Charley Harper, Ford Motor Company and “Minimal Realism”

July 5, 2023 Archive Insight

Charley Harper’s unique approach to wildlife art — a style he called “minimal realism” — delighted popular audiences and earned the admiration of the scientific community. Best known for his simplified, geometric depictions of natural subjects (especially birds), his later work conveyed powerful messages about the environment. Harper credited early commissions from Ford Motor Company with encouraging both his focus on wildlife subjects and his signature style.

Beginnings

Charley Harper (1922-2007) began his career as a commercial artist in Cincinnati, Ohio, in the late 1940s. He’d just returned from a cross-country honeymoon funded by a traveling art scholarship. A portfolio Harper had assembled during the trip caught the attention of the Ford Times, a promotional magazine published by Ford Motor Company. Ford Times featured a mix of travelogues and general interest stories, with Ford advertising sprinkled throughout. Several pages near the back of each issue spotlighted noteworthy American restaurants. Charley Harper’s first Ford Times illustration appeared here, in the December 1948 issue.


Charley Harper’s first Ford commission was printed in the “Favorite Recipes of Famous Taverns” section of the December 1948 issue of Ford Times. / Detail, THF706474

Harper’s painting of the Gourmet Room, a restaurant atop the new Terrace Plaza Hotel in Cincinnati, was the first of many restaurant illustrations by Harper that appeared in Ford Times and its sister publication, Lincoln-Mercury Times. Some were later reprinted in a series of recipe books (of which Harper also illustrated two covers).

Roald Amundsen Over the North Pole

July 4, 2023 Archive Insight

The list of Norwegian Roald Amundsen's polar accomplishments is impressive. From 1903 to 1906, Amundsen and a crew of six navigated the first ship through the famed Northwest Passage. In 1911, he became the first person to set foot at the South Pole. Following this history-making dash, Amundsen returned to the Arctic. In 1918, he set off to drive a ship into the polar ice cap and drift over the Arctic Ocean and perhaps the North Pole. The expedition ended in 1921 — unsuccessful. Though he failed, Amundsen and his crew joined the few people at the time to have traversed the Northeast Passage — the route along the Arctic coasts of Europe and Asia.

Innovation Icon: 1938 Massey-Harris Combine Model 20

June 30, 2023 Archive Insight

Combines loom large on the floor of Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation, but they loom even larger on the physical and historical landscape of America’s agricultural heartland. Standing high on the horizon, combines both symbolize and represent the reality of the mechanization of modern agriculture. The 1938 Massey-Harris Model 20 self-propelled combine, a designated landmark of American agricultural engineering, was the first commercially successful self-propelled combine to make its way through an American harvest. 

1930s, 20th century, Henry Ford Museum, food, farms and farming, farming equipment, by Jim McCabe, agriculture

What Does a “Combine” Combine?

June 30, 2023 Archive Insight

The combine — a piece of agricultural machinery — gets its name because it combines the three major tasks of harvesting grain:

• Harvesting: cutting and gathering the crop in the field.
• Threshing: removing the kernels or seeds of the crop from the rest of the plant.
• Separating: separating the kernels from other plant material such as stalks, chaff or straw.

Combines save large amounts of time and labor because they combine many activities into a single task. Self-propelled combines culminated 150 years of monumental changes in farming technology.


Efforts to perfect combine technology date to the early 1800s, but horse-drawn — and later tractor-drawn — machines were large and unwieldy. This combined harvester operated in California grain fields around 1900. / THF702847 

Dining du Jour: American Food Fads in the 20th Century

June 22, 2023 Archive Insight

Roast chicken. Mashed potatoes. A simple chocolate cake. Some foods have a sense of timelessness about them — they are reliable standbys that seem or stand the test of time with little to no alteration. Other foods, however, drift in and out of the public consciousness — and our refrigerators and stomachs. These foods are fads — practices followed for a time with exaggerated zeal, per the Merriam-Webster dictionary — and they reflect the values and preoccupations of the times in which they were popular.

As the 19th turned into the 20th century, domestic science and home economics arose as formally taught disciplines. Many domestic scientists espoused a view of women and women’s work that emphasized “feminine virtues” like beauty and daintiness. This changed the way women were expected to cook, as more emphasis was placed on presentation and nutritional value, rather than on creating culinary experiences that delighted the senses and filled the stomach.

