Victorian Bedroom Exhibit

 The Victorian Bedroom Display includes several pieces of ornately carved furniture, including a tall dresser and bed in walnut, and a dressing mirror in mahogany.  A beautiful little display cabinet hangs on the wall, holding a china vase. 
  
     
 

The dresser holds all the essentials, including hair brushes, hatpins, and a "hair receiver," a china bowl with a lid.  A hole in the lid received hair pulled from the brush after the lady of the house brushed out her hair before bed.  This hair was kept to be
used in making "rats," small bunches of hair worked into the elaborate mounded coiffures of the time. 
These were necessary in the days before hairspray and styling gel.
It was also used for "hair art," which was a craft that involved twisting hair onto wire and then forming the wire into elaborate "floral" decorations, sometimes in the form of wreathes.  One of these rare items is on display elsewhere in the museum.

 

 

Also on view in the room is a washstand, holding a pitcher, basin, and chamber pot. Washing up was done with water heated downstairs on the kitchen woodstove, brought upstairs by a parlor maid.  A man's shaving mirror and straight razor are also on the stand. A chamber pot, used when going outside to the outhouse was not possible or convenient, is on the lower shelf of the washstand.

 

 

 

 

 

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Updated June 1, 2001