made. The gift(hairwork, most likely is a watch fob) from female to male is the “reminder” of the “other world”, whether the emotion and the relationship is familial or romantic.

What we can see in this reading is that hairwork is not just a normal everyday object. It is something that contains personal feelings. This means there is something cultural in the object. Looking into my object, man’s top hat. I hope I can find something in this level since I have already known this object had been worn in owner’s weding.

Reading Responses -- Sept 17

In Small Things Forgotten: An Archaeology of Early American Life

James Deetz

Building in Wood in the Eastern United States: A Time-Place Perspective

Fred B. Kniffen and Henry Glassie

The United States is a nation of immigrants. To understand the people and things in the United States, we need to the study the aborigines ethnic culture and lifestyle. Starting from the colonial era from 1600s, different cultural and race groups of immigrants came to the New World to seek a better life. They brought traditional beliefs and lifestyle to America from their home country. In the new country, immigrants build their homes from one generation to another. Countering all the odds, these immigrants created one of the strongest countries in the world.

Understanding the history development of United States is not only an important thing for American people. It is also an important example of the people of other countries. In this multicultural era and rapid international changing society, it is very important for us to learn from history.

James Deetz emphasis on the objects that are commonly forgotten because those objects are understand as not important or are hard to notice. For example, ceramics in our life, tombstone, and the way how house was built. The development of these small things seems to be not important but those things can give us something more to understand our society.

        The object I have in this course is a man’s top hat. An object that I will say it’s also some small things forgotten. Hats were so important for the people in 19^th century but less people are wearing hat now a days. Studying about hats allows us to understand the roles of hat in our society. Do hats become more important to our daily life or it becomes more like a functional object that we only wear it to prevent sunburn or dazzling sun shine? The problem here is, these little things were forgotten in the history, which means there are no a lot of research about it. It is always easy to find and present the history of the objects but giving the story of an object it meaning is hard and important.

The purpose of this study is to examine the basic aspect of settlements-the methods of constructing buildings. In the timber-rich eastern United States other materials commonly used in Europe was abandoned by the immigrants. How did the immigrants build their home can reflect their needs? The fence around the house means the need for safety and the way how immigrants arrange rooms in the house also reflects their family structure. The author focuses on the year from 1790 to 1850 and records the change of the method of constructing wooden house of the immigrants.

The second stage of the research should focus on the cultural meaning of the timber construction houses. The methods within different groups of people and races would be different. The studies in wooden construction gives a lot of study examples for object analyzes, especially in the ways of how the object was made.

Object Exercise 1

Course: History 8151 /MLA 8220–Studies In American Material Culture

Instructor: Dr. Seth C. Bruggeman

Student: Brad Lin (Lin, Yu-Hsia)

Date: 2012/09/10

Assignment: Object Analysis Method /Object Exercise 1

Object:

Waistcoat_1817

Research Goal:

Waistcoat is an object that people wear, but a waistcoat is not just an object. Finding the history behind it can allow us to unveil the story and the meaning of this waistcoat in that time. Who wears it, why wear it, and what does it represent when wearing it is the goal of researching on objects.

Object Analysis Method

1.      History :

The object was made in about 1817. After knowing the time when the object was made, we can gather the information of people’s outfit from that time and research on it. For example, to analyze whether the object was a custom used for special occasion or a common wearing for daily life. More than that, what happened in that decade and the social economies changes can also reflects the living condition and helps us to interpret the meaning of the object and giving a more vivid historical meaning to the object.

2.      Material , Design and Construction

According to the information I have right now, the object I am assigned to is a ”Black velvet waistcoat with pink silk polka dots. Button closing is accomplished with self-covered buttons. The waistcoat is entirely handmade. It goes in a straight line across the bottom of the waistcoat. The collar is formed into a curved notched lape. There are three pockets. The edge of the collar and down center front is finished with a small ribbon cording. The under part of the collar is lined with satin. The back of the waistcoat is diamond-shaped pattern sateen. The entire waistcoat is lined with leather. There are two sets of brown linen tie tapes attached to the side seem to be tied together to snug the waistcoat to the figure.” I am planning to take multiple color pictures of the waistcoat as references because the texture and the design of this waistcoat is the most important matter that defines its meaning and the story. Without the picture, readers may mistakenly confuse by the description of the object.

3. Location (where does this waistcoat origin)

  The location means the origin of the object and that can be used to analyze where the object comes from and how does it involve into the form we see. For example, if this waistcoat comes from Paris or London, and follows its owner from Europe to America than we may be concluding that this object belongs to an immigrant or a merchant. If the object is made in the US, we can use this object to analyze the manufacture level of the industry.

4. Person (who can own this waistcoat)

  This waistcoat may be possessed by a male because there are three pockets on the coat, a female outfit would not have that many pockets on it. But the “pink silk polka dots” maybe telling a different story here. What we can sure is that, the delicate fixture and assembly and details indicates this waistcoat belongs to a higher social level person. 

5. Function

 The functionality of the object can let us know the social condition of the owner during that time. After we define the function of the object, we can complete the whole outfit by taking the other object that should be wearing with it. Which means, we can build a bigger picture of the owner’s life by creating a wider view of the object?

References

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, “Why We Need Things,” in Steven Lubar and W. David Kingery, eds., History from Things: Essays on Material Culture (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993).

Jules David Prown, “Mind in Matter,” Winterthur Portfolio 17 (1982): 1-19.

Joan Severa and Merrill Horswill, Costume as Material Culture,” in Dress 15 (1989). 

Statement of Purpose for American Material Culture Study

Course: History 8151 /MLA 8220–Studies In American Material Culture

Instructor: Dr. Seth C. Bruggeman

Student: Brad Lin (Lin, Yu-Hsia)

Date: 2012/09/03

Reading Blog URL: http://tuamericanmaterialculture.blogspot.com/

Statement of Purpose

I majored in sociology for undergraduate degree and now I am in the master of liberal arts program. I am interested in anything including human society operation that makes me curious about the highly developed culture and techniques. I have a great interest in issues that relates in connections between human relations and of course with objects. From attending this course, I hope to understand the connections between objects and human life. I’d like to learn not only the purpose or function of the object itself but also the meaning and the ideas applied on the object by human. As an international student from Taiwan, the most important goal is to understand American society and culture. Although that the language barrier makes this goal harder to achieve but my Eastern background gives me another point of view to observe and interpret the things learned in this country. That might make me learn how similar object has a different meaning between different people and region.To me, learning overseas is not only taking lectures in a foreign country but also is a process to practice what I learned. Through study for a master degree in another country is also a chance to learn, to experience, and to realize another cultures point of view or way to solve problems. I believe this kind of learning has far more advantages than the ordinary ones.

“The core of the Master of Liberal Arts degree entails a broad range of interdisciplinary courses that draw from such areas as cultural studies, philosophy, American studies, media/film studies, sociology, women's studies, psychology, journalism, and political science.” “In general, the great strength of the MLA program is that it can be tailored to the student's own particular interests, and students are encouraged to develop an individual focus, based on their personal, academic, and professional objectives.” Above are the concepts of the MLA program in Temple. I have always been passionate about the exploration and study in different fields. But I am more interested in doing research with a group of people from different majors or territories. In Temple University’s MLA Program, there are a wide variety of courses, and the flexibility in allowing students to develop their own intellectual pathways. I will have a chance to learn new concepts and ideas among the students and the professors. All of those advantages allow me to pursue my interest in a better, wider and deeper way.