From Quilting to Contraception, There’s a Museum That Covers It

One of the reasons I love to travel is the opportunity it affords to visit museums. I also spend time in museums when I’m at home, but when I’m away, my mind is a clean slate, ready to take in new things. I fell in love with Chinese teapots, for instance, at the Flagstaff House Museum in Hong Kong; found a hero in the “Babe” at the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Baseball Center in Baltimore; and decided at the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center in Baker City, Ore., that I would never have made it West in a covered wagon.

When it comes down to it, there are museums for everything, including some of particular interest to women, such as the excellent National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., and the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, N.M.

But the ones that have really caught my attention are a good deal more unusual. For instance, the Museum of Laundry in Spa, Belgium, has 20 rooms of displays on washing machines, ironing and the history of soap. Palo Alto, Calif., used to have the Barbie Hall of Fame, with 21,000 dolls and accessories, but it was recently acquired by Mattel (which plans to put the collection back on display, probably at the company’s El Segundo headquarters). The Julia Bullette Red Light Museum, in the basement of a saloon in Virginia City, Nev., explores the life and times of a prostitute during the heyday of the Comstock Lode.

And then there’s the Frederick’s of Hollywood Museum of Lingerie right here in the company’s eye-catching Art Deco flagship store in L.A. This museum displays the bras, girdles, petticoats and peignoirs created for movie stars by designers such as Edith Head. It has everything from Jane Powell’s “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” bloomers to the skintight camouflage hot pants Tori Spelling wore in the TV show “Beverly Hills 90210.” Men’s undergarments also get their due, including Tony Curtis’ bra from “Some Like It Hot.”

Even more interesting are the displays of lingerie styles through the years, including racy black undies introduced by Frederick’s in 1946 and the first push-up bra, which made its debut in 1948 as the “Rising Star.” A company catalog from the same year advertised a bra called the “Treasure Chest” whose slogan asked, “Is He a Bosom Man?”

Here are some other unusual museums to pique women’s interest:

* Founded in 1991, the Museum of the American Quilter’s Society in Paducah, Ky., has three galleries that display beautiful old quilts along with the work of the best contemporary quilters. Its permanent collection includes a Beatles quilt with panels that reproduce covers from such albums as “Yellow Submarine” and “Abbey Road.” The stories behind the quilts are told in the displays, and a range of styles is represented.

* The Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace in historic Savannah, Ga., is

a memorial to the founder of the Girl Scouts. Low met Agnes and Robert Baden-Powell, founders of the Girl Guides in England. In 1912, Low brought the idea to America, where Girl Guides became the Girl Scouts. Her birthplace is a handsome Regency-style edifice built in 1818, where you can watch a film about Girl Scouting called “The Golden Eaglet,” made in 1918, and see a portrait of Gordon Low in full Scouting regalia.

* Women’s Rights National Historical Park in Seneca Falls, N.Y., preserves four sites important in the early women’s movement, including the Wesleyan chapel, where the first Women’s Rights Convention was held in 1848. The convention, which will be dramatized today and Monday (8 to 10 p.m. on KCET) in a new Ken Burns film for public television called “Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony” culminated in the ratification of the Declaration of Sentiments. That treatise proclaimed that women should have the right to own property, go to college, keep their own wages and vote. Also nearby is Stanton’s home and the National Women’s Hall of Fame.

* The History of Contraception Museum in Don Mills in suburban Toronto was created by Janssen-Ortho Inc., a major producer of pharmaceutical products, including contraceptives, and explores how women (and men) have sought to prevent pregnancies. It begins in ancient Egyptian times, when doctors prescribed a mixture of ground acacia, which ferments into lactic acid, recognized today as a spermicide.

* The Witch Museum in Salem, Mass., takes a close look at how and why 14 women and five men were found guilty of conniving with Satan and sent to the gallows in the Witch Trials of 1692. The museum, housed in a 19th century stone church on the town’s historic square, uses multimedia exhibits to take visitors back to the days when hysteria held sway.

Frederick’s of Hollywood Museum of Lingerie, 6608 Hollywood Blvd., telephone (323) 957-5953.

The Museum of the American Quilter’s Society, 215 Jefferson St., tel. (270) 442-8856.

Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace, 10 E. Oglethorpe Ave, tel. (912) 233-4501.

Women’s Rights National Historical Park, 136 Fall St., tel. (315) 568-2991.

The History of Contraception Museum, 19 Green Belt Drive, tel. (416) 449-9444.

The Salem Witch Museum, 19 1/2 Washington Square North, tel. (978) 744-1692.