In
Independence, Missouri sits a unique little museum dedicated to hair
art but not fancy hairdos as one might think. The hair in Leila’s Hair
Museum are strands from dearly departed loved ones made into art. Before
the advent of photography, people liked to keep a little something of
someone who had passed on. We have all seen this type of thing in movies
where a small hank of hair is kept in a locket.
People
of bygone eras took this to whole new levels by saving a loved ones
hair in a keepsake or weaving it into a work of art. This art form has been around
since the 1500s and flourished during the Victorian era.
Not
only would one find tresses in lockets but woven into bracelets,
necklaces, rings, brooches, and other jewelry pieces to keep a loved one
close.
Originally,
these fancy hair art jewelry pieces were only affordable to the very
wealthy being created by master craftsmen. By the mid 1800s, women were
creating hair art at home. Books and instructional guides were written
on the craft. Popular magazines of the time, like Godey’s Lady’s Book,
had printed patterns for hair art and offered starter kits with the
tools needed for the craft. This made hair art mementos affordable for
the average person.
These
memorial tokens weren’t relegated to jewelry only. Wall art was created
with hair. Sometimes the hair was incorporated into the art and other
times the hair was the art.
Hair
wreathes like this one would represent generations of a family. Each
time a relative passed away, a piece of that person’s hair would be
added to the wreath. Hair was twisted with wire to help it hold its
shape.
Can you imagine all the DNA in a piece like this?
Testing on hair cut from Beethoven’s head in 1827 showed his life-long illness was due to lead poisoning.
Unlike
a lot of other natural fibers, hair doesn’t decay over time. It can
last for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. On the other hand, the gum
used to glue the hair together does decay, resulting in the piece
loosing its integrity and the hair coming loose or moving within a
piece.
On the far left side, you can see in this one where the hair has come loose and is gone now due to degraded glue.
Some
famous people whose hair has been saved in some of these hair art
pieces are George and Martha Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Daniel
Webster, Aaron Burr, Jenny Lind, Queen Victoria, Elvis Presley, and
Michael Jackson to name a few.
In this video, you can take a look around Leila's Hair Museum.
Do you think this sort of thing is cool or creepy?
Would you want your hair preserved in jewelry or wall art for generations to come?
NEW RELEASE!!!
THE DÉBUTANTE'S SECRET (Quilting Circle 4)
Will Geneviève open her heart to a love she never imagined?
Washington State 1894
Geneviève Marseille has one purpose in coming to Kamola—stopping her brother from digging up the past. Deputy Montana has lived a simple life. But when a fancy French lady steps off the train and into his arms, his modest existence might not be enough anymore. A nemesis from Aunt Henny's past arrives in town threatening her with jail. Will she flee as she’d done all those years ago, or stand her ground in the town she’s made her home? When secrets come out, will the lives of Geneviève, Montana, and Aunt Henny ever be the same?
Montgomery County Jail Building
In 1881, architect William H. Brown answered the human incarceration problem with an engineering solution by designed a revolutionary new jail concept in housing criminals. Brown teamed up with Benjamin F. Haugh. Haugh, Ketcham & Co. iron foundry in Indianapolis, Indiana build this modern masterpiece.
What was this work of genius, you may ask? A rotary jail.
Hmm… Sounds a bit odd. But whenever someone comes up with a new solution or new take on an old problem, it can seem odd. Let’s find out how this one stacks up on the oddity chart.
Brown’s idea was to have a revolving cell block. There were generally eight wedge-shaped cells per floor with a single exit shared by all the cells on that floor. This way only one cell could be accessed at a time, providing more security and fewer guards required to oversee the prisoners.
The patent for this new style of jail had this description:
“The object of our inventions is to produce a jail in which prisoners can be controlled without the necessity of personal contact between them and the jailer or guard ... it consists, first, of a circular cell structure of considerable size (inside the usual prison building) divided into several cells capable of being rotated, surrounded by a grating in close proximity thereto, which has only such number of openings (usually one) as is necessary for the convenient handling of prisoners.”
Cell Door Partially Open & Cell Door Open
The greased mechanism was so well-built and the unit sat on a ball-bering surface that a single man could work the crank to spin the entire block.
This video shows a man cranking the handle to rotate the cell block.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIswvJFoT0A
Rotating Crank Mechanism
In the late 1800s, several of these rotary jails were built across the American Midwest. The first was constructed in Crawfordsville, Indiana in 1882. Five others were soon built in the Midwest. In total, eighteen of these bad boys were erected at a cost of $30,000 each.
The rotary jail boasted an indoor, sanitary plumbing system, a luxury most regular people didn’t have yet. Prisoners received three meals a day, a hot bath, and their clothes laundered. A pretty sweet deal.
Very quickly the pitfalls and safety hazards to this style of construction became evident. First, the jails often held mostly individuals too inebriated to walk. They might pass out in their cell with an arm or leg through the bars. Then when the cell block was rotated, arms and legs were injured ... or worse.
Another hazard was what to do in case of a fire. A guard would need to stay behind to turn the crank handle to let the prisoners out one wedge-shaped cell at a time. Who was going to watch these freed prisoners with the reduced manpower? And what if the guard was too afraid for his own life to stay inside a burning building. Not good. A set up for failure.
Due to the safety hazards, most of the rotary jails had their mechanisms welded into a stationary position and doors made for each cell within a few years. Nearly all of these jails were decommissioned by 1939. The Pottawattamie County jail in Council Bluffs, Iowa was the last of these jails in service. It shut down in December of 1969. It’s rotating mechanism was still in use up to 1960.
