A Close Look at Our Collections Journey
Drumroll please…as of this post, we have now catalogued over 1,300 of our museum items! If you haven’t already been keeping up with the collections journey at The Wee Museum of Memory, staff and volunteers have been working to improve the historic object collections at the museum. We’ve improved and tweaked our system since the beginning of this year and are now researching, entering, labelling, and storing our items faster and more efficiently than ever before. These blog posts are designed to keep you in the know about our progress and also give you an in-depth look into some of the objects in our collection.
Last post, we talked about Acquisition Creation, which is the step that tracks donation records and enters the object into the online side of our collections for the first time. The next step for any object in our collection journey is photography. Each object goes to our photography studio corner, where a group of talented volunteer photographers takes pictures of each item so they can be uploaded onto eHive, our online collection platform. Photography is such an important step for our collection journey mission because it opens up access to our collection tenfold. Photos allow each of our items to be viewed and explored by anyone with access to the internet, wherever they are.
Take a look at some of the museum’s objects on eHive!
Because of the amazing work done by the photographers at The Wee Museum of Memory, you can view our items from the comfort of your own home. Click the button below to explore some of those items through their photos!
A Taste of Wartime Britain
Today’s object deep dive has been written and researched by Veronica, one of the dedicated volunteers working with the museum, whose interest was piqued while processing some of the objects in the collection!
As part of the Wee Museum of Memory’s ongoing collections journey, volunteers have the opportunity to work hands-on with many of the objects held in the museum’s collection. As we work through the collection, we are often looking for objects that stand out to us, whether because they are unusual, unfamiliar, or simply remind us of something from our own lives.
Recently, two rather battered tins caught my attention. At first glance, they might not seem particularly exciting: one is a large tin of National Dried Milk, while the other is a much smaller tin of Pure Dried Whole Eggs. But looking more closely at the labels revealed that these ordinary kitchen objects have quite a story to tell.
The larger tin is labelled National Dried Milk and was produced by the Ministry of Food in London. The label tells us that it contained the equivalent of seven pints of milk, with vitamin D added.
National Dried Milk was introduced as part of the National Milk Scheme and was particularly important for babies and young children. During the Second World War, food supplies were carefully managed, and milk was one of the foods prioritised for children. In 1940, the Ministry of Food stated that National Dried Milk could be provided to babies under one year old where dried milk was considered necessary, in place of their liquid milk entitlement.
What really caught my attention, however, was the small piece of text towards the bottom of the tin:
“Ask at the Infant Welfare Centre or Food Office for Cod Liver Oil Compound and Concentrated Orange Juice.”
It is such a small detail, but it gives us a glimpse into how different aspects of children’s nutrition were being supported at the time. Something as ordinary as a tin of powdered milk was connected to a much wider system of infant welfare and food provision.
Next to the milk is a much smaller tin labelled Pure Dried Whole Eggs. The label tells us that its contents were the equivalent of 12 eggs, and the tin carries an American connection.
During the Second World War, fresh eggs became difficult to supply and were rationed. Dried eggs were imported from the United States and became a familiar part of the British wartime diet. A family could purchase a tin of dried eggs alongside their fresh egg ration, initially once every eight weeks. Twelve eggs in a little tin seems quite remarkable to us now. The dried egg could be reconstituted and used for cooking and baking, providing a practical alternative when fresh eggs were scarce.
And perhaps that is what I find most interesting about these two objects. They are not glamorous objects, and they were never intended to become museum pieces. They were simply food containers that would have been found in ordinary British kitchens. The wear on the tins makes that even more apparent. The scratches, dents and faded lettering show that these were objects that were handled and used. They were part of someone’s everyday life.
Looking at them today, it is easy to think of wartime rationing as something quite abstract: ration books, queues, shortages and government posters. But objects like these make it much more tangible. They show us what people were actually putting in their kitchens and, ultimately, what they were putting on their tables.
They also remind us why everyday objects are so valuable within museum collections. A tin of powdered milk or dried eggs might seem insignificant compared with some of the more unusual objects we encounter, but these are the objects that can tell us about ordinary people’s lives.
I think that is what made these two tins stand out to me. They are a small reminder that sometimes the most interesting stories in a collection can be hiding in the most ordinary-looking objects.
So, next time you come across an unassuming old food tin in the collection, it might be worth taking a second look. You never know what story might be hiding inside it!
Here are some bonus wartime food fun facts!
- Dried eggs were actually a clever bit of wartime logistics
It wasn’t just about making eggs last longer. Dried eggs saved a huge amount of shipping space. A Ministry of Food report estimated that importing the equivalent number of fresh eggs would have required around five times as much shipping tonnage.
- People really did cook with them in all sorts of ways
Dried eggs could be used for scrambled eggs, omelettes and baking. There were even wartime recipes for things like “mock fried egg”, using dried egg inside a slice of bread to imitate a fried egg on toast. I am not sure how convincing it was, but I love the ingenuity.
- The Ministry of Food had its own cinema campaign
Between 1942 and 1946, the Ministry of Food produced more than 200 short “Food Flash” films, shown in British cinemas. They covered everything from keeping milk fresh to cooking with dried eggs, and the series was estimated to reach 20 million people.
By Veronica Silvestre and Matilda Whitelock