History on Display: The Unexpected DeMoulin Museum Celebrates Invention, Imagination,and Industry
I freely admit that I visited the DeMoulin Museum in Greenville, Illinois, with a certain amount of trepidation. Over the years My Own True Love and I have visited plenty of small private museums that were founded to showcase an individual's passion. All too often, they are sad, weird, and incoherent.* A museum devoted to a company known for band uniforms and what the brochure described as "lodge initiation devices" sounded like a candidate to be all three.
Wrong. Wrong. And wrong.** The DeMoulin Museum is quirky and fascinating: one of those rare gems that keep My Own True Love and I walking through the door of small private museums with hope in our hearts.
Today DeMoulin Brothers and Co. is the largest manufacturer of band uniforms in the country. A perfectly respectable, if occasionally glittery, business. But the real story lies in those mysterious "lodge initiation devices".
The period from 1890 to 1930 was the Golden Age of the fraternal lodge in America. Belonging to the Elks, Moose, Kiwanis, or one of the dozens of other organizations that sprang up at the time*** offered American men a social outlet, a status symbol, a female-free zone other than the corner bar, and sometimes health and life insurance not available elsewhere. A chance to wear a funny hat and get life insurance? How could a man resist? Hundreds of thousands of men belonged to at least one lodge. Some sociable types belonged to three or four. With more than 100 different lodge organizations in existence, lodges competed for members. That's where the DeMoulin brothers come into the story.
In 1892, the national head of the Modern Woodmen of America was looking for a way to stand out from the pack. He called on local photographer and inventor Ed DeMoulin for help. DeMoulin and his brothers, Erastus and Ulysses, suggested that the Woodmen needed to add a little excitement to their initiation rites. They devised the “molten lead test:” candidates were told that to join the lodge, they had to plunge their hands into a bubbling pot of molten lead, an illusion created with the chemical reaction of dry mercury powder and cold water.
The molten lead test was a success, and a decades-long tradition of hazing new lodge members was born. So was DeMoulin Bros. and Company, which became the leading inventor and manufacturer of fraternal paraphernalia, including spanking machines, collapsing chairs, and other devices designed to cause discomfort in the initiate and hilarity among his friends.**** Their signature item was the DeMoulin goat, a vehicle halfway between a rocking horse and a tricycle certain to give a blindfolded rider an undignified ride.
Known locally as "the goat factory", DeMoulin Brothers soon expanded its focus. The transition from initiation devices to other lodge paraphernalia***** was an obvious one. In 1897, the company made another obvious transition its first band uniforms. (It was also the Golden Age of the municipal marching band.) Over the years, they've made circus costumes and military uniforms, reinventing themselves as needed.
The museum tells the story well, focusing not only on the DeMoulin brothers and their wacky devices but on the story of a company that has reinvented itself over and over in response to social changes. If you're in the St Louis area, give yourself a treat and spend an hour or two at the DeMoulin Museum. You might even get a chance to ride the goat.
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* Unfortunately, passion does not always come with the skills needed to inspire others to share it.
** You knew there was going to be a happy ending, right?
***Masonic lodges look similar but the organization is older and may in fact be the pattern on which later fraternal orders are based. Freemasonry reached North America from England in the 1730s.
****The fake guillotine was not a big success with lodges, but museum owner John Goldsmith says it is popular with modern school groups.
*****Any fan of the Flintstones will remember the headdresses Fred and Barney wore to meetings of the Loyal Order of the Water Buffalo.
Eighty Days
On November 14, 1889, Nelly Bly, reporter for the popular newspaper The World, sailed from New York on the trip that would make her famous: an attempt to travel around the world in less than eighty days. Eight and a half hours later, unknown to Bly, the literary editor of the monthly magazine, The Cosmopolitan, boarded a westbound train in a reluctant and largely forgotten attempt to beat Bly around the world. Matthew Goodman tells their story in Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland’s History-Making Race Around the World.
Goodman emphasizes both the differences and the surprising similarities between the brash investigative reporter from a Pennsylvania coal town and the southern lady who educated herself in a ruined plantation’s library. Alternating between their experiences, he contrasts their reactions to publicity, their fellow travelers (especially the British), and the new cultures they encounter. Even knowing that Bly will win, the race is a page-turner, complete with storms at sea, damaged ships, nearly missed connections, the kindness of strangers, and a hair-raising train ride through western mountains.
Although the race is engaging in its own right, Eighty Days is more than an adventure story. Goodman does not limit himself to a step-by-step narrative of his heroines’ travels. Instead he uses the race to illustrate the social impact of new modes of transportation, a growing popular press, and new opportunities for women. The result is a social history of America on the verge of modernity.
This review previously appeared in Shelf Awareness for Readers.
The Baburnama : An Emperor Tells His Own Story
'Ali Dust Taghayi Paying Homage to Babur
Zahir-u-din Muhammad Babur was the first Mughal ruler of India--one of history's great empire builders by any standard.
Born in 1483 in the Central Asian kingdom of Ferghana (part of modern Uzbekistan), Babur was descended from two great conquerors: Genghis Khan and Timur (known in the west as Tamurlane). After being edged out of his own kingdom, he conquered Samarqand when he was thirteen, lost it, conquered it again when he was nineteen, and lost it again a year later. He carved out a new kingdom for himself in the mountains of Afghanistan and then went on to conquer a large section of northern India.
Much of what we know about him comes from his autobiography, the Baburnama (Book of Babur). It's not clear what inspired Babur to write his memoirs. Historical accounts were popular in the Islamic world of his time, but there was no tradition of royal memoirs. His choice of language was also unusual. Babur was perfectly at home writing Persian, the literary language of Central Asia at the time. But he chose to write the Baburnama in Chagaty Turkish, the language spoken by himself and his people.
The memoir is lively, personal and direct. Babur begins the story when he inherited the throne at the age of twelve and ends in mid-sentence in September, 1529, a year before his death. He paints a picture of a warrior who partied as hard as he fought. He loved wine, melons, and gardens. He hated India, which was, in his opinion, lacking in all three. He was proud of his ability to write Persian poetry--and pleased to recite it at a party. (Poetry was a courtly skill and popular party game in the Central Asia kingdoms of the fifteenth and sixteenth century, just as it was in Elizabethan England and eighteenth century France.) He tells us what he did, thought and saw--not to mention how much he drank and how sick he was afterwards. He details who was at each event and why their presence was important. He outlines his military strategy at important battles. He complains about India, which he described as "a place of little charm", but describes its animal and plant life with careful, loving detail.
It is, in short, an intimate self-portrait of a prince, warts, binge drinking, and all. "I have simply written the truth," he tells the reader at one point. "I do not intend by what I have written to compliment myself: I have simply set down exactly what happened...May the reader excuse me; may the listener not take me to task." Speaking only for myself, this reader hung on every word.
This post previously appeared in Wonders and Marvels
Image courtesy of the Walters Art Museum