Exhibits
Drink This, Take That! The birth of marketing medicine
Even the earliest medicine makers knew they could make money using fear, desire, and life experience to sell concoctions to heal almost anything. In fact, they were among the first to use print advertising to peddle their wares. Drink This, Take That! encourages visitors to explore the beginnings of health care as a commodity.
The exhibit features historic advertisements for products like electric beans, alcohol-free medicines that were actually full of alcohol, and Bovril. To complement the advertisements will be dozens of artifacts, including:
- An infant urinal
- The Magneto Electric Machine
- A sputum cup, and
- A cupping set.
Come and explore the Victorian era as the breeding ground for what evolved into our modern culture’s ongoing search for physical and mental relief from the stressors of daily life, and how today’s marketers find similar motivations.
The Billings Estate National Historic Site would like to thank the following for their contributions to this exhibit: Museum of Health Care at Kingston, Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, Bytown Museum, and Kanata Theatre.
Drink This, Take That! runs from May 10 to October 31, 2009. Entry is free with regular museum admission. Be sure to visit the Events page for information about the Victorian Medical Shows taking place on July 31 and August 1.
Past Exhibits:
Sabra: Portrait of a Spinster
In medieval Europe, the word spinster referred to a woman whose occupation was spinning wool. By the 17th century it had become a legal term referring to an unmarried woman. Since then it has deteriorated into a derogatory expression that today makes most women cringe. Why did this happen?
Find out the answer, and how Ottawa's own Sabra Billings rejected social custom and embraced her independence to become one of her community's most respected women.
Silver Spoons and Colloused Hands
The transition from the pioneer to the Victorian era brought about changes that forever altered the path of childhood. Using artifacts, photographs, and stories, this exhibit explores the aspects of early life that everyone can relate to: play time, chores, education, and health care.
Silver Spoons and Calloused Hands explores the lives of the children raised on the Billings Estate during the 19th Century. Born to a prosperous farming family during an age of social reform, these children enjoyed an unusual childhood of both hardship and opportunity.
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