The Ye Olde Curiosity Store is a store in Central Waterfront of Seattle, Washington, United States, founded in 1899. It has moved several times, mainly in the seaside area, and is now located at Pier 54. Famous moment this as a souvenir shop, also has a dime museum aspect, and for many years is an important supplier of Northwest Coast art to the museum. In 2008, the store has been owned by four generations of the same family.
In 1933, Seattle Star named Ye Olde Curiosity Shop as one of the "Seven Wonders of Seattle", the only store on the list. The other six wonders are ports, Ballard Locks, Boeing aircraft, Seattle Art Museum, Pike Place Market, and Edmond Meany Hotel in the University District (now Hotel Deca).
Video Ye Olde Curiosity Shop
Owner
The store was founded in 1899 by J. E. "Daddy" Standley (born February 24, 1854, in Steubenville, Ohio). He has traded rather antiques and India as a seller in Denver, Colorado. When he moved to Seattle in 1899 because his wife's health required a lower altitude, he encountered a boom town that supplied and benefited from Klondike Gold Rush. He founded the business in 1899. An exhibit at the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in Seattle attracts immense tourists, scholars, anthropologists and collectors and publicity for its rather famous shop. It also won Standley gold medal in the ethnology collection category.
The Standley Shop presents a mixture of curiosity and important art objects. He collects and sells what comes in his way, but also has local American artists create objects for specifications. He sells Tlingit's original totem monument, but also a replica by sculptors from the Nuu-chah-nulth tribe who live on Vancouver Island, who lives in Seattle, and even a memento of the totem pole made in Japan. A talent for freaks and freaks leads him to include items such as the shrinking head of the Amazon (some of them are definitely original, others may not).
In addition to the shop, Standley built a house he called "Totem Place" on an area of ​​1 hectare (4,000m 2 ) in West Seattle. The collection of totem poles, whale bones, and other curiosities filled with a Japanese-style tea house and a mini log cabin attracts sightseeing tourists in its own right.
In 1937, Standley, at the age of 83, was hit by a car in Alaska Way, a road along Seattle's waterfront, and his legs were broken. He never fully recovered, although he remained active in business until 4 days after his death on 25 October 1940. Standley's son, Edward, joined the store in 1907 and worked there until his death in 1945. Russell James first joined the business in 1912 and eventually married Standley's daughter. Except for his service in World War I, James worked there until 1952. Standley's grandson, Joe James began work in stores in 1946, and runs the business for over 50 years. Joe James's son, Andy and his daughter, Debbie have been involved in running the business since at least the 1980s.
The current shop owner, Andy James and his wife, Tammy, also own Market Street Traders (founded 2007 closed 2010) in Seattle's Ballard neighborhood. Market Street traders specialize in fair trade in goods. Prior to that, for about 25 years, Jameses operated a second waterfront shop at Pier 55, known at various times as Waterfront Landmark and Ye Olde Curiosity Shop Too. Ye Olde Curiosity Shop Too closed around the same time Market Street Traders opened.
Maps Ye Olde Curiosity Shop
Name and location
Ye Olde Curiosity Shop began in late 1899 as Standley's Free Museum and Curio on Second Avenue on Pike Street. It moved in November 1901 to 82 W. Madison, opposite the old Rainier Grand Hotel on Front Street (now First Avenue). At that time the store was called The Curio; soon became Curio Standley. In June 1904, Standley moved his shop to the beach, named it after Charles Dickens novel The Old Curiosity Shop, and adopted the motto "Beats the Dickens."
Ye Olde Curiosity Shop and Indian Curio - the last part of the name was dropped around 1907 - settled at 813 on Railroad Avenue in Colman Dock. It will be at the Colman Dock for over 50 years, occupying several different locations on the dock and leaving briefly during the period when the dock is being renovated. From February 7, 1916, until January 1, 1917, the store operated on Second Avenue near Virginia Street. From some time in January 1937 to June 1, 1937, it operated from 814 First Avenue near Columbia Street.
In 1963, when the Washington State Ferries system took over and completely reworked the Colman Dock, it moved to the north pier, Pier 51 (now part of the ferry terminal). Pier 51 shop was designed by Paul Thiry and was modeled after the long house. In April 1988, the store moved to Pier 54 next to the Ivar's Acres of Clams. More than a million objects were moved.
