Exhibit dazzles with its fresh smell, bright sheen | James Reaney | Columnists | Entertainment | London Free Press
It’s true — attitudes toward cleanliness have changed over the decades and so have the household appliances used in its pursuit
Maybe it’s the headless woman in the Hoover vacuum cleaner advertisement.
Maybe it’s the kitchenware on loan from London luminary Weezi and her mom.
Maybe it’s the clock that kept time for the Curnoe family over the decades.
Maybe it’s the displays of products like Laraxo — a hand cleaner — and Sinko. You don’t need help in IDing Sinko, do you?
Likely, it’s all of the above and everything else about the Museum London exhibition Spic and Span: A Recent History of Being Clean that makes it clean up so sweetly. The exhibition continues until June 12.
“By the turn of the 20th century, an extraordinary idea had taken hold across North America,” says the musem’s regional-history curator, Maya Hirschman, “that frequent bathing, even a daily bath, was good for your health. Spic and Span looks at how product design and savvy marketing caught up to this cultural change and transformed our society from one of backyard privies to multiple-bathroom homes filled with products promising ‘the brightest white.’ ”
Hirschman’s exhibition considers factors that marked a dramatic increase in the idea that cleaning is “women’s work.” It takes us from a big bathtub c. 1860 to a kitchen scene from the 1950s.
It doesn’t hurt that Hirschman has made the exhibition a joyful labour of love. She insisted on the use of the “celery-leaf” green tone that’s the perfect shade for the exhibition.
She has even enlisted an iconic image of her grandmother, Florence Hogenkamp, as Florence in the Kitchen. “She would do it — she was a nurse,” Hirschman says of the woman seen at the controls of a gleaming suburban Canadian kitchen in 1952.
To go with such splendid Canadiana, she’s also turned up some unintentionally hilarious relics from the gender-role wars. Among those would be that Hoover advertisement with the headless housewife. “Her head’s cut off,” Hirschman tells a visitor, who has been admiring it all on a stroll through Spic and Span. The image of the woman in the advertisement shows only what limbs she needs to manoeuvre that godlike Hoover. “The head is unimportant,” Hirschman says.
Like any fine exhibition, Spic and Span has room for new wonders. These arrived after Weezi, a.k.a Lisa Gaverluk, and her mom visited the exhibition and marvelled at the kitchen display.
“That’s so cool,” said one or the other — or both. Voila. More retro, classy items: enamel ware, small appliances and mixing bowls on loan for the kitchen.
By happy chance, the clock in that kitchen scene has an intimate connection with London and Canadian cultural history. It was a 1935 wedding gift. The clock was in the Curnoe family home in Old South London until it finally stopped in 1993. Glen Curnoe donated it to the museum.
More? Yes there is much more to Spic and Span.
What’s the most amazing attraction of the 60 on exhibit?
Maybe it’s two domestic-themed paintings by ace London artist Bernie Vincent.
Maybe it’s the . . . ah, you better get over there yourself and then tell me.
IF YOU GO
What: Spic and Span: A Recent History of Being Clean, a Museum London exhibition. On Sunday, 1 p.m., Dr. Shelley McKellar talks on Cholera and the Gospel of Sanitation: Disease and Public Health in Nineteenth-Century London, Ontario as part of museum’s free Sundays at One series.
When: Continues until June 12. Closed Mondays. Noon to 5 p.m., other days, except Thursdays, noon to 9 p.m.
Where: Museum London, 421 Ridout St. N.
Details: Admission by donation. Visit museumlondon.ca or call 519-661-0333.
