Gadgets Galore

COEUR d’ALENE — Britt Thurman loves gadgets.

She’s confident you'll love them, too, after a visit to the “Gadgets Galore: Transforming the American Household” exhibit opening Friday at the Museum of North Idaho.

“It's incredibly family-friendly,” she said. “If you're an older adult, you're gonna come in and maybe recognize things that you saw in your grandparents' home, or you can have these memories that are triggered."

And if you’re a kid?

“You'll be able to realize what came before the technology that you're using today, that kids don't really think about what came before,” she said. “It's a good way to create that relevance so it doesn't seem like a completely foreign concept to them.”

The museum pulled in more than 6,000 people last year, a record. It is expected to top that this year, powered by new displays and an expanded gift shop.

Gadgets Galore is described as a way to “discover the illuminating 19th century inventions that paved the way for the technologies we use today.”

It was a time when people did much of the work themselves instead of machines doing it all for them.

It includes phones, cameras and sewing machines of a time long ago. There are straight-edged razors, including one found in a building at the old Fort Sherman.

“You can tell how that influenced the change of men's facial hair," Thurman said. "Over time, the year that the disposable razor came out, all of a sudden everyone was completely clean shaven. And so to realize how these inventions change something, even from how we ourselves look, it’s just amazing.”

There’s a Thomas Edison light bulb from 1904 and an Edison phonograph from 1911.

“We have the wax cylinders for it. It’s in perfect condition, completely playable,” Thurman said.

Playing recorded music prior to the invention was difficult, even impossible, to imagine.

“Before, you had to listen to everything live. But then you could record it, play it on demand in your own home. That was completely revolutionary," she said.

The exhibit has a washing machine from the days when you filled a large metal container with water yourself, hand-cranked it to agitate and clean clothes, and even emptied the water. And then you had to hang the clothes out to dry, not toss them in a machine.

Thurman said the exhibit goes over 19th century inventions “that kind of changed everyday life, and how those inventions have changed over time to some of the technology that we use today."

Curling irons then were heated on the stove. Shoes were secured to feet with buttons and a buttonhook was needed, too.

“It goes from everything from the Industrial Revolution to the invention of electricity, and how electricity changed some of those gadgets to kind of modernize everyday life,” she said.

Each display is accompanied by detailed explanations of its history, how items were produced, transported, advertised and progressed over time.

“What's really cool about this exhibit is it starts with what's relevant and finishes with what's recognizable to us today," Thurman said.

The exhibit runs through May 22. Museum hours are Tuesday to Saturday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Museum members get in free. Otherwise, adults are $6; seniors, $5; youth, $2; and there are discounts for veterans/active duty military and EBT cardholders.

A new exhibit, "Prohibition: North Idaho's Bootleggers and Rumrunners," starts June 17.

The museum is at 115 Northwest Boulevard on the eastern edge of City Park.