Exhibits show how times have changed in Aurora

Dennis Buck, senior curator at the Aurora Historical Society, is much more thoughtful when he makes dinner these days.

Whether he picks up carryout on the way home or prepares a meal on the stove, he knows he's participating in a continuity of change.

The pattern of those changes became apparent to him when he put together one of the museum's newest exhibits, "Dinner Time."

The exhibit, which opened at the end of May and will continue through Nov. 2, traces what Aurorans have eaten, how they have eaten, when and where they have eaten, and what their dining habits say about local and national culture from the founding of the city in the 1830s to the mid-20th century.

It is one of two new exhibits at the museum, 20 E. Downer Place.

The second, "Arranged Truth: Dressing for the Photographer," follows roughly the same time period.

"Arranged Truth," which opened Friday and continues through Sept. 14, looks at what was going on behind the images seen in pictures.

Fashion, social conventions and camera technology all played a part in what is seen in photos.

Dinner Time

To have an exhibit on dinner throws a spotlight on a part of our everyday lives we seldom think about, Buck said.

"Everybody likes food. Everybody eats," he said. "It specifically focuses on dinner, but dinner is not necessarily an evening meal."

Dinner really refers to the main meal of the day, Buck said.

In rural times, dinner usually was served midday, but that became impractical as more people in cities like Aurora began commuting to work.

Divided in three parts, the exhibit looks at how Aurora residents through the years would have shopped for the food; prepared the dinner, set the table and dined.

In frontier times of the 1830s, the fare would have been simple, with a main course of meat that would have been roasted, boiled or stewed.

"Beef would have been the preference," Buck said.

Fruits and vegetables in season, bread and possibly dessert would have rounded out the meal.

Table settings would have been simple too, with the food sometimes served out of a single dish.

Forks were not yet the main utensil for eating.

"You used it (the fork) to hold down what you were cutting. Then you stabbed it with your knife and ate it that way," Buck said.

As the middle class prospered in the Victorian Age, dinnerware and the food served on the table became more elaborate.

A typical dinner would have three or four courses; a fancy dinner might have 12.

The meal might have included fish and soup courses, several kinds of meat with vegetables, fruit and desserts.

"Americans did get quite a reputation for gluttony," Buck said. "It was a way to emphasize how well off you were."

With sugar becoming more readily available, Americans indulged a serious sweet tooth.

A full third of the recipes in the cookbooks from the era were devoted to desserts, Buck said.

By the 1850s, the railroad running through Aurora allowed residents to expand their menu by purchasing foods from outside the area.

With only the icebox to keep the food fresh, going to the local markets was a daily task.

By the 1920s, the food industry began to turn out more processed fare and supermarkets started to replace the local bakery, meat market and dairy.

The convenience was obvious, but food began to lose its regional differences, Buck said.

Dinners became more streamlined and might be prepared by opening a can of this, a box of that and a jar of something else.

A fast food bag, a pizza box and a frozen food container symbolize some of the choices for preparing dinner today.

"Instead of the wide choice of food in a single dinner, you have a wide choice of options before you sit down," Buck said.

But still, Americans continue to follow an English style of eating, with an emphasis on meat and potatoes, Buck said.

Even ethnic foods often are so Americanized, people from native cultures might not recognize them.

"Most people have a fairly narrow comfort level for what they are willing to put in their mouths," Buck said.

Arranged truth

We often assume photos capture reality, but the reality often is more complex than what is seen in the picture.

That's the message of "Arranged Truth," which traces photography from when it began to be widely used in the 1840s, until about 1950.

The exhibit uses old photos of Aurora residents, vintage camera equipment and costumed mannequins to make the point.

"Th ere is a lot of arranging going on, especially in portrait photography," Buck said.

Portraits really are three-way conversations among the person sitting for the photo, the photographer and the viewer, he said.

To really follow the conversation, the viewer needs to know more about the era in which it was taken.

Take the serious expressions on the faces of people often seen in photos of the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Did these people never smile? Were they so much more sober-minded than people today?

Buck said a posed smile would have been difficult to hold given the time it took to take photos with old camera equipment.

"The convention then was you did not smile for the camera. Try to hold a smile for two minutes and not move," he said.

Taking photos of infants and toddlers was popular because of the high mortality rate among young children, said Jennifer Putzier, the curator who put together the photography exhibit.

"Getting your picture as a memento was really important," she said.

Like their elders, children in older photos appear serious and somewhat stiff.

But getting children to hold still for a picture wasn't easy and that explains the colored sashes seen in some of the photos, Putzier said.

"You can tell ... in some of them, they're tied to the chair," she said.

Some blurring in photos of children also was considered acceptable, she said.

Putzier said she hopes visitors to the exhibit come away with a new view of their own family photos.

"My goal is to make people realize their photos are saying more than they are," she said.

If you go

What: "Dinner Time" to Nov. 2 "Arranged Truth: Dressing for the Photographer" to Sept, 14

Where: Aurora Historical Society, David L. Pierce Art & History Center, 20 E. Downer Place, Aurora

Hours: 12 to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday

Cost: Adults, $3; students and seniors, $1.50; children under 12, free

Info: (630) 906-0650 or www.aurorahistory.net