This emphasis is readily apparent in the popularity of aspics — gelatinized dishes — in the first decades of the 20th century. Recipe booklets — most often produced by gelatin companies like Knox Gelatine and Jell-O — gave home cooks a myriad of ways to incorporate gelatin into their meals, in ways both savory and sweet. These dishes were often served on beds of iceberg lettuce, or in hollowed-out halves of fruit, providing a compact way of serving all of a meal's component parts in one tidy package.

The 1924 recipe booklet “Dainty Desserts for Dainty People” included recipes for jiggly jellied creations like "Salad-Dessert” and “Corned Tongue in Aspic.” / THF708085, THF708087

Aspics would remain a somewhat popular part of American cuisine into the 1970s, when they began to decline in popularity; some regional gelatin dishes hung on, though, and can be found at potlucks and family gatherings to this day.

While some food fads stem from the prevailing advice of the time, others stem from pop-culture trends of the moment. In the mid-20th century, American thoughts turned to space, and their appetites soon followed suit. Tang — the powdered vitamin C breakfast drink first produced in 1957 and marketed as a healthier, more convenient alternative to orange juice — rocketed to popularity after it was sent to space with John Glenn when he first orbited Earth in 1962. Tang’s subsequent marketing would lean heavily into the space connection, while continuing to tout its superior vitamin C levels and convenience. While its popularity in the U.S. waned in the years following the Space Race — despite being marketed as a potential ingredient in all sorts of recipes — it remains popular in Asia, South America, and the Middle East.

Advertisement for Tang, “Chosen for the Gemini Astronauts,” 1966 / THF230075

Less enduring in popularity after the Space Age were Space Food Sticks. These “non-frozen balanced energy snacks in rod form containing nutritionally balanced amounts of carbohydrate, fat and protein” (to quote the 1970 patent) were first produced by Pillsbury in 1969, and modeled after the food cubes the company had created for the 1962 Aurora 7 mission. They were marketed primarily to children, and had a consistency similar to a Tootsie Roll. Production halted in 1980, although for a period of time between 2006 and 2014, visitors to the Kennedy Space Center and the National Air and Space Museum could purchase a revival version produced by Retrofuture Products.

Pillsbury Space Food Sticks, 1969-1971 / THF175150

There have also been trends against certain foods. Monosodium glutamate (MSG) — first prepared in 1908 by Japanese chemist Dr. Kikunae Ikeda to achieve the distinctive, savory umami taste found in sea kelp — was first used by American food manufacturers in the late 1920s. In the wake of World War II, interest on the part of the military and the advent of frozen foods saw increased demand for MSG, and the first U.S. brand — Ac'cent — hit the shelves in 1947.

The 1960s, however, brought with it a rising distrust of industrialized food, and MSG came under scrutiny — alleged to be the culprit behind everything from the vague “Chinese restaurant syndrome” to brain damage in mice. Despite questionable scientific evidence — the FDA has consistently classified it as safe for human consumption — MSG quickly fell out of public favor, although recent research into the science of umami has led to a resurgence in popularity.

Food fads can also be about how we eat. There has often been an element of prescriptive diet or health advice behind food fads, often tied to the idea of getting thinner as a synonym for getting healthier.

This introduction to “Sophia’s Recommended Recipes,” published by Weight Watchers in 1971, reflects the idea that being “lighter” is better, as well as the notion that diets are primarily for women (whom it assumes eat smaller portions), not men. / THF296150

“Fad dieting” has become its own term, often used to refer to trendy schemes that promise dramatic results, but have little to no scientific veracity. These trends come and go, with a new regime seeming to crop up every few years. Even the more long-standing weight loss programs change with the times, shifting their marketing and programming to best attract new clients.

1975’s “The Skinny Book,” published by Better Homes and Gardens and sponsored by diet soda brands TAB and Fanta, focused on low-calorie dieting as a method to weight-loss — with a healthy dose of product placement. / THF708069

The transitory and often contradictory nature of diet advice perhaps serves as a reminder that well-trained medical professionals — not marketers — remain an important resource for healthy eating guidelines.

Whether they stem from well-meaning advice or well-placed marketing, whether they are embraced or derided, food fads are an inescapable part of the culture of cuisine. Whether you dig into the latest dish or stick to the classics — bon appétit!

A Tale of Tails: Conserving a Horsehair Footstool

June 15, 2023

Can you name a fabric that would have all of the following characteristics?

