Stop by our booth at this year’s Annual Sheep to Shawl Festival at the Willamette Heritage Center.  We’ll be part of the Heritage Fair section of the event, but don’t miss the other great sheep shearing, blacksmithing and dutch-oven cooking demonstrations, live animals, entertainment and kids activities too!

Test Lens Set, Oregon State Hospital

The following update on the changes in optometric care for patients at the Oregon State Hospital  was reported to the Oregon Legislature in the Biennial Report of the Oregon State Board of Control for the Biennial Period Ending September 30, 1914.

Considerable time and care have been devoted to the proper fitting of glasses for patients.  It is well known that defects of vision may cause various nervous symptoms or aggravate nervous conditions already present.  Two hundred and forty cases have been refracted, ophthalmoscopic, retinoscopic and other tests being used when indicated. 

This is a decided advance over the old custom of permitting the patient to pick out a pair of spectacles from a miscellaneous assortment of plain plus glasses, which often resulted in harm and discomfort to the patient.

Painting entitled "Clinic" by Martina Gangle Curl

This painting is one of the many treasures uncovered in the Gold Room.  Painted by the Oregon artist Martina Gangle Curl, it depicts a man using a stethoscope to listen to the heartbeat of a small child, while his headlight shines on red-haired woman with her hand on her chest.  A reluctant figure stands in the dark background, hand held up to its distressed face. 

Curl (1906-1994) was a prominent Oregon painter, printmaker and social activist.  She attend the Museum Art School in Portland and worked with the WPA Federal Art Project and federally funded Oregon Art Project on public art at Timberline Lodge, Rose City Park Elementary School and Pendleton High School.  A one time member of the Communist Party, she was a vocal advocate for civil rights, peace, and immigration and labor  issues.  Read more about Curl in Dr. David Horowitz’s article: Martina Gangle Curl (1906-1994): People’s Art and the Mothering of Humanity. 

We’d love to know more about how this painting came to OSH or where it used to hang.  If you have any information, please leave a comment or contact us. 

Signature on the back of "Clinic," painting by Martina Gangle Curl

These vintage postcards of the Oregon State Insane asylum are part of a collection put together by OSH Director of Quality Improvement Ted Ficken.   Postcards of important government buildings, like the Oregon State Hospital, were used for all sorts of communication purposes.  Two of the postcards in the collection have messages written on them.   While the messages aren’t directly related to OSH, they are interesting slices of history…

—

Clara Hanser
Tygh Valley
Wasco Co. Oreg

Dear Clare,

We arrived in Chico about ten o’clock last night.

Mother

(Postmarked San Fransisco, 1917)

—-

Mrs. Ida Williamson
Rickreall, OR
RFD #1

Dear Ida,

Gussa is coming to visit me next week and going on up to Homers.  If you can get my rugs I wish you would and send them to me by Gussa as I don’t suppose I’ll get up there this summer.  I have a very bad cold.  How are you?  Come down when you can.  Tell Verda her fellow isn’t here anymore.

-Myrtle

(Postmarked McMinnville, Oregon 5:30 PM, April 26, 1914? [year is obscured])

—-

These postcards will be preserved digitally at the museum.  With limited space, many museums are turning to digital collections as a way to preserve photographs in a cost-effective manner while at the same time keeping the originals accessible in the community institutions and families to whom they mean the most.

To see more postcards visit our Picassa Web Album here.

OMC Laundry Cart

This wooden laundry cart was found in 35c.  Does anyone know what “OMC” stands for?  Or remember seeing this cart in use?

Miscellaneous parts found during inventory. Item in lower right corner was later found to be a piece broken off of a set of cast iron scales.

These miscellaneous parts were found during the inventory process.  While they may look like junk (and many of them may turn out to be just that), the innocuous looking metal piece T2009.002.053 proved to be much more.  About three weeks after it was found, it was identified as a missing piece from a set of Henry Troemner scales. 

Henry Troemner started manufacturing commercial scales in 1838 in Philadelphia and received a contract to make scales for the US Mint.  Sometime after 1856, they started making pharmaceutical scales.  The company is still in business today. 

Not every item inventoried is historic or will become part of the museum, but every item found is numbered and kept until it can be identified.   

Henry Troemner Scales (T2009.002.108) reunited with its missing piece (T2009.002.053)

Objects stored in the Gold Room

OSH has collected a lot of objects over the years.  Some are easily recognizable, others are not.  We need your help identifying these objects!  Starting this week we will periodically post an image and description of an unidentified object on the Artifact ID page.  Please help by submitting information or recollections about the object as a comment on the page.  Comments will be saved and filed in the collections management database.