Publication Date

Summer 2022

Abstract

The Ford-MacNichol Home in Wyandotte, Michigan is a public historic house museum which interprets and exhibits the lives of the lavish Ford-MacNichol family who lived there from 1896 to 1903. Since 1977, the museum has been detailing the lives of the rich and powerful and my question for some time has been: what about ‘the help?’ Domestic employees were needed to make powerful Victorian households’ function properly and visitors and volunteers have expressed interest in knowing more about the house’s servants. In this project, I will be writing an addition to the interpretive manual which will discuss the daily tasks and lives of the three servant women who lived and worked in the home in 1900. This manual will walk guests through the five rooms which were predominantly used by servants: the back pantry, butler’s pantry, kitchen, and the servant’s bedroom and bathroom. In addition to the extension of the manual, I will create a plan to rearrange the back pantry to better fit the museums period of significance.

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