Miscellany Mondays: POPCORN - An American Icon, part 3

In Martha Tubinis' first popcorn post, she explained that the origin of her posts was a research paper for her Material Culture Studies course. But what is "material culture?"

In the first of what is now three posts on popcorn, History Buzz writer Martha Tubinis wrote this introduction:

One of my favorite classes in graduate school was called, “Material Culture.” We spent a semester studying everyday objects. Boring right? Hardly! Material culture is about putting into historical context the evolution of manmade objects and the culture surrounding their creation, particularly as it pertains to function. We studied everything from telephones, to Venetian oar locks, to furniture.  

For a more formal definition, let’s turn to the Center for Material Culture Studies at the University of Delaware,

Material culture studies is an interdisciplinary field that examines the relationship between people and their things, the making, history, preservation, and interpretation of objects. It draws on theory and practice from such disciplines as art history, archaeology, anthropology, history, historic preservation, folklore, and museum studies, among others. Anything from buildings and architectural elements to books, jewelry, toothbrushes, or bubbles can be considered material culture.¹

With their often vast collections of “things,” museums, curators, exhibit designers, and educators rely on material culture studies to interpret the meaning of objects to the culture that created and used those objects.

In this film, Harvard University Teaching Fellows Cara Fallon, John Bell, Chris Allison, and Carla Cevasco interpret a "chair" through various disciplinary lenses. This is Not a Chair was created for the Tangible Things class team taught in Fall 2013 by Professor Laurel Thatcher Ulrich and Chipstone curator and visiting lecturer Dr. Sarah Anne Carter at Harvard University.

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POPCORN - an American Icon, part 3

As the last post in her series of popcorn, Martha shares her material culture analysis of the Whirley Pop Popper. Click here to read the first post and here to read the second post.

In 1980, Mike Williams, a tinkering corn farmer in Indiana, developed the retro stove-top popcorn popper, and named it the Whirley Pop Popper.

The Whirley Pop Popper

Having grown up during the circus and amusement park heyday, I suspect he wanted to recreate the pleasant memories he had of the multisensory popcorn experience of yesterday. From a function and form standpoint, the Whirley Pop embodies everything the popcorn experience used to be.

Analysis

The predominantly metal components of the popper connote strength, durability and dependability. The popper has an industrial and purposeful look. Popcorn’s ability to endure and thrive despite weak stalks and poor popping mechanisms speaks to its physical and conceptual durability. The continual use of crank and gear technology over hundreds of years is suggestive of durability and dependability and purpose.

The advent of steam and trains in 19th century America addresses industry, strength, purpose and dependability. The popper’s tri-strata metal bar pierces through the softer looking round aluminum cover much as the railroad sliced through our country forever changing the physical, cultural and commercial landscape.

Popcorn and the circus

Popcorn’s association with the circus in its preeminent cultural role evokes strength, purpose and dependability to deliver a multisensory fun experience. The predominantly metal rides at amusement parks connote a strength and reliability in the face of great risk. 

In the popper’s mission to covertly pop and transform corn the user experiences mystery, anticipation and thrill accompanied by a little fear for the unknown and the danger of getting burned. The circus and the amusement park are the incarnation of thrill, anticipation, fear, mystery and danger. The circus show-people, sword swallowers, fortune tellers, rollercoasters, fun houses, exotic menacing animals and aerialists all epitomize the tug-of-war between risk and safety. Should I look, or look away?

Considering the metal of the popper, the aluminum is highly reflective of light. Yet, with the cover attached the inside of the kettle is dark and speaks to mystery and the unknown. In the darkened circus tent, the bright ballyhoo beckoned the attendees to engage and pay attention. The illuminated 1893 Chicago Columbian Exposition (see part 2 of the series) was representative of a sort of discarding of America’s dark ages and a prognostication for a bright, modern and more convenient electrified future. Riding rollercoasters and stumbling through fun houses the participant plunges into the dark and then emerges, safe, into the light.

The clips and metal bar on the cover of the popper invoke a feeling of imprisonment - of animals locked in cages and riders locked into the towering Ferris Wheel and frightening rollercoaster. The steam and popcorn eventually escaping the kettle matches the mixed feelings of relief upon escaping at the end of a ride. 

The crank and gear mechanism on the cover is soothing, predictable, reliable and intentional. It mesmerizes just like the aerialists spinning and turning again and again high above the crowd at the circus. The popcorn and circus wagons with wheels turning moving forward closer to the three-ring circus tent where animals and clowns skip, frolic and gallop around and around. Amusement rides spin sideways, careen around corners turn upside down spinning all the while. There is comfort in knowing that the circular track delivers the raddled rider back to the beginning, back to safety. 

Lastly, we cannot forget the noise. The soft comforting noise of popcorn as it begins to pop adds to the anticipation of tasting the result. When the popping becomes loud it seems violent and jarring. This is reminiscent of the quiet music played while the aerialist climbs the trapeze and then the volume and cadence increase creating anticipation and fear. It speaks to the slow and quiet start to a rollercoaster followed by fast speed and deafening contact between wheels and track.

Summary

The steel and wood handle design of the Whirley Pop, as well as the sounds and smells of the corn popping, allow the user to use the whimsical, retro stove-top popper at home while enjoying the most amazing tasting popcorn. The Whirley Pop popper brought the old-fashioned popcorn wagon and its kettle into the late 20th century American kitchen. The Whirley Pop was a digression from the 1970s trend towards plastic electric poppers, hot air poppers and microwave popcorn.

With the popper’s crank and gear technology from the nineteenth and early twentieth century, Mike Williams drew from the classic circus adventure to bring the retro popping experience to life in a modern 1980s kitchen. 

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What do you think? Are you ready to explore the material culture of the objects around you? Leave us a comment below!

Thanks for reading!

1. https://sites.udel.edu/materialculture/about/what-is-material-culture/