Collection Spotlight: Butter Cooler

Inside a cabinet in the Gibson House dining room, a new (technically old) object sits upon one of the shelves. The object is an opulent silver butter cooler, acquired by the Gibson House in November 2024. The butter cooler was a gift to Mary Crowninshield Warren Hammond in 1867 from her father, Dr Jonathan Mason Warren. Mary was Rosamond Gibson’s older sister; she and her husband, Samuel Hammond, lived across the street from the Gibson House.

Butter cooler, Vincent Laforme, Boston, c.1850 
Collection of Gibson House Museum

This beautiful silver butter cooler, still in excellent condition, is stamped with "Lincoln & Foss," the symbol of the sellers Charles Foss and Albert Lincoln. While the actual manufacture date is unknown, this stamp reveals a potential timeline: “Lincoln & Foss” was renamed “Haddock, Lincoln & Foss” in 1859 after an independent silversmith in Boston named Henry Haddock joined the firm, suggesting that the cooler was made in the early 1800s. 

The maker of the dish was prominent Boston silversmith Vincent Laforme; the gothic “L” and eagle hallmarks stamped on the underside are his marks. Laforme was the son and brother of silversmiths. Born in Germany in 1823, he and his family moved to Boston in 1833 where his father trained him and his brothers in silversmithing. A decade later, Vincent set up his own shop at 5 Water Street where he worked with his brother Francis—their business name was Laforme and Brother. In 1854 the name was changed to F.J. Laforme & Co. after the brothers parted from the company, but three years later the business went out of operation. During Vincent’s time at the company, the Laformes would wholesale their products to larger companies including Lincoln & Foss. Vincent continued to work as a silversmith where he was cited as a good craftsman but a poor manager. 

Collection Spotlight: Stereoscope

If you are of a certain age, you might have fond memories of the View-Master. This red toy made by Mattel came with a set of round cards with images on them (mine were dinosaurs); when you inserted the card into the viewer, the images became three-dimensional. So much fun!

These viewfinders mimic a much older object—the stereoscope. An invention of the nineteenth century, the stereoscope plays on our binocular vision to produce an exciting viewing experience. Two images—a left eye and right eye view of the same scene—are printed on a stereograph card, and when viewed through the stereoscope, appear as a single 3D image. The first stereoscope was debuted at the Great Exhibition of 1851, a world’s fair held in London, and quickly became popular on both sides of the Atlantic. Just five years later, more than a half million stereoscopes had been sold.

Stereoscope in the library, Gibson House Museum

Collection Spotlight: Hair Wreath

There is a peculiar object that hangs above the desk in Rosamond Gibson’s bedroom. At first glance, the item appears to be a simple wreath of pressed flowers surrounding a woven circle, adhered to a paper backing and framed in gold. Upon closer inspection, however, the inner circle is actually a woven piece of gray human hair! Hair works, often made by women as a leisurely pastime, were meant to commemorate the death of a loved one or to honor a friendship.

Hair wreath, Gibson House Museum

The European tradition of human hair mementos trace their origins to the 17th and 18th centuries, usually to mark the death of a child. Pieces of hair could be pressed into lockets such as this mourning brooch to be kept as a token of remembrance.

Mourning brooch, Everhart Museum of Natural History

Hair wreaths, in particular, became popular in the nineteenth century and were an especially common custom in the Victorian era (1837-1901). Unlike our example of a hair wreath, most of these objects are entirely made of hair–each braided arrangement carefully coiled together to resemble flowers. It was also common for these wreaths to contain the hair of multiple people and could be placed around a photograph. Some of the more intricate hair

Hair wreath, c.1875. Maine State Museum

wreaths– which would have taken a lot of energy and time to complete– could be taken to jewelers or wig makers to arrange. Nineteenth century women’s magazines at the time, however, warned against taking your hair works to such places because the shops may add horse hair into the wreaths! Godey’s Lady’s Book, in particular, began in 1850 issuing monthly articles giving American women advice on how to make hair artworks, calling the practice an “elegant accomplishment.”

Courtesy of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia and Mütter Museum.

Collection Spotlight: Asian Export Art

Americans, and especially merchants from Boston and Salem, entered the China Trade in the late eighteenth century and by 1804, they were dominating the trade. Trade was in tea, silk, porcelain and other household goods, and illegally, opium. The Chinese government confined foreigners to the port district of Guangzhou (called Canton), where China trade merchants operated. Art for the export market became an important feature of the trade and copious amounts of Chinese porcelain moved into Boston. 

