“Bathrooms, Bedrooms and Boudoirs”

Bedrooms Bathrooms and Boudoirs

In Evanston History Center’s “Bathrooms, Bedrooms and Boudoirs,” the subject is less titillating than it sounds. (Case in point: Evanstonian women of means called their private spaces sitting rooms, and not the sexier boudoirs.) To create the exhibit, the house museum cleared out two rooms used for storage—a bedroom and sitting room, plus the adjoining bathroom—uncovering surprisingly light spaces clad with lacy trim. A bevy of bathroom instruments (including a hand-knitted lace “collar” that once festooned a chamber pot) and elaborately pin-tucked dressing gowns reveal the complexity of hygiene before modern perks like flushable toilets and metal-spring mattresses.