By Shawn M. Rogers
TERRE HAUTE — Trunks, or traveling chests, have existed for thousands of years in China, but were most commonly used in this country from the late 18th to early 20th centuries. This relatively bulky luggage was generally used for extended stays away from home, or for long journeys. Today the traveling trunk, for the most part, has been replaced by the much cheaper and lighter suitcase.
Trunks have been produced in various styles throughout the last two hundred years. Among the most recognizable trunk styles or types are the Jenny Lind, Saratoga, and Steamer. The Jenny Lind trunk features a distinct hour glass profile and was named for the curvaceous Swedish singer who toured with P.T. Barnum in the mid 19th century. The Saratoga trunk is a rather large “round top” trunk that first became popular among wealthy individuals who vacationed near the spas and racetracks of Saratoga Springs, New York. Steamer trunks, often called “cabin trunks” are flat or round top trunks whose size and shape allow for convenient storage. Steamer trunks were the descendants of earlier compact-sized traveling chests known as “stage coach” trunks.
It is believed that round or curved tops were incorporated into trunk designs in order to prevent damage caused by stacking. However, wise baggage handlers quickly realized that round top trunks could be laid on their sides to allow other trunks to be placed upon them. As a result, the contents of round top trunks were more likely to be scrambled and displaced than the contents of flat top trunks.
On Sept. 9, 1925, Eugene V. Debs, Terre Haute native and influential American labor leader, wrote an impassioned letter to the Terre Haute Tribune to lament the mistreatment of two historic traveling trunks that once belonged to Chauncey Rose. Nick Salvatore, a Debs biographer, wrote about the incident in the following excerpt from his book, Eugene V. Debs, Citizen and Socialist:
In the fall of 1925, Gene and Kate, strolling in the cool evening after dinner, passed the old mansion of Chauncey Rose, now rotted and crumbled, awaiting final demolition. Pausing before the house, they spotted two of Rose’s old trunks amid the debris. Swept with a melancholy for the spirit of his youth, a disturbed and agitated Debs returned home to write a letter to the local paper. “Chauncey Rose did more for Terre Haute than any other man living or dead,” Debs wrote of the city’s major mid-nineteenth-century entrepreneur. “Rose built the first railroad into Terre Haute, and devoted his entire fortune to the growth and development of the city and the prosperity and welfare of the people.” Angry at this defilement of Rose’s memory, it was the condition of the worn and battered trunks that etched Debs’s feeling, “trunks that, no doubt, in crossing the eastern mountains knew the stage coach, the ox-cart and the old canal in their pilgrimage … that share the pioneer life of the Wabash Valley, it’s heroism and hardships, as well as its romance, its simplicity and beauty.” That these relics of an earlier time — symbols of the conquest of nature, of manhood tested and victorious, which evoked waves of adolescent dreams and memories— that these should be scorned and neglected caused the deepest pain. With sad anger, Debs concluded his letter: “This is predominantly a business age, a commercial age, a material and in a larger sense a sordid age, but the moral and spiritual values of life are not wholly ignored by the people. Sentiment, without which men are lower than savages, is still rooted in and flowers in the human soul and makes possible the hope that someday we shall seek and find and enjoy the real riches of the race.”
This week’s Historical Treasure is a round top, low profile stage coach trunk that belonged to the mercantile firm of “Rose and Warren” (1823-1832). It was donated to the Vigo County Historical Society by Mrs. Mary Parker Warren, wife of John C. Warren, in 1945. John C. Warren’s father, Chauncey Warren, was a business partner of Chauncey Rose and used the trunk when traveling for the firm.