The Russell family, including Nathaniel Pope Russell, who was Catherine Hammond Gibson’s brother-in-law, were major importers of Chinese porcelain. The Gibsons inherited some of the Russell collection, including a dinner service, a pair of large palace vases, garden seats, and flowerpots. These were imported by Russell in the 1830s; the dinner service has the “R” monogram, indicating it was designed especially for him. 

Porcelain lunch plate, teacup and saucer, and creamer, c.1840
Gibson House Museum 

You can see the influence of East Asian decorative elements elsewhere in the house, including in Rosamond’s bedroom. Her thirteen-piece bedroom set, made by American designer John Vaughn, is fashioned to look like bamboo; it was extremely trendy in its time. 

Bed, John Vaughn, 1871
Gibson House Museum

Artists Known: Two Dressmakers in Gilded Age Boston

"Mrs. M. A. Friend" and "Mrs. J. E. Chapman," creators of some of the gowns in the Gibson House collection, were self-made women, in more than just business. Even their ages were reinvented several times over the years, with different dates given to census takers. In a world that frequently defined women by the men around them, they belonged to a group that allowed (conditional) self-determination: career women. Both set out to make their mark in the female-dominated field of dressmaking.
Margaret Alice McKenna Friend was born around 1850 in New Ipswich, New Hampshire; Julia Evelyn Dobson Chapman between 1850 and 1857 in New Brunswick, Canada. The former would end up separated from her husband by 1900, with three daughters. The latter, who had no children, remained married to Everett Chapman, with whom she ran a dressmaking business, until her death.
The two women's paths converged in the same place: the Boston dressmaking world. Margaret first appears in the 1882 city directory working at 25 Winter Street; from then until her last listing in 1902, her business would move several times. The Chapmans seldom moved, settling at 579 Dudley Street in Roxbury from 1892 until their business closed in 1923.

Punch Magazine, July 28, 1877

Venice and Boston: A 19th Century Love Affair

This blog post is one of a two-part series on collections at the Gibson House Museum from Italy.

When you leave the Music Room at the Gibson House, a small wooden icon frames the doorway above you. Visitors ask about this object regularly: What is it? Who is the saint depicted? Why is it located in such a prominent spot? As one of the only overtly religious items in this Brahmin (and, therefore, staunch Protestant) household, it does catch your eye.

The icon is of St. Mark (San Marco), the patron saint of Venice. On the wall to its right is a copy of Flora, a well-known painting by Venetian Old Master Titian. If Paris is sometimes considered the essential European destination for American travelers today, Venice held the same appeal for late-nineteenth-century American travelers. It wasn’t necessarily a center for contemporary art or fashion; rather, it represented an old Europe that Americans found exotic and romantic. Venice was no longer an international powerhouse, but its Renaissance-era art and architecture reminded travelers of its previous glory (in a distinctly non-threatening way).

The 19th Century Allure of Roman Ruins

This blog post is one of a two-part series on collections at the Gibson House Museum from Italy.

In 1898, after a year of study at MIT for architecture, Charlie Gibson took an extended trip to Europe. It was common for wealthy American men to make such a trip—to cap off their education and before settling down to work and family—known in nineteenth-century parlance as a Grand Tour. The Grand Tour could include a variety of European destinations (some even traveled as far as Turkey), but the essential stops were London, Paris, Venice, and Rome. Travel to Rome, in particular, was seen as a chance to complete a classical education, specifically through study of the architecture and history of ancient Rome.

Traveling to Rome was difficult in the nineteenth century. A robust tourist industry had developed by the eighteenth century, and yet transportation, lodging, and access to reliable guides remained sketchy. Some Italian architects and artists made a living serving Grand Tourists. Giovanni Batista Piranesi was one. Starting as early as 1740, Piranesi worked in Rome producing views of the ancient Roman ruins. For many, Piranesi’s depictions of Rome were the way they imagined and understood the city.

Veduta dell'Anfiteatro Flavio, c. 1771
Giovanni Batista Piranesi

To Mold or Not To Mold: A History of Food Molds from the Victorian Era to Today

The kitchen pantry at the Gibson House stores an extensive collection of food molds. While the preponderance of these molds are metal, their form and decoration change depending on their purpose. Ranging from simple lady finger pans to ornamental scaled fish, they provide insight into how function and entertainment converged upon Victorian food culture.

