How do you like them apple peelers?

by Erin Doane, Curator

Many of our blog posts are thoughtful, well-researched pieces that inform and entertain while making you think about our connections to the past.  This is not one of those blog posts.  I think mechanical apples peelers are cool so this post is about them and how great they are.  Just look at them!

Mechanical apple peeler, 1880

Mechanical peelers have gears, cranks, whirling metal prongs (upon which the apple is stabbed), and sharp blades.  What’s not to like about them?  They were also very useful.  During the 18^th and 19^th centuries, apples were an important food source.  Properly processed and stored, they could provide food all winter long.  I can imagine that peeling bushels and bushels of apples for winter storage took a lot of time.  It is no wonder that some creative people developed mechanical peelers to do the job.  Over 100 patents for apple peelers were granted during the second half of the 19^th century.

Gears!

There are quite a few of these peelers in the CCHS collection and I have been asked why we keep so many.  Storage space is at a premium so we try not to keep too many duplicate objects but each of the peelers is unique.

There are several different types of mechanical peelers.  Lathe peelers were one of the earliest types developed but new versions can still be bought today.  They are probably the simplest type of mechanical peeler.  The hand crank turns the apple against the peeling blade and the spiral shaft keeps the apple moving forward.  We even have a homemade version in the collection.

Advance lathe peeler, 1883

Handmade lathe-style apple peeler

An arc peeler apparently peels the apple along an arc and then back again.

Arc peeler, 1863

By far our largest collection is of turntable type apple peelers.  You turn the handle and both the apple and the turntable with the blade moves to most efficiently peel the apple.  There are quite a few variations of the turntable peeler.  Some hold the apple vertical and others horizontal.  I’m not sure if there is any huge advantage of one design over the other but obviously the people who originally developed each new design must have thought it was better than the last. 

 

Turntable peeler made by H. Keyes, 1856

Turntable peeler made by Reading Hardware Company, 1878

Turntable peeler made by C.E. Hudson, 1882

And, just because, here are two mechanic cherry pitters as well.

Cherry pitter, 1867

Enterprise cherry stoner, 1917

The Students Speak

 

By the Elmira College students in the “Doing Public History” class

(notations in green added by co-teacher, Kelli Huggins)

During our time at the museum, we had some common experiences. All of us were creeped out by the mourning hair wreath, surprised by the realities of the Gilded Age, and amused by some of the stories behind our topics (those children’s games were really supposed to be fun?).  At the start of our class, we examined other online exhibits and the practices of other institutions of public history. During our second week, we visited the Museum for the first time as a class. Touring CCHS, we used our newly acquired knowledge of public history to view the exhibits on display. We now understood that choosing the objects required time and forethought on the part of the staff. As a class, we began to recognize the influence that the staff had on the story being told by the objects they chose (so much power!!!).

"Creepy" hair wreath

Next, we began the long process of creating an online exhibit. Our first step was to identify a topic of interest to us that fit within our larger timeframe of “Elmira in the Gilded Age.” Each of us explored the archives and collections, which was a unique hands-on experience outside of the traditional lecture (read: not boring). Being behind-the-scenes of the museum allowed us to comprehend that what you see in the exhibit is just a very small fraction of the museum’s collection (we’ve got tens of thousands of objects and over 1 million documents and photos). Understanding the curator’s dilemma of selecting only a few pieces to project a larger story was both challenging, and a learning experience. Normally, learning history consists of reading a textbook, but at the Museum we were able to see the objects that were part of history and learn their story.

So many historical items to choose from!

After choosing our objects and researching our topics, it was time to start working on our actual exhibit. After writing our 7 page research paper, we had to condense it to three short labels. In groups, we worked on perfecting our exhibit labels so that we had the most information in the least possible number of words. This was a frustrating and daunting process, but we were rewarded in the end by the final product. There were debates and compromises over words and phrasing (conversations like, “I don’t like the word ‘breeding’ here, but I can’t think of anything better!”) and we saw that the process was not easy for those who have to do it professionally. The museum staff was very helpful and patient with us; guiding us to our eventual result, despite our inexperience and the ease with which we were side-tracked.

From excitement...

...to exhaustion.

When the grueling editing process was complete (they’re being too nice here- this was about a 10+ hour experience), we had the chance to add our own personal touches. We chose 5-8 images to accompany our labels, further our research, and illustrate the points we made in our descriptions. Each of us spent the morning taking pictures and scanning documents, in order to show our audience the highlights of what we got to look through.

The team at the end of the process: still smiling!

After 6 weeks of hard work, we were all excited to wrap up the process and reveal our online exhibit. All of us are excited to be featured on the Museum’s website (add a line to that résumé!) and to have contributed to an online exhibit that will be published and available to many people. It is rewarding to know that the work we put in will serve a purpose beyond a grade in the classroom, and will reach out to the community and further their understanding of local history.

Check out their hard work here:

http://cchsonlineexhibits.wix.com/gildedage

So That’s How They Do That!

By Charlie Mitchell, Professor at Elmira College and “Doing Public History” co-teacher

Check out the online exhibit here: http://cchsonlineexhibits.wix.com/gildedage

I have been an exhibit junkie for years, which I suppose is better than being either an exhibitionist or another kind of junkie.  Whenever I am travelling, near or far, the two things I spend the most time thinking about are what I will eat and drink and what exhibits I will visit.  Those are my guilty pleasures, my indulgences.  But while I know a good deal about how the various meals I have enjoyed have been prepared, how they made the journey from raw material to finished product, I know very little about what it takes to transform a selection of artifacts, documents, and paintings into a compelling story, a story that informs, challenges, unsettles and nourishes the viewer.  Let me put it this way: I have cooked my own meals, brewed my own beer, mixed my own cocktails; I have never constructed an exhibit.  Until now.

 

For the better part of six weeks in April and May I had the great good fortune to work with Kelli Huggins, Erin Doane and Rachel Dworkin as we led a group of Elmira College students in creating the online exhibit, Elmira in the Gilded Age.  I can admit now that I had no idea how, or even if, this experiment would work.  As a loyal patron of museums I have always marveled at how so much information could be distilled into a handful of labels, captions and wall panels.  Brevity is not my strong suit.  I could spend an hour talking about the background, significance, and variety of interpretations of a single object or illustration, all of that information, in my bloated view, essential to a full understanding of the topic.  Yet here we were attempting to tell the story of prison reform or temperance or mourning rituals in a series of one hundred word blurbs and a few pictures.  Impossible! 

Not only possible, as it turned out, but elegant. I learned more in the six weeks I spent “teaching” this course than I have in years, not only about the marvelous mechanics of researching, designing and mounting an exhibit but about the extraordinary richness of the history of Elmira and its environs.  I have been teaching and lecturing about the history of Central Park for years yet it was only during this course that I discovered how closely that story parallels the history of Eldridge Park, from the statuary and promenade and carriage drive to the tension between elite and lowbrow forms of recreation.  And all of that was right here, in my own backyard!

I am already scheming my next project, though the staff at the CCHS may run and hide when they hear me say that.  Not only am I very pleased with (and proud of) the work my students did on this exhibit, I am very grateful to Kelli, Erin, Rachel and Bruce for sharing their time and talents, and the museum’s resources, with us.  And since, at the beginning, this whole project was Kelli’s idea, please be sure to direct any complaints her way!