#ThrowbackThursday: Fourth case filled

Royal Ontario Museum Michael Lee-Chin Crystal. Bloor Street Entrance.

Published

Categories

Blog Post
Museum

Author

Staff Writer

Blog Post

In September, 1971, the ROM opened the landmark exhibition Keep Me Warm One Night, a kaleidoscopic display of over 500 pieces of Canadian handweaving. It was the culmination of decades of pioneering research and collecting by the ROM curatorial powerhouse duo 'Burnham and Burnham’, aka Dorothy K. Burnham and Harold B. Burnham.

To kick off the one-year count down to the ROM’s conference, Cloth Cultures (November 10-12, 2017), which will commemorate Dorothy Burnham’s many legacies, and to mark Canada’s approaching 2017 Sesquicentennial, we will be posting bi-weekly excerpts from Dorothy’s journal of Keep Me Warm One Night. We hope you will enjoy this unofficial glimpse into the bygone days of the ROM, and into the pioneering days of textile studies.


Facsimile of a page from Burnham's journal. See transcript below.

Transcript:
Thursday - September 2nd

Harold got the fourth linen case filled to-day. Judy did the pressing close by & as a piece was done it was lifted right into place. Viv & I got the display of old drafts done upstairs. The carpenters started on the plexiglas barrier in front of the overshots and it is going on one side of the back of exhibition hall & we were able to move the earlier hall of the Jacquard coverlets back there and start putting them up. Mostym has been able to get back again to stretching the material on the backs of the wall cases in the special exhibition gallery & as fast as he gets one done Harold fills it so it's beginning to look as though we'll finally be able to get that gallery open again. The exhibit there is to complement the big one downstairs so it must be finished too.

Facsimile of a page from Burnham's journal. See transcript below.

Transcript:
Judy pressing the linen - Fortunately the Jacquard coverlets piled up beside her will hang out without ironing

Mostym finishing backing the cases upstairs. It isn't part of the show but the re-doing of that gallery has got so mixed up in the show that it seems to be part of it.

Don’t miss a thing

Get the latest information on exhibitions, programs, and ROM research delivered straight to your inbox.