Smelling an Exhibit

In today’s society we find distinctions betweens social classes, races, genders, etc. mainly by seeing these things with our eyes. Did you ever stop to consider that smell is also a factor in these distinctions? According to Mark M. Smith and his book Sensing the Past he describes in his chapter about “Smell” that we do and people have for hundreds of years classified things, objects, people, and events according to smell. Here is an example to better understand this notion. Imagine you are walking in a park and you smell garbage the entire time you are there. You might not stay long at the park and you might assume that the park is not kept clean due to the fact that the neighborhood/town it is in does not have a lot of money. Therefore the up keeping of the park is poor. Now imagine that you are in the same park and you smell flowers instead. This would probably cause you to stay longer and to assume that the neighborhood/town has money to keep the park clean. Without consciously realizing it these smells have caused you to associate social/economically issues in the surrounding area of the park and assuming things because of a smell.

Odors that are pleasant to smell are usually associated with wealthier people. Whereas odors that make you want to hold your noise or even gag are associated with the lower class. These distinctions have been going on for years. We don’t often think about it but when we do carefully we can see how we often judge others and create stereotypes depending on what we smell.

It would be pretty neat if we could find a way in our exhibit that created a smell to relate with each object or the exhibit as a whole. You could take that many different routes to this approach. Perhaps you can have the smell of the event or place the person was wearing the object at. You could also have the smell of the place they purchased it at. It would be pretty interested to somehow incorporate a smell or smells in the experience of an exhibit. In the case of my dress since it was worn by Fianna Grube who lived on a farm the smell would probably unfortunately be manure. However luckily for the exhibit the wedding was in January and most likely you wouldn’t be able to smell anything on the farms. 

Hide and Seek: The truth of your body

In the Book The Prosthetic Impulse by Marquard Smith and Joanne Morra there is an essay called “The Vulnerable Articulate which I found to have an interesting relation to certain objects we have and use today in our world. This essay has a letter in it from 1907 from a woman who had just received a prosthetic leg and how grateful she was for it. Her friends did not even recognize her since she had been known to always have a crutch. What struck my attention was when Smith said, “This is a perfect instance of the history of the development of prosthetic technology as it stands and falls on its ability to play hide- and- seek with the truth.”(49). Playing hide-and –seek with the truth, isn’t this something that most of us do? For the prosthetic leg is helping the woman walk and she can cover it up with her clothes. The process of putting the leg on is in the privacy of her home. Unless she verbally tells someone who she does not know that she has a fake leg nobody but herself would know that under her pants or under her skirt is a prosthetic leg. However this leg makes her feel good inside that she can now “pass” as being or at least looking normal to those on the outside.

This brings me to the article “Active Ingredients,” by Dan Rose. Rose talks about a man taking a shower and the process of showering when he then gets shampoo in eyes. This causes him to then look at the shampoo and read the directions and to see that is named Head and Shoulders by the Proctor Gamble Company. Washing your hair with a specific shampoo can actually have the same affect as a woman putting on a prosthetic leg. Here is how: The act of taking a shower and washing your hair is done privately. While in the shower it doesn’t matter what shampoo you use but it cleans your hair. Once your hair dries afterward your hair looks clean and can even make it glow. There is a process of getting your hair to have that affect and to most likely make you feel good about yourself and that act takes place in the privacy of your home.

Objects ranging from all kinds from prosthetic body parts to shampoos and body cleansing products there are company’s creating objects that are used privately in order hide the truth. We all use products that hide the truth and people have been for hundreds of years. Think about a woman’s corset. A woman wore a corset to change the shape of her body. I’m not sure if Fianna Grube wore a corset with her wedding dress but considering the year she was married 1856 it wouldn’t be surprising. The way her dress was tight at the top and the skirt flowed could have also shaped her body and was able to hide the truth of her body as well.

