Exhibit Entry: "Franklina C. Gray: The Grand Tour" at Camron-Stanford House
When I started as an intern at the Camron-Stanford House in January of 2018, a small committee was in the early stages of planning a new publication and exhibit. I jumped at the opportunity to sit in on the first meeting, and was thrilled when i was allowed to join as a committee member. Over the course of the year, I became enchanted by a young woman named Franklina.
Franklina was a former resident of the Camron-Stanford House in the 1870s. She was an intellectual-- a writer, traveler, forward thinker, and lover of art, literature, and cheeky language. She truly was a woman ahead of her time. In 1875 Franklina embarked on a Grand Tour of Europe and the Middle East with her mother (Matilda), her new stepfather (David Hewes), and her aunt (Rose). The trio traveled by stagecoach, train, and steamship from Oakland, California to Engalnd, Italy, France, Switzerland Germany, Egypt, and Jerusalem. During the tour, which lasted for over two years, Franklina kept precarious notes about her experiences while traveling abroad. Her jounrals, and her letters written to her fiance at home in Oakland, survived, along with many of her family's souvenirs, art purchases, and other mementos. Fortunately, Franklina's desendents are lovely and generous and have been long-time supporters of the Camron-Stanford House. Through their generosity we were granted access to Franklina's personal documents. It is those documents-- her journals and letters-- her first-hand, private account of a 20something woman's experiences abroad, that shaped this exhibit. Whether it was the logistics of packing a steamer trunk for a two year trip, rating hotels, commenting on the fashion choices of royalty and nobility she encountered, struggling with cultural differences and limimtations in language, or musing on how small we truly are in this very large world, Franklina's prose is like taking a trip right along side her. More than that, Franklina's journals, especially, provide insight into what is must have been like to be a woman in the 19th century, one who desired an education beyond her finishing school years, and one whom many found odd because she'd rather ride a donkey to an archeology site than shop for yet another pair of gloves. In one of my favorite quotes from Franklina's jounral, she remarks on how her aunt cannot understand what she (Rose, Franklina's aunt) refered to as her "obessession with dingy old trash." This was a woman who saw so much value in the power of education that when she came home, she was involved with the founding of The Ebell society and worked for her entire life to educate women. She eventually went on to lecture on art at Mills College, too! Luckily, we had some great items to illustrate her whole experience.
Photo Credit: Rebecca LeGates
As my internship responsibilities evolved and I became more involved with the museum-- eventually working as a registrar after my internship was complete, my role in the committee began to change, too. I found myself deeply invested in this exhibit. I was one of a small group of people who planned, dreamed, researched, wrote, designed, plotted, and probably even cried a little over the course of the year it took to get Franklina on the walls. If you have ever worked or volunteered at a small museum, you are probably well aware of how many hats you must wear-- and CSH is no exception! We all had to step out of our comfort zones a little and work on aspects that were new to us, and it was definitely worthwhile. We gathered around tables weekly and poured over transcripts of letters and journals. We stayed up late combing through research to try to understand the historical context a bit better. Often, we laughed because Franklina is hillarious. As the curator of this exhibit, I helped provide a bit of focus for the exhibit by offering guidance on the objects we had available to use to make Franklina's story a bit more tangile. This involved bringing things out of storage and giving them some extra care in preperation for their debuts, facilitating loans with parner institutions, and also sourcing purchases of needed objects. It was great to work with our little (but mighty!) team on implenting a design, flow, and plan of the exhibit. Franklina's story is great on its own, but the amazing collection of items we have to illustrate her story make it so much more exciting.
One of the most rewarding things about this experience as curator was the process of discovery. The Camron-Stanford House is a treasure trove of remarkable Victoriana. While doing research, we were able to find a number of items that Franklina specifically mentioned in her writing already in the house's collection (we have many "found in collection" items in our catalog). It was so amazing to be able to pair an object record with unknown provenance and little information to a vivid primary source narrative of its origins, purchase, use, and meaning. Those days were ultra-special. We were able to find immaculate lace she wrote about purchasing in Brussels. We located a photo album bearing Franklina's name, and were able to provide backstories and histories of the faces on the pages. In boxes tucked away in storage we had fans from Paris, calling cards of European nobility, cartes de viste, and numerous other objects that until now, were flat objects. Now, we have stories to tell about them, and I'm honestly excited that they are being given a new life while on display on this exhibit.
The Camron-Stanford House has a beautiful period-room display on the second floor. The front parlor, family parlor, and art gallery are beautifully decorated in true Victorian form. The display had not changed noticibly since the museum's official opening in the early 1980s. It was a beautiful experience to be able to infuse some new life into these rooms. Our team installed new pieces throughout the space... which allowed us the opportunity to deinstall some pieces that were in much need of TLC and rest. Though the footprint of the room is largely unchanged, the infusion of new images, textiles, and other pieces has alowed us to transform the story being told in those rooms-- and truly create an extension of our exhibit in the primary galleries downstairs.
If you are in the Oakland area this year, I invite you to visit and check out the exhibit! Franklina C. Gray: The Grand Tour will be running through November 2019. It will be in its full form through June 2019 and will then be reduced to a trunkated version during our wedding season. In October, a portion of the exhibit will be further transformed as we celebrate Halloween at CSH.
PS- Keep a look out for our upcoming book! We are releasing an annotated version of Franklina's original journals and letters. The publication will feature beautiful artwork, photographs, and presentations of historical narratives that will help give Franklina's descriptions a little extra context. The book is available for preorder now, and will be in hand soon!