One notable feature of these objects is their versatility. Molds made of copper, pewter, or tin could be used for the baking, steaming, and setting of jellies, cakes, custards, and puddings. One type of mold in the Gibson kitchen is an ice cream mold, a technology pioneered by Agnes Marshall. Her 1885 seminal work, The Book of Ices: Including Cream and Water Ices, Sorbets, Mousses, Iced Souffles, and Various Iced Dishes, showed readers how to use her inventions, including molds and ice cream freezers, alongside recipes. Molded foods were conveniently labor saving for kitchen staff and women homemakers. They could be prepared around a day before the meal, then the mold could be removed just before serving.

1898 Mangle: Laundry Is the Mother of Invention

Have you ever wondered what doing laundry was like in the 1800s? Today, most laundry routines consist of shifting clothes between washing machines and dryers. But what kind of technology was involved in laundry in the nineteenth century?

Trade card for the Bench Wringer
Collection of Historic New England

Laundry in the Victorian era would have been a very time-consuming process. Collecting, cleaning, and drying out the clothes would have taken hours. According to The Library Company of Philadelphia, “clothes would be soaped, boiled or scalded, rinsed, wrung out, mangled, dried, starched, and ironed, often with steps repeating throughout.” Victorian clothing often included delicate fabrics, intricate detailing, and unique closures, all of which would have affected how a garment was cleaned. Making laundry even more challenging was the fact that many households in the 1800s did not have running water.

Finding Old-School Fashion in the Fast-Paced World

Getting dressed in the 1860s and 1870s was a complicated process. Women’s fashion included many layers and separate articles that combined to form the perfectly assembled outfit, or “costume,” as we refer to it in museums. The Gibson family women had access to designer clothing and custom-tailored dresses and gowns, which they wore to showcase their social status and fit into society. Each piece of clothing had a specific purpose or occasion to be worn. Opera gowns, morning gowns, day dresses, and tea gowns were all popular styles in the 1860s and 1870s. Much of the clothing in the Gibson House Museum’s collection dates from the 1870s and 1880s, when the matriarch, Catherine Hammond Gibson, and her daughter-in-law, Rosamond Warren Gibson, lived in the house together.  

           

Turquoise bodice, c.1870s
Gibson House Museum (2019.3)

When I first began cataloging the clothing from the Gibson House Museum’s collection, I was overwhelmed with how to begin. I soon found that it was not as complicated as I’d thought; cataloging artifacts is as simple as assigning an accession number and recording details about the object.

One of the first articles of clothing I cataloged was a beautifully detailed turquoise dress that has aged rather poorly. There are some tears and discolorations in the fabric, which make it more difficult to picture how it would have been worn in the 1870s or 1880s. Like many of the dresses from the Gibson House Museum’s collection, it was taken apart, either to be washed or because alterations needed to be made. Although some of the fabric is in poor condition, as a whole, the dress is exquisite; its delicate silk fringe and vivid color caught my eye.

The Sound of Music: The Importance of Music in Victorian Homes

Listening to music within the home was something that was deeply cherished among Victorians of all social classes. In a world that was limited to objects such as music boxes to reproduce sounds in the home, live music was especially appealing. Many forms of outside entertainment were sought after, but attending these events could prove inconvenient given New England's challenging weather and limited transportation options. Naturally, it made sense to bring the entertainment into one's home, thereby giving rise to the presence of a “music room” within many upper-class Victorian houses. At the Gibson House, the music room is the most lavish room and was a place where the Gibson family regularly entertained guests and friends.  

Mason & Hamlin Symmetrigrand Piano, 1908
Gibson House Museum (2006.08)

The piano became an especially fashionable musical instrument to possess, either an upright or a baby grand, depending on the wealth of the family. Since at the time many popular songs were made available in sheet music form, amateur musicians could play to their guests and family. There is quite an extensive collection of sheet music at the Gibson House Museum, collected over the years by the family. Along with individual pieces, there are bound albums containing a number of miscellaneous works, such as polka music and waltzes. The majority of the music is from the late nineteenth through the early twentieth centuries (1879–1934), and was largely published in Boston. (The name Oliver Ditson & Co. appears often, indicating it was, perhaps, the family’s company of choice when purchasing new music.) The Gibson family’s music collection contains many pieces by well-known classical composers, including works like Fugue in G Minor (The Little) by J. S. Bach and Danse Polonaise by Xaver Schwarwenka, which you can listen to here and here.

