Senses in the World of Material Culture

            Mark M. Smith’s Sensing the Past: Seeing, Hearing, Smelling, Tasting, and Touching in History offers an important aspect in the study of material culture by providing a study of the five senses through history. Smith separates the five senses into five chapters, each describing the history of that specific sense. Though each chapter is dedicated to a particular sense, common themes arise in each section, including the senses’ affect on ideas of class, gender, race, identity, modernization, and religion. Smith is careful to provide a global history of each sense, including many examples of how the senses affected these common themes in non-Western civilizations.

            Following our class discussions, and because of the details offered by The Reading Eagle in describing Emma’s wedding, I found the theme of class development through the senses appealing. Even in the sense that seems the most obvious way to identify someone’s class—vision—Smith provided an interesting take on not so obvious aspects of seeing, including the affects of installing electric and gas powered streetlights on various cities around the world. In the newspaper articles I have found that offer a glimpse of Emma’s wedding, the only day I am positive the corset was worn, the visual aspects dominated the descriptions. The authors, however, also included three other senses. By describing the selection of songs played, and the instrument that played them (the organ), the delightful aroma coming from the elaborate display of flowers decorating the alter, and the three-hundred pounds of fruit and several different flavors of wedding cake, those assigned to describe Emma’s wedding proved the importance of at least four out of the five senses that day. The sound of various wedding songs on an organ, smell of flowers, and taste of exotic fruits and cakes, all help to display Emma’s high position on society. Interestingly though, as a historian, I experienced these descriptions visually, through the written word. As Smith described the deep divide between the sounds, smells, and even tastes between the elite and working classes, I applied his observations through history to Emma’s own life.

Smith’s specific discussion about the question of touch within museums interested me. The one sense I have not been able to experience in any way during my study of Emma’s corset, is touch. As many material culturists agree, touch is important in understanding an object and the person or people who have interacted with that object in the past. To be able to hold, lace, or even try on our objects, would allow each of us to experience them in a completely new way. Alas, the proper care and maintenance of these objects is much more important than emotional experiences, and thus we must continue our relationships with our objects free from the sense of touch—at least directly.