Blue Jeans

Who would think that there is so much to uncover behind a pair of blue jeans? I would have never even thought about any type of relationship to blue jeans and people if it wasn’t for the book Blue Jeans, The Art of the Ordinary by Daniel Miller and Sophie Woodard. Blue jeans are something that a lot of us wear frequently. Not only blue jeans but clothes in general. What is it that influences us to wear what we wear? One of the ideas that Miller talks about is the relationship between parent and child. I agree that parents have an influence on what children wear. As the child grows up their choices still might reflect the influences of the earlier years one way or another. Darren is a man who is interviewed in the book along with his father about their clothing choices. Although the two men might not now wear the same type of thing, both of them tend to wear things that make them stand out. Darren’s father claims that this is because of him and that his son now does that same thing, wearing clothing that makes him stand out. That influence of Darren’s father when he was a kid is the reason that Darren dresses the way that he does now.

When I think about the Fianna Grube’s wedding dress, I am curious if her mother, father, or even fiancé at the time had any influence of the color, style etc of the dress. Perhaps her mother wore a dress such as the one that she did. Maybe Martin Peiffer preferred his bride to be in blue and brown and that is why she chose those colors. Fianna could have be influenced not by a person but by fashion in her day from reading Godey’s Lady Book and Magazine. We will never know for sure why Fianna chose the dress that she did, perhaps it was just because she liked it and it was comfortable for her.

In Miller and Woodard's book he finds out something that most of the people who he interviewed had something in common and that was that jeans are comfortable to wear. People wear certain things because that is what makes them feel comfortable. This feeling of comfort then eases the mind. Interesting, how the articles of clothing you are wearing can make you feel a specific way. Think about the clothes that you choose to wear and how they make you feel. Fianna’s wedding dress may have been comfortable for most brides it was probably made not for comfort but for her to feel beautiful. 

Captions..Deciding on a Theme

The girl next door, Fianna Grube wore this handmade wedding gown at age the of nineteen. She married her neighbor Martin Peiffer 18 years older than her in Salunga, Pennsylvania on January 22^nd, 1856 prior to the Civil War. Mennonite farmers, fairly wealthy, raised six children on their Lancaster Co. Farm.

In this caption I tried to depict a more overall story of the people and the place of  where the wedding gown came from. I chose my first words to be “The girl next door” because I think that those words could interest people considering it is a common phrase that is used. And due to the evidence Fianna was the next door neighbor to Martin Peiffer in Salunga, PA. I think that putting the age may capture the interest of the audience as well, putting a “wow” factor into the statement. This could cause some humor thinking that, the girl next door was really the little girl next door to Martin Peiffer. Having the date in the caption is extremely important in order to give viewers an idea of the time. Also mentioning that they were Mennonite farmers gains viewers who do not know what Mennonites are to want to learn and helps others who know what Mennonites are to understand better their way of life.

Here comes the bride! All Dressed in…Not White! Nineteen-year-old Mennonite woman, Fianna Grube wore this fashionably handmade wedding gown when she married her farmer neighbor who was 18 years older than her during the winter of 1856 in Salunga, PA. Mennonites are known to be plain, simple, and farmers which indicates the simple and plainness of the gown.

I used a different approach to this caption with the first sentence trying to capture attention from the audience using the song that goes “here comes the bride, all dressed in white.”  I still find it important to mention how Fianna and her husband were neighbors and were Mennonites so I added them into the description as well.

This handmade wedding gown was worn by a nineteen year old woman in 1856 who was married by a Mennonite Reverend in Salunga, Pa. The bride’s Mennonite religion caused her to choose blue and brown silk for her wedding day to a man on a neighboring farm.

This caption I decided not use any names of the people who were involved with the wedding dress. This makes the story a little less personal than the ones above. I think that after our class on Monday and our discussion in class I will have a better idea of the caption that I think will be the best fit for the exhibit. I also think that I might inquire some more information about Fianna Grube and her family that I may choose to change my captions around.