OAKLAND — The Camron-Stanford House Museum in Oakland is hosting “Nanty Narking,” a new exhibit that opens Jan. 29 which explores the ways Victorian Oakland residents found to entertain themselves at home and abroad.

According to Passing English of the Victorian Era, a Dictionary of Heterodox English, Slang, and Phrase, the phrase is London tavern slang from the first half of the 19th century meaning “great fun.”

In the early Victorian era, people in agriculture, trade and services worked from dusk to dawn, and the urban working class male or unmarried female worked long hours in the factories. The average worker toiled at a job more than 60 hours a week.

As workers won rights that gave them respite from labor, people with days off sought amusements from sports to games to excursions. Most 19th century Americans were literate and many used their precious leisure hours for educational self-improvement.

The Transcontinental railroad was connected from East to West in 1869, bringing more people, and books and periodicals, to the West Coast. It was a time before records, movies, radio or TV, so if you wanted music, you needed to make it yourself or find another live performance. President Rutherford B. Hayes came across the country to California on the train in 1880 with a piano aboard his special rail coaches — first lady Lucy Hayes would play piano or guitar for evening songfests that most of the party would join in.

The guests on the train also avidly played board games but did not gamble and Lucy Hayes was an excellent impressionist whose comic performances made everyone laugh.

After the Civil War, Oakland was filled with activities traditionally attended by the well-to-do — concerts, lectures and the theater. Society was open to those who sought self-improvement, so the common man and woman could attend events as long as they had the price of admission and clean clothes.

An example is a public evening lecture held in a church in 1876, sponsored by a ladies’ seminary, where an itinerant lecturer, Dr. Adrian J. Ebell, who was both a natural scientist and a medical doctor, spoke on travel in Europe and the natural wonders that could be found there. He so inspired a group of ladies, many of whom were teachers, that they formed the Ebell Society — their self-improvement initiative was the first women’s club in Oakland and in the state.

“Nanty Narking” is an interactive exhibit appropriate for all ages. