This week at Eckley, I was assigned a few projects involving artifact cleaning in select buildings on-site. I also continued last week’s project of documenting artifacts that were not approved for web publication and filling gaps in online descriptions.

On Tuesday, I cleaned artifacts in the house that was occupied by the Nicholas family at Eckley, dubbed by some as the “1940s House” because of its interpretive setting as a 1940s-era home. The lower level of the house is often used for public events, and needed to be prepared for public view for the Patchtown Days event in June. The majority of cleaning had to be done in the kitchen and living room area, where many artifacts were dusty. I carefully removed dust (and soot from kitchen areas) from appliances, hard furniture, and shelved objects using a paint brush and vacuum—I was explicitly instructed to avoid textiles, such as couches or tablecloths, because cleaning such surfaces require a screen to be placed between the vacuum and surface.

 

 

 

On Wednesday, I cleaned a doctor’s office that was used by company doctor George S. Wentz during the late nineteenth century. The lower level that I had to clean is made up of three rooms: a waiting / consultation area with seating and a writing desk, an operating room with an examination table and shelves housing various medicines and tonics, and finally an addition that houses cases of some other artifacts and informational placards. The objects in this building required especially careful handling—there were numerous artifacts, such as century-old medicine, unidentified pills, and likely unsterilized medical equipment that had to be freed of dust. Each individual bottle, can, and box needed to be removed from the shelves and dusted individually. In reading the packaging some of these dated ailments, the sorts of things claimed by pharmaceutical producers are quite interesting. For example, one self-titled “Kidney Cure” claimed it, in heavy doses, could prevent conditions as severe as diabetes.

At the end of the week, John brought down two newly-accessioned artifacts from the Anthracite Heritage Museum in Scranton, and gave me the opportunity to officially catalogue them. These items were a can of calcium carbide, a type of fuel used for early miners’ head lamps, as well as a vehicle-mounted carbide lamp that used such fuel.