In September 2014, Ye Olde Curiosity Shop was closed for nine months due to redevelopment of seawall on Seattle's central coast. It reopened on July 1, 2015. Six months later, in January 2016, the store closed for 2 months to move to their current location, behind Pier 54. They reopened in March 2016 at a newly built store.
Customer
Recently, the store has about 1 million visitors per year. The store has had many famous customers for years. Visitors have included Teddy Roosevelt, J. Edgar Hoover, Jack Dempsey, Charlie Chaplin, Red Skelton, John Wayne, Katharine Hepburn, James Van Der Beek, and Sylvester Stallone. Cartoonist Robert Ripley from "Ripley's Believe It or Not" buys a totem pole and other crafts for his New York estate. The shop logs show that Queen Marie of Romania visited and "sits on a Chinese seat" and Louis Tiffany buys "antiques, idols and ivory mammoths,"
Many museum collections include items purchased from stores, mostly objects from the Arctic region. The Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto has some such items, including the Haida stone totem poles and the mammoth ivory carved with Eskimo life scenes in the arctic village. George Gustav Heye made many purchases from stores for his American Indian Museum which later formed the core collection of the American Indian National Museum in Washington, DC The Newark Museum in New Jersey also has collections from stores, including Tlingit tools and wicker baskets. The store also provides museums in Cleveland, Ohio, Portland, Oregon and at the University of Washington. Standley usually gives museums a 35% discount, and sometimes donates items directly. It was a pride for him that his store provided such an institution.
A national museum in Sweden buys a longest pair of prehistoric mastodon ivory, more than 13 feet (4.0 m) in length.
Until the end of the period 1976 to 1980, the store auctioned off 2,000 original American artworks.
Goods and exhibits
At least one of the store's historic suppliers had a fame comparable to one of its visitors: Princess Angeline, the daughter of Seattle's Head (after whom the city was named) made a basket that was then sold there.
In the early years, most store stocks came from Alaska. Standley acquired Alaska's recent and older artworks and crafts, as well as natural history specimens, from whalers, merchants, income-earning captains, Alaska Natives (always called at the "Eskimos") visiting Seattle, and Alaska shopkeepers functioning as an intermediary. Some of those who carried their belongings, especially in the early years, were likely to have stolen goods from their rightful owners in Alaska or to dig them from archaeological deposits. Native Alaska Yup'iks and Inupiats, long-time traders, are delighted to find a market for items they consider "useless tools and tools."
From a fairly early time, Standley establishes what Kate Duncan calls "... large and different natural history specimens and antiques dangle from the ceiling and stands about" dominating stores visually and "transforming [s] even known ones into the curious ".
Goods sold in recent times range from small shop paraphernalia to a totem pole for $ 10,000. In 2007, this included a $ 1.50 exhaust whistle, bullwhips, jumping beans, Russian matreshka dolls, first-rate vegetable ivory carvings, mangled imitation heads from Ecuador, and typical Seattle souvenirs. In the 1920s, the store had at least six separate suppliers in Texas making a sewing basket from an armadillo shell, which would be coated with satin, and its tail tied to the neck to form a handle.
Currently, the most culturally significant items are still in store collections not for sale, even though they are out for viewing. The items on display but not for sale include the early 19th century Russian samovars, dozens of totem poles, East Asian weapons, cedar mats and pine needle baskets, netsuke, jade carvings, narwhal ivory, and oocy walrus. Also displayed are two mummified human bodies, "Sylvester" and "Sylvia". "Sylvester" (obtained in 1955) serves as an informal symbol of the store. For years, the common belief was that he was the victim of late 19th-century shootings in the Arizona desert, and that extreme drought of the desert naturally made the body mummified. However, CT scans in 2001, 2005 and MRI in 2005 suggest embalmer injecting arsenic-based fluids shortly after death. The body is one of the best known preserved mummies. The newly published information and photos from 1892 show that "Sylvester," originally named "McGinty," belonged to Smith's "Soap" trust man until he sold it 1895 in Hillyard, Washington.
While Sylvester is almost certain what the shop claims him, other artifacts are of much more dubious origin. The store does not claim a comparable lineage for the mermaids it wears.
One of the few coin-operated tourist attractions is Black Bart, which somewhat literally takes the phrase "one-armed bandits". It is a slot machine in the form of a one-armed 6-foot-5-inch (1.96 m) wood and Wild West band-iron bandit model. In the mid-1980s, the state gambling commission had seized Seattle police as an illegal gambling tool, though the store had turned it into an expense token with pictures of Space Needle, Kingdome, and other local attractions. A month later, the commission admitted that Black Bart did not meet the criteria for the gambling device, and Black Bart returned to the store with a sign that read "Parole" was out of good behavior.
Influence
Standley and his shop play an important role in Seattle that views the world as a region closely tied to the totem poles, although traditionally they have been linked to more remote areas to the north. The cultural effects of the hybrid or artificial art that Standley and his shop nurtured can be seen clearly in early 1909, when anthropologist Alfred Cort Haddon, in Seattle to give a lecture at the A-Y-P Exhibition purchased 109 items from stores for the Horniman Free Museum. Among the items purchased is a sealed carved club made as a tourist item, and at least two masks that have been copied by local sculptors from Boas's illustrations.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the Ye Olde Curiosity Shop was, as written by author Kate Duncan in 2001, "India's most varied and visible collection in the city" and "being stopped to visit the Indians and Eskimos, as it still exists until now." The shop's guestbook shows visits from prominent Indians including the heads of Cheyenne and Lakota. Most notable in view of Standley, Joseph's Chief of Nez Perce visited in 1902, two years before his death.
As a result, Standley and his shop have a huge influence on what is considered "authentic" for these cultures. Although he always presents accurately (eg) ivory cribbage boards as tourist items, he may not have been aware of the extent to which ivory and ivory miniature carved from Alaska or Athapaskan beadwork are also hybrid goods produced for tourist trade starting with gold rush. Similarly, his exhibits in his shop and elsewhere do not distinguish between pre-contact and post-contact artifacts.
Closer to home, Ye Olde Curiosity Shop also affects local local retail of Indian artifacts. By the time Ye Olde Curiosity Shop was established, some of the existing Seattle shops selling Indian artifacts focused primarily on baskets; stores like that were mostly short-lived, although Emma M. Rhodes and her colleague Fred B. Kendall operated from 1901 to 1914 at least, offering a somewhat wider inventory. While Ye Olde Curiosity Shop is an unquestioned local leader in his field far beyond Standley's lifetime, his success brings some serious local competitors into the business. The Hudson Bay Fur Company (later Alaskan Fur Company, has nothing to do with the Hudson Bay Company), founded in the 1880s, founded the curio department in the 1900s with a stock similar to Standley, albeit not as extensive. The department lasted until the 1940s; the business closed in the 1950s. Mack's Totem Shop is a smaller shop, very close to Ye Olde Curiosity Shop along an elevated pedestrian street that runs along Marion Street from Colman Dock to First Avenue. It operated from 1933 at least to the 1950s. All these stores commissioned items from many of the same Nuu-chah-nulth carvers living in Seattle, as well as some other lesser-known stores.
The store is also influential, or at least prematurely, in welcoming people from all walks of life, including those for whom the store only serves as a museum, not as a retail store.
The influence of J.E Standley further in Seattle
Standley was Seattle's continual proponent, to the point depicted towards the end of his life as a "one-room-room-of-commerce". Not all of its effects in Seattle are through the store itself. From 1904, he gave an exhibit to the informal museum of the Alaska City Club (joined in 1908 into the Arctic Club). He provided an ethnology exhibition for the 1909 A-Y-P Exposition Alaskan Building, as well as lent natural historical specimens to the Washington State Building. His Alaska ethnology exhibition won an exposition gold medal in its category, and its contents were eventually purchased by George Gustav Heye for the American Indian Museum in New York.
Also at the time of the A-Y-P Exposition, he helped promote the privately owned Ravenna Park not far north of the exhibition grounds. At that time, the park still contains a large number of old growth trees, as well as various tourist facilities. Standley provided a set of six totem poles and a battleship for private parks and played a role in park sales to the city in 1911.
Note
References
- Duncan, Kate C. (2001), 1001 Curious Things: Ye Olde Curiosity Shop and Native American Art , University of Washington Press, ISBNÃ, 0-295-98010-9 .
External links
- Official site
- Highlights from the Ye Olde Curiosity Shop, Seattle Times , March 25, 2003. Nine photo items from the 2003 exhibition at the Washington State History Museum, Tacoma, Washington
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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