• Durable and hard-wearing
• Comes from a natural and replenishable source that is cruelty free
• Naturally antifungal with hypoallergenic properties
• Naturally water, stain, and fire resistant
• Lustrous and fashionable

It’s not easy to come up with something that would meet each and every one of these criteria, but if you guessed horsehair, then you guessed right!

A view of the formal parlor in the Webster Home, Greenfield Village.

Let’s rewind to 1835 and step inside the Webster home in Greenfield Village, where you will find a grand couch and two footstools in the formal parlor. The set is upholstered in a rich and lustrous espresso-colored horsehair fabric. Why horsehair? Before automobiles came along, working horses were everywhere and it was commonplace for their tails to be trimmed short for practical and hygienic reasons. People made use of the cut-off portion, finding it to be a natural material that was both plentiful and resilient. It would have been a popular, sensible, and stylish choice for upholstery in high-traffic areas and common in parlors, dining rooms, and meeting areas across Europe and the U.S. (in fact, you’ll find many examples throughout the village, so keep those eagle eyes peeled the next time you visit).

The tails of working horses were cut short for practical reasons, as you can see in this painting by George Stubbs titled “A Saddled Bay Hunter,” 1786. Oil on panel; 21 3/4 inches by 27 3/4 inches. Berger Collection, Denver Art Museum. (Public Domain)

This particular furniture set dates to 1815-1825, so it’s in pretty wonderful shape, all things considered. Village staff spotted surface damage to one of the footstools, and so it was brought to our conservation labs, where our historic objects get the TLC they need.

The damage is not new and was likely caused by beetles that would be attracted to the proteins in the horsehair. Sometimes a damaged artifact gives us the chance to see what’s on the inside and learn more about the innovative techniques and materials that were used to produce it. For instance — do you see the squiggly nest of strands inside the holes in the photo above? That’s actually horsehair too. It could be used as stuffing for upholstered furniture because it’s malleable but also has lots of structure to keep cushions from deflating.

The Treatment

Conservation work involves a bit of science, art, and a lot of patience. Our job isn’t to make the object look new. Instead, we aim to consolidate original materials and stabilize the artifact as a whole in a way that honors its craftsmanship and allows its story to continue to be told.

We considered various materials for making patches but were eager to experiment and see if they could be made from horsehair fabric itself. This is tricky because of how this type of fabric is woven. As you can see in the image below, each strand of hair sticks out from either selvedge edge of the cloth because horsehair isn’t long enough to be woven back and forth through the cotton warp (the solid black threads that are strung onto the loom). The hairs selected for this type of fabric are the thickest and most wire-like ones. The fabric is tightly woven but can fray easily when cut.

John Boyd Textiles Ltd. in Castle Cary, England, is one of the last remaining manufacturers of horsehair fabrics. You can see a video about their traditional production process on their website: Horsehair Fabrics woven by John Boyd Textiles (Image via Creations Metaphores, Instagram).

Our supply of horsehair fabric comes from John Boyd Textiles in the UK. The adhesive that we use to attach the new patch to the original material comes as a film held between two sheets of mylar; it can be heat-sealed to fabrics with a tacking iron. In this case, it allows us to attach the patch to the footstool but also helps to seal the raw edges of the horsehair together as they are being cut.  

A tapered patch is carefully slid into place using fine-tipped tweezers.

We ensured the direction of the weave on each patch aligned with where it would be placed on the footstool and refined the tapered ends to limit the amount of disruption to the object as we slid them into place between the layers of existing upholstery. With tweezers, we were able to do this without lifting or stretching the original surface. Once heat-set, we then carefully wicked hide glue (another natural material and one of the oldest types of adhesives) into the edge of each hole so that the patch was fully stabilized from either side. We chose hide glue for its ability to expand and contract due to changes in temperature — a helpful quality for an artifact that lives in Greenfield Village year-round.

The upholstered cushion of the footstool before (L) and after patches have been applied (R).

Finally, we used a fine-tipped brush and a blend of acrylic paint colors to disguise the raw jute around the edge of each hole, matching the placement of the striated dark and light strands of horsehair. In this way, we can maintain the integrity of the object’s history for study or further treatment down the road while still allowing it to tell the focused story of its current exhibition without distraction.

Kate Herron, conservation specialist, textiles, Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation