Mary's Bedroom
This is Mary's bedroom. It was simple. It was stark. But it reflected her middle class job as a cook in an important household.
Unlike the rest of her peers in service, Mary has electric lights, steam heat, and even a bathroom that was adjacent to her bedroom. As simple as it was, her bedroom reflected her middle-class status and even a bit of luxury.
Mary's room also contains personal items that tell us so much about Mary as a person and the things that were important to her: Cooking, Catholicism, and family.
Mary would spend her modest free time reading cook books and books of household tips that would help her run the Rogers household more efficiently and effectively. These could have included publications like Household Discoveries and Mrs. Curtis's Cook Book.
Mary would also spend time in devotion. There are catechism books like Das Leben unsers Herrn Jesus Christus (The Life and Lessons of Jesus Christ), a Gebet-Buch (prayer book and missal for mass), and a German-language Catholic Bible.
Her shelves feature holy cards perhaps given to her by family and friends on important occassions like a first communion or a death.
She also has all of her clothes here on hooks including items of livery and her best dress reserved for Sunday mass.
But the overall sense of the room is one of modest lifestyle and surroundings: A steel frame bed, simple painted pine floors, plainly painted walls, and a single desk and chair.
