Monday, July 4, 2011

LSU Rural Life Museum

Richard and I spent our day enjoying the LSU Rural Life Museum in Baton Rouge.  Although we got a late start, we spent hours just wondering around looking at the architecture and artifacts of life in Louisiana before the 20th Century.  I took about 80 pictures and would have taken many more had I been able to keep the batteries charged.  Thank goodness I had the forethought to bring my charger and the people of the museum graciously allowed me to recharge the batteries.  

Since there are so many photos, I'll post a few today and more later in the week.  Today's photos are of textiles and textile machines.  There happens to be a small quilt show occurring in the Museum, so I snapped a few pics of quilts, too.
Case of carding tools, presses, and other items for preparing fibers that will be turned into thread and cloth.












Spinning jenny for turning fibers into thread







Looms for turning thread into cloth.

A slew of sewing machines.  Unfortunately none of 
them are labeled so that I could determine the dates.  
I'd love to look up the serial number and 
try to get more info on them.


These are in a large case, so the photo is especially bad.  They are tiny little machines, only about 10 or 12 inches across.



















This has to be one of the oldest machines.  It doesn't
even look like a sewing machine except for the pedal on the bottom.
Richard was able to figure out several things about the machine.  


A couple of ironing boards.  Literally,
boards....made of wood.






















Washing machines.  The one on the left has a gas powered motor.
The black on in the back that looks like a barbeque pit is a washing machine.

Check it out.....the tub is made of wood!
Sort of a half barrel with a wringer on top.


In the commissary (country store) there's a thread display case.
Couldn't resist .

Sign in the store reads, "Ginghams reduced to 20 & 25 cents a yard."
I want that price!
 Okay, now for the quilts.  Not many pictures.  I took photos of the large bed quilts, but there were a few others that were art quilts.  My batteries were about dead, and we were exhausted!



Thanks for visiting.  Please leave a comment.  I'm curious about which of the items is most interesting to you.
Hope you enjoyed the textiles exhibit!
Don't forget to visit the LSU Rural Life Museum website.

4 comments:

Julie said...

I followed you over from the Quilting Board. Fascinating pictures! Thanks so much for sharing them. I'm especially intrigued by the loom.

Unknown said...

I love seeing all the vintage sewing machines and the thread display case. Great photos!

Three Eggs said...

Loving these great vintage finds... especially the old sewing machines! I would love to own one.

Muv said...

Hello Mary,

What a great day out!

The second machine is a German transverse shuttle machine, probably from any time within the 20 years prior to the beginning of the First World War, and I can just about make out the badge behind the bobbin winder. The badge is of J. Silberberg & Co of Hamburg, who exported machines made by many different manufacturers.

Love from England, Muv