A Case of Identity
Object: 6 annotated wallpaper swatches, 5 silk swatches, 9 copper coupons (some of which are pinned to the wallpaper and silk swatches), 2 envelopes
Creators: Henry Carr, Alfred Swaine Taylor
Date: c. 1870s
Project Overview
During my 2nd year of graduate study, I designed and executed a scientific research project. My project is a technical study of arsenical wallpaper samples.
In the 19th century, public perception of arsenic encompassed a variety of uses: criminal poison, useful medicine, and a raw material for manufacturing an array of goods.
Free-market capitalism policies and government reluctance towards proactive policymaking left efforts to spread consumer awareness and protection largely in the hands of private citizens and media. Whereas sensational Victorian murder trials during this time could keep acute arsenic poisoning at the forefront of public interest, chronic poisonings were sneakier and slower, which left citizens like Henry Carr and Alfred Swaine Taylor to spread the word.
Henry Carr was a civil engineer who, later in life, studied the use of arsenic in domestic fabrics. He wrote pamphlets, including Our Domestic Poisons (1879), and gave lectures on the subject. He tested hundreds of samples sent in by private individuals as well as manufacturers, and he compiled case after case of those who seemed incurably ill until the wallpaper in their bedrooms was removed. Carr was in regular communication with Alfred Swaine Taylor regarding the testing of wallpapers for arsenic. The real-life inspiration for Sir Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, Taylor was most known for his medical expertise during murder trials involving acute arsenic poisoning. However, he was also vocal about the dangers of chronic arsenic poisoning from wallpaper.
In 2022, a handful of these samples that Carr tested and shared with Taylor were acquired by Winterthur as part of an expansion of toxic pigment research spearheaded by the Poison Book Project. These samples consist of several swatches of wallpaper and silk, accompanied by handwritten notes on arsenic tests conducted on them.
These samples were tested with polarized light microscopy, X-ray florescence, Raman spectroscopy, and scanning electron microscopy with electron dispersion spectroscopy to identify the presence of hazardous substances and general material composition.
Through this technical study, the history of these objects can be better understood. These objects are invaluable as an aid in understanding past consumer protections as well as in helping inform present safe handling and storage practices for these objects. New scientific analysis through this project can add to the historical record by helping identify the makeup of these objects more concretely and by continuing the materials’ legacy of knowledge-sharing by contributing to the new-but-growing field of toxicology research in library and archives materials.