Did you know that lemon juice was an important ingredient when England built itself up as a colonial power? Or that a plaster relief of a small monkey can tell what the owner thought about sin and salvation? Have you ever heard of the mobile office with a secret room for dueling pistols, just in case? If the answer is no, there are two of us, and certainly many more. And the book “Time period 1600-1914. Stories about when Norway became modern” has more in stock. Much more. With generous and rich photo documentation. DON’T JUDGE A BOOK BY IT’S COVER: Kari Telste, former first curator at the Norwegian Folk Museum, is editor-in-chief of “Tidsrom”. Unfortunately, the cover signals that this is an anonymous and boring publication. A strong mismatch between outside and inside. Photo: NORSK FOLKEMUSEUM / FORLAGET PRESS Breathing life into old things. First as a museum exhibition and now as a book, which must not be confused with a museum catalogue. This Norwegian history starts in the kitchen cupboard and in the bedroom ceiling and ends in China or in West Indian colonies. We are therefore not going to visit fir-wide fireplaces and barns from various valleys. The book concentrates on civil servant families and the bourgeoisie, which grew large and powerful throughout the period. EXOTIC NIPS: Conversation piece from the 19th century, the centenary of trinkets. Exotic birds lived dangerously. WEAPONS IN THE OFFICE: Mobile “home office” for commuting prime ministers in the 19th century, with its own room for dueling pistols, just in case. MADE IN CHINA: When Morten Juell from Arendal married Sara Chrystie from Moss in 1859, gave Sara’s parents this tableware as a present. Made in China. Note the double monogram “MJ” and “JT”. Poor the one who broke a cup. VIKING SHIP: Asian, all-Norwegian or a good mix? Viking ship in the dragon style by Gerhard Munthe, 1905. Telste & co have sought out characteristic objects, as well as curiosities from private rooms, as they are in the folk museum on Bygdøy in Oslo: pipe tables, hat pins as big as murder weapons. So. How is it possible to breathe life into things that have gone out of use in rooms that no one has lived in for hundreds of years? And what is the point? The answer is to take people out of the forgotten book and let them unfold again, between all their things. Send them from there and out into society, which changes enormously over the more than 300 years the book covers. FEATHERS IN THE HAT: Hats with feathers were top fashion in the early 20th century. It led to controversy and debate: Was it ethically justifiable to kill millions of birds just for decoration? Christiania dames stealthily photographed by Carl Størmer in the 1890s. There must have been 200 million birds a year in the heaviest period, and several species were in danger of becoming extinct. A happy and summer-dressed young woman with a parasol and Tostrupgården in the background. Notice the sideways glance from the man on the left. Branding on the square in Kongsberg Here we are not in the upper reaches, in the Age of Enlightenment and Romanticism, in 1660 and 1814 and 1884. Here we meet mint master Meyer in Kongsberg, who probably lay sleepless under the beautifully decorated wooden ceiling in his bedroom. At least after it was revealed that there was too much copper in the silver alloy. The fallout was formidable: flogging and branding in the square at Kongsberg, before forced labor awaited Akershus. And if you wonder what happened to his wife and children afterwards, yes, the book will tell you that too. Here, the office is passed down to sons or sons-in-law. Ambitious men from simple backgrounds could marry into status and position. If they could get thanks in a county commissioner’s daughter or, if necessary, a widow, the future was as good as assured. Also striking are all the young women who died in childbirth. After the year of mourning, a stepmother usually took over. The folktale about evil stepmothers takes on a new meaning, the male daughter must suffer while the old woman’s daughter must inherit. RAINCOATS: Women on board. The rainwear may have been made by Ingebreth Egenæss from Arendal, who produced “Raincloths”. His daughter Secunda Emilie, married ship captain Carsten Taraldsen and sailed with him to America on the brig “Søndre Norge”. PHOTO SHOPPING: Ship captain Carsten Taraldsen and his wife with all seven children around them. If you look more closely, you will discover that the two smallest have been fitted afterwards. They were actually dead of diphtheria when the picture was taken, and retouched afterwards.CONTRACEPTION IN THE 18TH CENTURY: The husband of the merchant’s wife Margery Lowrie was proud that she was breastfeeding, something that was not common in the upper class. It is not good to say whether she knew that the chance – or the risk – of becoming pregnant was less during the breastfeeding period. Colonialism in the cup and in the ceiling This cultural-historical and biographical gateway to history is not new, but it is still a good idea. Quite special because the image material and the rich captions expand the stories and set in motion the inner movie in the reader’s head. People have Chinese porcelain tableware with their initials on it, how did they manage that? They spread around with feathers from exotic birds in their hats to the extent that rare species were threatened with extinction. VICE AND LUST: The monkey is a symbol of vice, which also mingles with fruit as in the Fall. But note: he is in chains and therefore under control. Detail from a plaster ceiling with the four continents from 1662. Australia was unknown to the Europeans.GLOW ON THE CEILING: If mint master Meyer slept badly at night, he could not blame the ceiling in the bedroom. Asmus Boyesen from Flensburg was responsible for the work, which was carried out in the early 1720s. THE SMOKING CORNER: Tobacco demanded new furniture, such as pipe tables. The guests of ship captain Oluf Christian Due could provide themselves with pipes and tobacco, but had to bring their own mouthpieces. Never in company without checking that the mouthpiece is in the trouser pocket. BURNING MARKING: Henrik Christoffer Meyer stole at work and was punished by branding in 1729, perhaps with an iron like this: The swishing mark shows a double gallows. From 1789 there was an end to the burning of thieves in Norway. They drank coffee with sugar, while an English ship’s cook is quoted from his diary as saying “I never more will drink Sugar in my Tea, for it is nothing but Negroe’s blood.” Our people let German craftsmen make stucco on the ceiling, with images of the four continents ruled by Europe, Native Americans are cannibals and Africans are children of nature. Stereotypes that have been persistent, and this is how actuality enters the work. A work that nevertheless stands on its own without overly pedagogical threads for our time. CHILDREN AND TOBACCO: Workers at Tiedeman’s Factory in Charlottenberg, photographed in 1894. Factory owner Nicolai Andresen in the first row with a hat. Andresen himself moved to Sweden with his family for a period, for tax reasons. Many of the workers in the picture are children. Child labor was more common in Norway than in England and the USA, and there were particularly many children in the tobacco industry. Photo: Forlaget Press Difficult to break free Here we can read about tax evasion to Sweden, child labor in the tobacco industry, changing rules for what women could and could not allow themselves – before it all culminates with the jubilee exhibition in Frogner Park in 1914, a few months before the First World War break out and change history. A fitting place to put an end. In “Tidsrom 1600-1914” not a single picture is random. The authors know that the readers are amateurs, but still capable of thinking. The work is sharply edited, much is left out. Precisely for this reason, one gets what is written. This is communication art at its best. news reviews Photo: Press. Title: “Time period 1600-1914” Author: Kari Telste (ed.) Genre: Nonfiction Publisher: Press Pages: 487 Published: 2023
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“Time period 1600-1914” by Kari Telste (ed.) – Reviews and recommendations
