Object Record
Images
Metadata
Collection |
Canadian Harvest |
Object ID |
SH1986.024.049 |
Object Name |
Box, Wall |
Description |
Large decorative wallbox, chip carved and elaborately painted. Back of box has carved through wood 6 large 6-point stars sets on top of another to form a triangle. Painted off white/cream colour with green, red and gold used accents. Below this three more stars. Back board attached to lower box with nails. Decoration, front of box, 7 horseshoes attached side by side, opening down, gold and red accents, below this 3 large stars, identical to others. Side pieces, 2 horseshoes with one star base overhangs and has scalloped edge. Side edges extend out 6.55 cm still scalloped with carving of flower. Base screwed onto box from below. Signature elaborate longhand script. |
Date |
1921 |
Dimensions |
W-32.1 L-57.2 D-1 cm |
History |
The word Tramp originally referred to traveling artisans who went tramping on foot from job to job. These often highly skilled craftspersons, especially the woodworkers and cabinet makers, found their skills in less and less demand as the Industrial Revolution advanced, and eventually their name became associated with any jobless itinerant who searched the countryside whether for employment, a handout, or for shelter for the night. Such people were grouped together with others as undesirable vagrants and given short shrift in the Bylaws of the Town of Berlin in the 1870s. Tramps were sometimes locked up for the night and only fed after chopping a stated amount of wood, an ideal unseasonably suggested at a pre-Christmas Berlin Council meeting of 1879. Tramps and their increasingly codified behaviour are recorded in Europe, England, the United States, and Canada, as the 1800s advanced. Waterloo County's response included the tradition brought by Mennonite settlers from Pennsylvania, of the Tramp Room (Bettelmannschtub or Trampschtub). Both the Schneider Haus National Historic Site and the Peter Martin House (at Doon Heritage Village) contain a room set aside for accommodating transients. Family guests stayed in the spare room (Saubeschtub) or were given a bed in rooms shared by family members. Many Waterloo County tramps are still remembered as colourful characters who peddled horse liniment, subscribed to individual interpretations of Scripture, brought the news, and otherwise entertained or amused their hosts. The most popular of these visitors was tramp artist Fred Hoffman, (1845-1926). |
People |
Hoffman, Frederick G. |
Artist |
Fred G. Hoffman |