Claremont Heritage

A History of Claremont in 100 Objects: Surfboard-Mary Garner Hirsch Collection  #4 "Surfboard" Artifact Description: Balsa wood surfboard in canvas, approximately four feet long and two feet wide, located in the Garner House; child’s bedroom.  Walking through Claremont, one doesn’t have to look to hard to see surfboards. On the tops of people’s cars, you can find a veritable array of different boards with different graphics and colors, each a sort of factional marking; a statement that the owner is a true Californian. At my home institution, Pomona College, there is an Outdoor Educational Center where students can borrow surfboards, boogie boards, and wetsuits for weekend trips to the beach; it is expected that some students will seek the coast and California’s breaks. The Surfboard is such an indistinguishable part of Southern Californian Culture that it almost is impossible to imagine the landscape without it. But hidden inside surfboards is a historic story, one with many

A History of Claremont in 100 Objects: Philco Television-Mary Garner Hirsch Collection  #3 "Philco Television Cabinet" Artifact Description: Philco Model 50-T1478 Television and cabinet with record player and radio set, part of the Mary Garner Hirsch Collection  This Philco TV cabinet from 1950 is an icon of the Mid-Century American home. As early as the 1960s, most American households had at least one television. The advent of television represented new and evolving forms of entertainment, and of the dissemination of information. In the Garner House, this TV is set in the living room, as it may have been in the late 40s or early 50s. Sitting across from a radio cabinet and below the Garner’s music balcony, three separate eras of entertainment and leisure come together visually to show both technological and cultural progression.  The Garner family's Philco 50-T1478 television cabinet Like the Viewmaster discussed in our previous blog, the television was a new mode for th

A History of Claremont in 100 Objects: Viewmaster Lens-Foster Rhodes Jackson Collection #2 "Viewmaster" Artifact Description: A small pair of black Bakelite stereoscopic goggles, with a silver trim sticker labelled, “Pomona Tile MFG. Co.” and a collection of accompanying slides displaying various marketing images of tiles and countertops.  Developed in the 1920s and first unveiled at the New York’s Worlds Fair in 1939, the Viewmaster is perhaps more famous as a children’s toy manufactured by Mattel, but the Viewmaster has a history that extends much further than play. Patented by William Gruber of Portland, the Viewmaster was initially produced by a company called Sawyer’s Photo Services which allowed a viewer to view a set of up to seven 3D images via the stereoscopic effect. By using a set of lenses that worked in tandem, two 2D still images could be projected in a way that would make them appear three-dimensional. In effect the Viewmaster gave an early form of virtual real

#1 “Radiant Therapy Machine”-Mary Garner Hirsch Collection by Cooper Crane   This is a story about light, medicine, a Nobel Prize winner, and the body.   This is a story about how we view our bodies, and how we negotiate and reshape our bodies and physical self. This is a story about heliotherapy.   One of the more interesting objects in the Garner House is a strange metallic lamp. Made from a dull nickel, the metal shell is shaped almost like a decanter with a protruding funnel at one end. Standing about three feet in height, it is curiously out of place with many of the other items on display in the house. So, what is this strange object? Heliotherapy lamp at Garner House, Claremont Heritage I write this post sitting next to the lamp, in the same way a person would have done using the device in the early 20 th century. This particular lamp was part of the Garner family’s own daily lives. Our lamp was donated by Mary Garner Hirsch, granddaughter of Herman and Bess Garner,