simplepretty

So, today it’s back in time to Saturday, when it was warm and sunny. Our field trip was to the Discovery Museum, part of the Lake County Forest Preserve District. I was interested in seeing the new exhibit “Pocket Anthropology: A Treasure of Handbags”, and I figured there would be things for the boys to see and do as well. At the very least, they could take a walk outside on a gorgeous day. It was complete good fortune that the first exhibit we entered was all about postcards. Did you know that the Eiffel Tower was a popular post card to send when it first opened? There were many postcards of small towns (very popular in the day), and most interesting, the Curt Teich Company, a postcard company based in Chicago, used to provide invasion maps to the US military during World War II under much secrecy. The company even employed Japanese staff to continue with the postcard side of the business to deflect suspicion. Teich’s complete archives are housed at the museum. The postcard factory is now housing. I believe it’s called “Postcard Place”.

On the amusing side, there was a contest to win a pair of shoes where entrants had to write “H.A.Diehl Shoe Co. sells the best shoes for the least money” as many times as they could on the back of a standard postcard. The winner had more than 1000. Also, postcards used to be addressed: John Doe, City, State. That’s it. Quaint, considering that zip+4 is heavily used today.We finished our tour with the handbag exhibit (just okay, but the postcards more than made up for it) and an exhibit dedicated to the history of Lake County. We made our son watch an 8-minute clip of movies made in Lake County (Blues Brothers, My Best Friend’s Wedding, Risky Business among many others). He was underimpressed. Of course, he’s ten.

Driving away, my husband thought the scene above was gorgeous. It was: in person. By the way, there is a neat handbag event coming up at the museum.

1154 Lill, a Chicago-based custom handbag company will be at the museum November 3 (Saturday) from 11:30 – 2:30 helping you make the perfect bag! Registration is required.