This collection of objects comes from the Bonniebrook estate, the home of Rose O’Neill.  Although she is most widely known for having created the Kewpie doll, O’Neill was also a prominent artist, illustrator, actress, author, and suffragette. O’Neill was born in Pennsylvania and grew up in Nebraska, and she was an artist prodigy as child, winning a newspaper art competition at 14 and becoming a magazine illustrator by age 17.  In 1891, at the age of 19, she chose not to move to the Ozarks with her family and instead traveled to New York, where she became a highly paid artist and illustrator for advertisements and for major magazines including the Ladies Home Journal, Good Housekeeping, and Life. While she traveled the world and owned homes in New York, Connecticut, and Italy, O’Neill eventually settled back in the Ozarks in the home built by her father on their family farmstead, which she named Bonniebrook.

After her death in 1944, O’Neill’s family house burned down in 1947, and many local residents visited the site to dig up the artifacts left behind by O’Neill and her family. The Rose O’Neill Historical Society later acquired the site of Bonniebrook, reconstructed O’Neill’s home, and added a museum and fine art gallery. People in the area brought back the Bonniebrook artifacts that they had recovered and donated them to the museum, where these objects wait to be cleaned, conserved, identified, researched, and eventually put on display.

Among the artifacts are this group of iron home and farm implements. The ditching shovel blade and the post hole digger were used, respectively, to dig ditches and to scoop soil from the earth to set posts for fences.  The pipe with elbow joints served as piping to carry water to and from the house and other buildings. The lantern bell and the cold blast lantern both served as parts of relatively advanced kerosene lamps that channeled fresh air to the flame, which yielded greater light than previous types of lamps. The logging chain was a heavy chain with individually forged links for strength, and it was used in hauling logs and other objects when available ropes were not strong enough for the job.  Finally, the pitcher spout pump served as part of an indoor hand pump to draw water for home use — essentially the kitchen faucet of yesteryear.

For more information, you may contact the researcher(s) noted in the title of this exhibit entry, or Dr. Billie Follensbee, the professor of the course, at BillieFollensbee@MissouriState.edu