By Amelia Dorsey

Interning at the Campbell House Museum, a Victorian-era historic home in St. Louis, has its challenges. You must learn the history of the family, know your way around the house, and make connections between the 1850s and the present day. One of the biggest challenges is answering visitors’ questions about the unfamiliar objects in the collection that we no longer use today. Even after researching the house and shadowing tours, I draw a blank with some items and regretfully inform the visitor that I am not sure what it was used for. Through the years, things change, inventions are made, fashions go out of style, and eventually, people forget the use of certain objects people of the past would use every day. In this article, you will learn the use of five objects in the Campbell House collection and how they compare to modern objects today.

1. Strop

Think this is a belt? Think again! Before the invention of the safety razor in the early 1900s, which featured disposable razor blades, barbers and men at home used straight razors. Straight razors were long, bare blades which achieved a close shave. Instead of replacing the blades like today’s razors, men would sharpen the blade, returning it to its maximum efficiency. The tool used to sharpen the blade was called a strop. Strops were either handheld paddles or long hanging strips made of leather or woven fiber. The razors were sharpened by dragging the blade’s blunt side forward down the strop with minimal pressure. This action would be repeated until the blade was sharp again. After the invention of the safety razor, strops were used less and less. Strops still exist today and continue to be used for straight razors, knives, or chisels.

2. Bed Warmer

With today’s system of central heating, space heaters, and electric blankets, it is hard to imagine how people stayed warm on a cold winter’s night before the existence of those inventions. One unique way people stayed comfortable was with the use of bed warmers. Bed warmers were metal pans topped with lids covered in holes. Its use involved filling the pan with hot coals, placing the pan between the bedsheets, therefore warming the bed all night. Bed warmers also had long handles, which allowed the user to move the pan around the bed, warming up every corner of the sheets. The bed warmer pictured here is a later version and would have been filled with hot water rather than coals. Bed warmers were in use up until the early 1900s. After the invention of rubber, leading to the creation of hot water bottles, bed warmers, which used hot coals, fell out of use due to inconvenience and the danger they posed.

3. Fluting Iron

Today, we throw our clothes into the washer, move them to the dryer, and they are ready to wear again. In the Victorian era, clothing had to be painstakingly hand-washed, hung to dry, and ironed. Some nicer articles of clothing even had to be pleated or fluted. This object is a fluting iron. After garments were laundered, the ruffles or pleats would have needed to be added back after being lost in the wash, which would be accomplished with a fluting iron. Ladies’ and children’s clothing at the time featured a lot of pleated trim, meaning a fluting iron had to be used to re-press and ruffle their clothing. Clothing was a way for Victorians to show off their wealth, so having your clothing laundered correctly was crucial. Fluting was done by heating the iron on a stove, wetting the fabric, then pressing the iron over the fabric into the divots, therefore creating pleats or ruffles. This act was most popular in North America from the 1860s to the 1880s. Today, the most we do to take care of our clothing is iron it smooth or take it to the dry cleaners. Compared to the Victorians’ nonstop, intense laundry and complicated formal wear, we have it easy.

4. No Ice/Coal Sign

Before the invention of electric refrigerators, people used ice boxes to keep their food cool. They would place a block of ice on the top shelf and the food products at the bottom, allowing the cool air to flow down. But where would they get the ice to keep their food cool? There used to be an ice and coal delivery system, just as there was a milkman. The industry of ice expanded as families bought more fresh produce, milk, and meats. The iceman would ride around town in a horse-drawn wagon delivering ice to his customers; he would know how much ice to deliver by a paper sign posted on the window. 25, 50, 75, 100 corresponded to the amount of pounds of ice needed. “No Ice,” of course, meant no ice was needed that day, and “Coal” meant the family needed coal to burn. Homeowners would place their iceboxes close to the kitchen back door for the convenience of the ice delivery. Today, we don’t even need to think about where our ice comes from. Most people fill ice trays with water to be frozen, buy a bag of ice from the grocery store, or have refrigerators that automatically make ice. In the Victorian era, you had to pay attention to your icebox to know how much ice you needed delivered to keep your food cold.

5. Spittoon

This object is hard to guess because it looks different from other, more common versions. This is a porcelain cuspidor, better known as a spittoon. As chewing tobacco became more popular in the 18th and 19th centuries, spittoons were created as a solution to people spitting tobacco-filled saliva on the ground in public. Instead, they would aim for the spittoon and spit in there. If done correctly, the spit would land in the pot, slide down the indent, and fall into the bowl. Kind of gross to think about. Spittoons were also used in private homes as well. Since Victorians needed everything in their house to be elaborately decorated, spittoons were no exception. The holes on either side of the spittoon are uncommon for a spittoon, but they are there for cleaning purposes. Spittoons posed a danger to those who had to clean them out. With the rise of industrialization and tightly packed city living, tuberculosis became a common disease, spreading through coughs and phlegm. When cleaning spittoons in the Victorian era, there was a chance that tuberculosis was present in the spit. Today, spittoons are used for wine or coffee tasting events.

This post is part of our Curation Chronicles series. Find out more about the History department.