Made in Boston, this hand shower was found in the Wadsworth-Longfellow house in Portland and may have been a gift from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to his family.

A slightly smaller cylinder with an attached air chamber fits into the larger handled cylinder. The bottom of the inside cylinder is perforated with a series of holes. The user covers the small hole in the air chamber and lowers the internal cylinder into the larger one, permitting water to be drawn up into it the small cylinder.

The user then removes the smaller cylinder, uncovers the hole, and the water comes out of the small holes.

Longfellow learned about the therapeutic benefits of bathing during his studies in Germany in the 1830s. He sponsored family members to visit a spa in Brattleboro, Vermont, where they could take "the water cure.'