A New Wilton Carpet for the Gibsons

In about 1890, Rosamond Gibson redecorated the front hall of her home at 137 Beacon Street. Her mother-in-law, with whom she had shared the house for nearly seventeen years, had recently passed away. And in the thirty years since the house was built, styles had changed. Rosamond selected an embossed, gold-leaf wallpaper, called “Japanese Leather.” She also chose a luxe red-on-red patterned Wilton carpet.

Wilton red-on-red pattern

The carpet was manufactured by the Bigelow Carpet Company in Clinton, Mass. Bigelow was a prominent name in carpets; the company’s founder, Erastus Bigelow, developed the first power loom in America. His inventiveness ultimately revolutionized the carpet industry, making quality carpets cheaper and quicker to produce. By the late nineteenth century, Bigelow carpets were a household name. Bigelow’s classic advertising campaign encouraged people to consider purchasing a carpet for their home and business, “A Title on the Door Rates a Bigelow on the Floor.”

The Wilton style of carpet that Rosamond selected was top of the line. Traditional Wilton-weave carpets have a thick, cut pile that resembles velvet. They were the most expensive to produce and served as a status marker in many wealthy homes.

Rosamond’s carpet held up well, but after almost 130 years of use, it became worn and faded. In 2016, the Museum’s Board of Directors, with the help of several generous donors, undertook a project to reproduce a new carpet for the Gibson House.

Aunt Mary’s Worth Dress

 Velvet gown with daytime bodice, Charles Frederick Worth (1825-1895), Gibson House Museum (1997.111).

There is a gem in the collection of nineteenth-century dress at the Gibson House Museum. It is a sumptuous purple velvet gown, richly colored and trimmed in velvet ribbon and silk fringe. A drape sweeps off the waist and gathers at the back in a dramatic bustle. The dress has two separate bodices: one for day wear (long-sleeved with a high collar) and one for evening wear, with a low, square neckline. The skirt is stiff from a horsehair lining, and metal stays are sewn directly into the bodice fabric.

Likely made in the early 1870s, the dress is a pitch-perfect example of Victorian fashion from that decade. The tightly corseted waist and prominent bustle create a much-desired silhouette, one that shows off a more “natural” form in comparison to the large hooped skirts of the 1860s. In dress, as in most other things, the Victorians preferred a high level of specificity, and the two bodices signify the expectation of different attire for day and evening.

From Guangzhou to Boston: The Story of the Porcelain Vase

Pair of floor vases, Ch’ien Lung period (1736-1786), Canton. Gibson House Museum.

“As we pass up the Grand Staircase…we come to the Music Room, on our left with double doors of black walnut, …with the original portieres of pink and gold…; pink and blue floral pattern on a pale ground of pale yellow cream, in harmony with the Chinese porcelains.”

So begins Charles Gibson Jr.’s tour of the music room, written in 1939 soon after he started to think about his childhood home as a museum to Victorian culture and society in Boston.

Those Chinese porcelains that get top billing in his tour are a collection of eight matching pieces: two garden seats, two flowerpots, two jardinières (flower stands), and two floor vases. The pieces are decorated with floral designs and Chinese figures; the color palette, known as “famille rose,” is dominated by shades of pink and red. Over two feet tall, the floor vases, or palace vases, flank the fireplace. They are a focal point in a room filled with treasures.

Lithophane: Narrative Encased in Porcelain

The lithophane lamp in the Music Room is a hidden gem of tours at the Gibson House. In fact, while opening up the museum for the day and turning on all the lights in the house, I make it a point to leave this particular lamp off. This, of course, can sometimes lead to visitors being puzzled as to why I have gathered them in one corner of the Music Room to look at a small, seemingly simple lamp. However, the theatrics of pulling the metal chain with a dramatic flourish and waiting for the visitors to express their surprise continues to be one of my favorite parts of giving tours.

Items from the Gibson House Collection: The Coffee Grinder

The 1800s and 1900s were marked by vast technological innovations, including those that transformed food processing. Such advancements made it affordable for families to own devices that made cooking easier.

The Gibson House kitchen displays a wide assortment of antique appliances that illustrate the way food was processed a century ago. One of these items, a coffee grinder (pictured above), would have been present in most middle- and upper-class nineteenth-century kitchens because of the beverage’s popularity.

Cleopatra Dissolving the Pearl

In November of 1872, the Great Fire raged through downtown Boston. The Gibson house was in no serious danger, but Rosamond Warren Gibson’s (1846–1934) childhood home at 2 Park St. stood directly in the path of the blaze. Rosamond was summoned to rescue some of the Warren family’s things before the fire reached the house. Here is her account of the episode, from her recollections: