Touring the Antique Car and Carriage Museum at the Frick
CELESTE VAN KIRK
Model E Touring Car, 1917 made by the Standard Steel Car Company at The Frick Car and Carriage Museum in Pittsburgh.
antiquecar
CELESTE VAN KIRK
CELESTE VAN KIRK
antiquecar
CELESTE VAN KIRK
Silver Ghost, 1914 made by Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Limited at The Frick Car and Carriage Museum in Pittsburgh.
CELESTE VAN KIRK
Tonneau, 1898 4 made by Panhard et Levassor at The Frick Car and Carriage Museum in Pittsburgh.
CELESTE VAN KIRK
Bantam Roadster, 1940 made by the American Bantam Car Company at The Frick Car and Carriage Museum in Pittsburgh.
CELESTE VAN KIRK
Silver Ghost, 1914 made by Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Limited at The Frick Car and Carriage Museum in Pittsburgh.
The inside of an automobile on display at the Frick Car and Carriage Museum in Pittsburgh.
The 1914 Model T Ford at the Frick Car and Carriage Museum in Pittsburgh will pique the interest of anyone who likes to travel long distances by automobile.
The first type of car to come off an assembly line, the Model T was inexpensive and affordable. It gave more people a chance to travel greater distances for leisure or business, freeing them from the short, limited miles that carriage and wagons could traverse. It’s the car that helped revolutionize the travel industry because it gave middle-class families an affordable opportunity to get on the road and enjoy vacations further from home.
The Model T is one of 11 classic cars on display at the museum. The collection also features 12 carriages from the Gilded Age, many of which were owned by the Frick family.
Located on the grounds of the former estate of industrialist and financier Henry Clay Frick, the idea for a museum dates back to 1950. Daughter Helen decided to turn the estate and family mansion into a museum. As part of her plan, she transported the Frick carriages, purchased roughly between 1881 and 1908, as well as the family cars, from their other homes in New York City and Pride’s Crossing, Mass.
To house them, she built a carriage house, where she left them to sit but took special care to preserve them.
In 1997, a local businessman and collector, G. Whitney Snyder, and his brother, William Penn Snyder III, contributed to the construction of an addition to the carriage museum to house 18 of their antique automobiles, which they loaned to the museum.
Following G. Whitney’s death in 1999, the cars were donated to the collection. They remain on display with six others, including two from the Frick family – a 1914 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost and a 1931 Lincoln Sport Phaeton.
Admission to the museum is free of charge as are the 45-minute long guided docent tours. These tours are offered at 1 and 3 p.m. Tuesday and at 11 a.m., 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Docents undergo a 20-hour training program learning about Frick family history, the carriage industry, the transition from carriage to the car and societal implications the vehicle had on the lives of everyday people.
More than just the individual cars’ backgrounds are covered during the guided tours. Attendees can learn about a myriad of topics, not limited to: the social history of transportation, the wealth needed to have and care for an extensive carriage collection, the transportation norms of the day, the use of steam, electric and gas in early automobiles, innovations developed from the racing industry and the autonomy and independence the car brought to the working and middle classes, women and people of color.
On tour with Megan Crutcher, a young woman studying for a master’s in history at nearby Duquesne University, we began looking at Frick’s 1914 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost near the front of the museum. Just across the aisle, what is believed to be the first car in Pittsburgh, an 1898 Panhard et Levassor Tonneau from Paris, was purchased by the Heinz family. Interestingly, the car is red for ketchup, green for pickle relish and yellow for mustard, three commodities that helped make the Heinz Company successful.
Nearby, as we observed several carriages and two sleds used for winter excursions, Crutcher explained the difference between a brougham and a phaeton carriage, something I always wondered since reading my first Dickens novel. Broughams are more formal and enclosed, which makes them handy for use in inclement weather. Phaetons, on the other hand, are informal and open to the elements. Frick’s wife, Adelaide, enjoyed horseback riding, and her 1902 phaeton is included in the collection.
Daughter Helen enjoyed carriage life, and her pony-driven Spider Phaeton was purchased for her use when she was 9 years old. It stands next to a four-passenger bobsled circa 1906.
“Pony phaetons were bought only by the wealthy because they were meant for their children and used strictly for fun and had no other utilitarian use,” Crutcher said.
Most of the carriages and cars are more than 100 years old, and the Frick has a no-touch policy because oils and dirt from skin can cause lasting damage to the objects in the collection. The good news for touchy-feely types is that visitors may board and sit in the 1929 green convertible, open-touring Model A Ford, a classy car that makes for a beautiful photo op.
Some may be surprised to learn that electric cars were around a lot longer than expected. The Electric Stanhope, made by the Baker Vehicle Company of Cleveland, dates back to 1903 with a smooth, quiet ride. The problem is, it had to be charged for eight hours to travel a maximum of 20 miles. Instead of a steering wheel, it had a tiller. One advantage – it had no dangerous boilers or flames as part of its running mechanism, which the 1909 Stanley Steamer Model R Roadster cannot claim. It ran on steam heated by a kerosene pilot light and took 30 minutes to power up. An exciting hybrid that connects technologically and visually to the bicycle and horse-drawn vehicle age, the 1901 Knox Model A Runabout has a single front wheel and a running gear out of the bicycle design handbook as well as a body typical of the carriage era.
Currently, the museum is offering a temporary exhibit titled “The Hunt for a Seat: Sporting Carriages in the Early Twentieth Century.” Planned to coincide with “A Sporting Vision: The Mellon Collection of British Sporting Art from the Virginia Museum of Fine Art at The Frick Art Museum,” this unique installation includes three loaned carriages to supplement three in the Frick’s collection and creates a broader picture of the use of transports for sport and recreation.
In addition to sporting carriages, the exhibition features the fashions associated with these activities. Women’s riding habits will illustrate appropriate dress for riding side saddle while “hunting pinks” represent the proper apparel for a fox hunt. This temporary exhibit is open through Nov. 3.
The estate includes free admission to the art museum, greenhouse and beautifully landscaped grounds. There is a fee, however, to tour Clayton, the home of the Frick family from 1882-1905. Meticulously restored, the 23-room mansion features an impressive array of fine and decorative art objects purchased by the Fricks. Docent-led tours of the home provide an inside view of daily life at the turn of the 20th century and a better understanding of Pittsburgh during the Gilded Age.
Reservations are strongly recommended. For more information, call 412-371-0600 or visit thefrickpittsburgh.org.