Staying warm in bed
Being cold in bed is not just a comfort issue but it was once a serious health issue too, especially before the introduction of antibiotics and contemporary medicine.
Objects designed to keep us warm in bed include different types of duvets and eiderdowns, hot water bottles and electric blankets. Annesbrooke-based company Zip Wholesalers, in Nelson, claimed that one of their electric blankets provided the same amount of warmth as four eiderdowns. Today electric blankets remain one of the most popular methods for staying warm in bed all night.
This video by our Collections Leader Shae Trewin talks about methods for staying warm in bed.
In reviewing the museum’s natural history holdings for the latest exhibition, curators re-visited specimens that tell stories of bygone collecting practices when natural history specimens were commodified for fashion, trade, and scientific exchange both within Aotearoa and around the world.
The $20 million collection at New Zealand's oldest museum is at risk unless its aging research facility is replaced soon.
While the Nelson Provincial Museum's main building is in the centre of the city, the Isel Park facility in Stoke holds the vast majority of the collection and it's falling apart.
The museum's chief executive, Lucinda Jimson, said they are close to losing the collection if they don't get out of the building.
Nelson Provincial Museum Senior Curator of Photography Darryl Gallagher has recently uncovered the story of Henry and Alice Brusewitz, a husband and wife commercial photography team who opened for business in Nelson in the 1880s.