White Gloves and McDonald's Bags

Today, in Culture and Collections, we once again looked at printed materials. Today we moved onto screen printing and wallpapers.  We once again went over how to recognize different methods of printing.  What was funny, was that we were looking at the printing on a McDonalds bag and as we were holding it we were wearing our white archivist gloves, and passing it carefully from one person to the next, though really this was just a McDonalds bag you could get at any store.  

After looking at the McDonlads bag and finishing learning about basic prints we moved onto wallpapers, which were very interesting to study.  We discussed their origins, how to tell time periods, and methods of making.  The funny part was when we were holding a piece in our bare hands the instructor was like, "umm...since you dont have gloves on, i just wanted to let you know that you should wash you hands, because a lot of old wallpaper paints were made with toxics, green is notorious for having arsenic in it."  Well needless to say that was comforting.

But all and all it made for an interesting class today.