What is it?

Common and curious objects

The Mennonite Heritage Center has in its museum collection many antique household utensils, both typical and unusual.

This educational page features artifacts that may seem odd and curious to us, but many were common in American households long ago. Others may have been unusual in their own time. I’ll show an assortment of these and give a clue about each. You can try and guess what they are and what time period they’re from. Answers will be given on another page.
–Joel Alderfer, Collections Manager

1. Lighting device
2. Medicinal (blood related)
3. Food-related cutting device (18th century)
4. Held a certain farm tool. Made of animal product.
5. Food manufacturing tool
6. Leather substitute (a fish product)
7. Food processing tool (18th-19th century)
8. Used in baking
9. A special type of “knife”
10. Food processing tool
11. Hearing device
12. For personal comfort

Click here for answers!