Items in Historical Photos

Displaying objects in your home used to be a sign of wealth, style, culture, prosperity, and status. Bare rooms were a sign of poor taste, low morals, and poverty.

Looking back, those images look cluttered. At the time, the trinkets, knick-knacks, tchotchkes, bric-a-brac were making a statement. In extremely wealthy families, every flat surface may have had an object to display, from mantles to tables. 

Consider this...Many of the artifacts seen in the older images of this module would have been from all around the world, at a time when worldly travel looked much different than today. In 1870, a Terrace Hill vase may be the only item a Des Moines commoner may have ever seen from China.