I originally posted the story of Ralph Farnsworth's unusual collections in March of 2021. Only a year later I heard that he'd died. Our local paper, the Addison Independent, had a story this week about the auctioning of at least part of his collection (old gas pumps, for one). It seemed like a good time to revisit what was once his own museum. Memento of a "lost world" of a sort.
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You wouldn't ordinarily expect to find little boutique museums around here, would you? Not unless it belongs to a nearby college (Middlebury has its Mahaney Arts Center) or is perhaps the collection of a local Historical Society (Middlebury–the town, this time–has its Sheldon Museum). The Farnsworth museum, that is, Ralph Farnsworth's museum, open by appointment only, is neither.
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| Ralph Farnsworth, of the eponymous museum |
Localized for you!
It is the obsession of one Ralph Farnsworth who lives in my town. He is a gentleman, I suppose one would say, of the "old school," not being a newcomer in any sense of the world, still living on the same farm he grew up on, taciturn, the kind of person you might picture when someone refers to an "old Vermonter." I use the word obsession because you would have to call it an obsession when you collect so many old things over a period of many years and amass so much of it that you need to devote an entire building to house it all. If his collections were disordered, you would considered him a hoarder and the collection a hoard. But his collection is very much in order. And ordered. By shape, size, and category, mostly.
Still, it's a bit of a shock when you first walk in and see all the–well, stuff. It's as if you walked into an old general store, pharmacy, farm shed, hardware store, gift shop, all in the same space.
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| Everything that's fit to keep |
Did I say orderly?
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| Pencils. Why not! Plus the odd ruler. |
Yes, pencils are arranged together with pencils, hasps, knobs and latches together with hasps, knobs, and latches, clocks with clocks, vacuum cleaners with vacuum cleaners, and so on. I have no idea what the pencils share in terms of history, if any, but they do make for a pleasing design.
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Many, maybe most of us, have samples of the above artefacts in our sheds and garages. But do we
arrange them anywhere near as well? I don't think so. |
The above are merely decoration compared with the collection of old tools and what I would call "pre-appliance" appliances, when the word "appliance" still meant merely applying oneself to something, or was used as a noun to describe a water wheel or other such mechanical device. What, after all, do you call a vacuum cleaner, sans electricity, when it functions more like some sort of dry suction pump (if there is indeed such a thing)? You could claim it helped build up your arm muscles while using. But for the fact that those women who cleaned probably weren't in need of additional exercise. They would more likely have said the hell with this! Give me a broom!
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The "Success" model, made by the Hutchison Mgf. Co. of Wilkinsburg, PA,
its function being demonstrated. (Mr. Farnsworth hovered, so we weren't
allowed to touch.)
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Or imagine mowing your lawn with the implement below. The model in the ad suggests it dates to the 1940's or later. Was this someone's nutty idea, or was this actually on the market? Since our curator has two of them, we can guarantee they sold more than one. (Hmm, it says "sold only by mail order.”)
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| It weighed in at only 8-½ pounds! |
Can you see an early Cuisinart in this food chopper?
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We were told by Mr. Farnsworth what each piece was supposed to do,
but this one had a tag: "food chopper" |
In the radio, television, phonograph, telephone, toaster and "other" aisles ("other" is part of every display) there are some beautiful old victrolas and an authenticated (provenance on display) Edison equipment.
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| Toasters and clocks and telephones and more... |
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| Homage to Thomas Edison
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The DVD is foreshadowed!
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"The Picture Record"? How, exactly?
And the tape recorder...?
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| I forget what this was, but it seemed a pretty amazing invention for the time. No! Not a stove! |
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| Evolution of the light bulb, sort of. |
There is what I would call a memories section, labels and advertisements, comic books, and huge stashes of old newspapers. Nevermind that old newspapers can be found via microfiche. A few examples below.
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Mementos of places visited, events and people remembered, a kind of bulletin board of the past. I
wonder what it was like at "The Tops" back in the 1920's. Intriguing. |
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From the stone age, before Siri began telling us how to get there from here.
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| Collectibles. Shocking–to me–that these 'ancient' calendars are only from the 1960's. |
As we wound our way through the crowded aisles of things and more things, we came to the Coca Cola section of which there was quite a lot of material, considering it is just one brand. Why so much about Coke? "I like Coca Cola," said Ralph. There you have it.
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| Toy trains and Matchbox cars join the endless Coca Cola logos. |
The Coca Cola area was the last major section of our museum tour. By this time we were glassy-eyed. Throughout our wanderings through his collections Mr. Farnsworth dogged our steps, perhaps fearing our fingers might be a tad too nimble.
