Jen has worked at Historic New England since 2016, first as an intern, then as a collections cataloguer, processing museum objects and archival materials from a number of Historic New England properties, and as the project archivist for the digitization of the Casey family papers. She is currently the registrar.
My favorite thing at Historic New England is one that I haven’t ever even seen in person. I happened upon a catalogue card with a black and white snapshot while on the hunt for another collections object record. While searching through records for a hooked rug at Hamilton House in South Berwick, Maine, three words caught my eye: Spoon, Hasty Pudding.
I’ve catalogued collections of spoons, painted accession numbers on the backs of long spoon handles, and cleaned many a spoon for exhibition display. Never before, though, had I heard of a special spoon for pudding, particularly the hastiest kind.
If someone had been walking down the hall at that point, they may have heard me exclaim a delighted “ha!” which quickly led me back to my desk to learn more about why this spoon was designated for hasty pudding.
It turns out that hasty pudding is merely a sort of porridge, traditionally made from cornmeal. It is mentioned in one verse off the song “Yankee Doodle,” and is also a social club at Harvard University. After falling down a couple more rabbit holes of online research, I was left with a funny little catalogue card in my hand and a little spring of joy.
Working at Historic New England allows me to uncover things like this every week. Sometimes it is finding a utensil for a specific dish that I never would have considered essential. Other times I work on acquisitions like one woman’s entire library of knitting patterns, complete with gauge samples and photographs of her family wearing the sweaters she made; or a painting related to one of our historic houses. Each time, I get to know the person associated with the object.
And the hasty pudding spoon? It is just one of more than 123,000 objects in our collection. Above my desk I keep a little post-it note that reads “Hasty Pudding Spoon” as a reminder of how lucky I am to do my job and how many more lovely little moments I have yet to discover.
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