Food Pass-Through Slot
The Montgomery County rotary jail in Crawfordsville, Indiana is the only one of these jails still able to rotate. However, no prisoners are housed there as it is now a museum. This would be so much fun to visit.
I would give Brown high marks for ingenuity, creativity, and out of the box thinking. But very-low marks for safety considerations before construction and cost savings for their clients. I wonder if any of the towns, which had these jails built, recouped the money they were supposed to save with paying fewer guards.
NEW RELEASE!!!
THE DÉBUTANTE'S SECRET (Quilting Circle 4)
Will Geneviève open her heart to a love she never imagined?
Washington State 1894
Geneviève Marseille has one purpose in coming to Kamola—stopping her brother from digging up the past. Deputy Montana has lived a simple life. But when a fancy French lady steps off the train and into his arms, his modest existence might not be enough anymore. A nemesis from Aunt Henny's past arrives in town threatening her with jail. Will she flee as she’d done all those years ago, or stand her ground in the town she’s made her home? When secrets come out, will the lives of Geneviève, Montana, and Aunt Henny ever be the same?
 |
| Randolph Caldecott (1846-1886), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons |
So, I asked my hubby, “What’s the difference between a crow and a raven?”
He came back with a quick, snappy answer. “The spelling.”
Cracked me up.
My brain kept turning my question around in my head until I had to look it up.
They are two different birds. The similarities are that they are birds, black, and intelligent.
They are both part of the genus Corvus. The main differences seem to be the size and voice. A crow is smaller, being about the size of a dove, has a mid-range caw-caw. A raven is closer to the size of a hawk and has a course rattling call like a long, slow croaking tone. There are many other minor differences like tail shape, habitat, feather sheen, and lifespan, eight years for crows and thirty for ravens.
In my defense of not knowing the differences before, “crow” is a broad synonym for all of the genus Corvus. So, I could call a raven a crow but not a crow a raven.
Here is a video on many of the differences between a crow and a raven.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZ5iippq3rA
So, that begged the question about other similar animals. Is a rabbit a hare and a hare a rabbit? As I suspected, they are two different animals but of the same genus Leporidae. Rabbits are all-around smaller, smaller body, smaller ears, smaller hind legs. There are some large breed rabbits, but generally they are smaller than hares. Hares are faster, live above ground. Their babies are born furry, with their eyes open and need little adult care. Rabbits are slower, burrow underground, and their babies are born naked with closed eyes and need to be taken care of.
Next, I went on a search of mushrooms and toadstools. These two terms are not scientific ones for these fungi. It seems the general rule is mushrooms are edible and toadstools aren’t. However, there aren’t clear-cut, visible physical characteristics that set them apart. One would need a microscope and scalpel to look at the molecular makeup of a fungi to tell if it was an edible mushroom or a poisonous toadstool.
I think that’s enough of This or That.
(This is in no way a scientific study of these comparisons, but my conclusions for my own peace of mind on these pairs.)
Will Geneviève open her heart to a love she never imagined?
Washington State 1894
Geneviève Marseille has one purpose in coming to Kamola—stopping her brother from digging up the past. Deputy Montana has lived a simple life. But when a fancy French lady steps off the train and into his arms, his modest existence might not be enough anymore. A nemesis from Aunt Henny's past arrives in town threatening her with jail. Will she flee as she’d done all those years ago, or stand her ground in the town she’s made her home? When secrets come out, will the lives of Geneviève, Montana, and Aunt Henny ever be the same?
The hansom cab replaced the larger four-wheeled hackney for hired transportation for one or two people. It also afforded a better view than a side window of a larger carriage as the front was open. John Chapman modified the design, as well as others, to make it more practical but kept the Hansom name.
A typical charge could be 30 cents for one person (40 cents for two) up to a mile and 75 cents for one or two people for up to an hour. Though most of the Hansom Cabs were for hire, many were also in the private service of some wealthy individuals.
The driver sat on a sprung seat at the back of the vehicle. A trapdoor in the rear of the roof allowed passengers to communicate a destination to the driver as well as pass the fare money through the hatch to him. Once paid, the driver would operate a level to release the doors so the passengers could exit.
Low, folding wooden doors could enclose the passengers’ feet and legs to protect them from weather and splashing mud. The curved front fender protected against rocks being kicked up by horse’s hooves. Later models included an up-and-over glass window above the doors to complete the enclosure.
I have wondered from time to time where the term taxicab came from. Cab was short for cabriolet, the style of carriage used for hire. Taxi is short for taximeter, the devices created to measure the distance traveled. Put them together, and you get taxicab.
In The Débutante’s Secret, that releases in a few days, Geneviève Marseille seeks out a Hansom Cab to hire, but they haven’t made their way to the college town. However, Kamola is well on its way to having an organized cab service with the handful of industrious fellows who linger with their buggies near places (the college and hotels) they are likely to find fares at.
***NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER***
Will Geneviève open her heart to a love she never imagined?
Washington State 1894
Geneviève Marseille has one purpose in coming to Kamola—stopping her brother from digging up the past. Deputy Montana has lived a simple life. But when a fancy French lady steps off the train and into his arms, his modest existence might not be enough anymore. A nemesis from Aunt Henny's past arrives in town threatening her with jail. Will she flee as she’d done all those years ago, or stand her ground in the town she’s made her home? When secrets come out, will the lives of Geneviève, Montana, and Aunt Henny ever be the same?
I’ve been buzzing around, flitting from one thing to another just like this bumblebee. The weeds, as usual, are overr...
