A Newsletter of the White River Valley Museum October 2004

The Vanity Set, 1890 - 1940 by Alyssa Shirley Morein, Curator of Collections   Today’s everywoman, in preparing to leave the house, most likely stands at the bathroom counter, hastily blow-drying her hair or dashing on lipstick. Her collection of lotions and potions probably co-exists in the cabinet with such functional items as toothpaste and toilet paper.   From an Elcaya Face Creams advertisement, p. 182, Ladies Home Journal, April 1928. WRVM Archives.   A hundred or so years ago, however, her grooming practices were less hurried and certainly less perfunctory. A lady (of a certain station, at least) had a vanity stand in her boudoir, which was a place of self-care and rest. Upon the stand was displayed an attractive vanity set, consisting of matching hairbrush, comb, and mirror, as well as any combination of manicure tools, shoe horns, buttonhooks and buffers, hat and clothes brushes, hair receivers, powder boxes, and picture frames. Vanity sets were in widespread use by around 1890 and continued to be popular through the 1940s. Their commonness was due in part to the prevalence of nationally-circulated merchandise catalogs such as those of Montgomery Ward and Sears, Roebuck & Co. Promoted in these catalogs as luxury “gift suggestions,” vanity sets came in all sizes and styles, usually packaged in satin-lined boxes. In the 1927 Sears, Roebuck catalog, a modest 3-piece set could be purchased for $2.98 (about the cost of a pair of leather workboots in the same catalog), or a deluxe 15-piece set for $27.85 (about the cost of a higher-end wristwatch). This mid-priced vanity set was advertised in the 1927 edition of the Sears, Roebuck Catalogue. Reprint, curator’s reference library.   Although sold and perceived as luxury items, these mass-marketed vanity sets were in fact not made of the same “authentic” materials—ivory, horn, or tortoiseshell, to name a few—which composed the combs and hairbrushes of the mid-nineteenth-century and before. Rather, they were made of celluloid plastic, which was patented around 1870 by New Jersey’s J. W. Hyatt. Hyatt founded the Celluloid Brush Company in 1874 and rival companies soon mushroomed. Over the following decades, these companies’ refinements to the manufacturing process produced more and more convincing imitations of coveted, yet increasingly scarce, natural materials. Ivory ‘Pyralin’ was one of the most popular celluloid imitative styles. Advertisement from The Arlington Works, a DuPont company, p. 12, The Red Book Magazine, September 1919. WRVM Archives.   Interestingly, while today plastic has become virtually synonymous with “cheap” or “fake,” most turn-of-the-century consumers actually were dazzled by the ingenuity and innovation of these plastic goods. Of course, it didn’t hurt that imitation ivory or mother-of-pearl cost significantly less than the real thing, and possessed greater durability and strength to boot. In many ways, plastics contributed to the democratization of goods in America. The celluloid vanity sets in Museum’s collection mostly date to the 1920s, one of them being from the same line as the “Mayflower Pearl on Amber Set” pictured at right. Except for a little yellowing and some crackling along stress points (where bristles meet brush paddle, for instance), the plastic remains in fine condition today. Alyssa Shirley Morein