Fort McCoy ArtiFACT: Face cream jar

Courtesy Photo | A Valaze face cream jar that was found at an archaeological site at Fort McCoy is shown. (Contributed photo by Colorado State University’s Center for the Environmental Management of Military Lands)  

FORT MCCOY, WI, UNITED STATES

10.23.2019

Courtesy Story

Fort McCoy Public Affairs Office           

Researchers with Colorado State University’s Center for the Environmental Management of Military Lands were performing routine monitoring of an archaeological site to assess its condition this past summer and observed that the high volume of rains were causing artifacts to erode out of the side of a hill.

At one time, the site was the home of Lorenzo Farr, who built a sawmill along Tarr Creek with his business partner ,John Foster. Farr also hosted the first town meeting of Lafayette Township in 1856 at this home. Farr’s home stood from 1856 until about 1940 and was a private residence until the land was acquired by the U.S. government.

One of the artifacts that washed out of the hillside was a Valaze face cream jar, which originally contained a beauty product sold by Helena Rubinstein. Rubinstein was born in Poland in 1871 but began her career in the beauty business after moving to Australia at the beginning of the 20th century.

Rubinstein’s Valaze face cream sold so well that she returned to Europe before the end of the first decade of the 1900s and opened a beauty salon in Paris shortly thereafter, and by 1915, she had opened a salon in New York City. Her beauty products were advertised across America in the 1920s, and by that time, her products were available through department stores and select drug stores. Rubinstein had a public feud with Elizabeth Arden, which was most recently dramatized on Broadway in the musical “War Paint,” which opened in 2017 and focused on these two women building and operating large-scale businesses in an era when women had few financial opportunities.

Personal care (health and hygiene) items, like this face cream jar, offer insights to cultural norms for different groups of people during specific times. Many cultures have personal care routines. During the Victorian era (1830s to 1900) there had been a decline in the use of cosmetics (for men and women), primarily because of the influence of Queen Victoria.

However, after her death and during the “progressive era” to the “new or roaring '20s” era from 1901 to the 1920s, there were many changes to Western cultural personal care, including the increase in the use of facial care products.

It is likely that this artifact represents the use of the Farr home after 1900 to the 1940s. The artifact is also indicative of women being present at the site because the Valaze “Beautifying Skinfood, Skin Clearing Cream, and Wake-up Cream” was marketed specifically to women.
Cultural resources management at Fort McCoy presents unique challenges. Historic materials and sites can be threatened by military training and other human activities but also by natural phenomena, such as fires and flooding.

Archaeologists at Fort McCoy must remain vigilant to protect the existing cultural resources within the installation boundary for future investigators and researchers.

All archaeological work conducted at Fort McCoy was coordinated by the Directorate of Public Works Environmental Division Natural Resources Branch.

Visitors and employees are reminded they should not collect artifacts on Fort McCoy or other government lands and leave the digging to the professionals.

Any person who excavates, removes, damages, or otherwise alters or defaces any historic or prehistoric site, artifact, or object of antiquity on Fort McCoy is in violation of federal law.

The discovery of any archaeological artifact should be reported to the Directorate of Public Works Environmental Division Natural Resources Branch at 608-388-8214.

(Article prepared by the Colorado State University’s Center for the Environmental Management of Military Lands.)

• Date Taken: 10.23.2019
• Date Posted: 10.23.2019 15:00
• Story ID: 348915
• Location: FORT MCCOY, WI, US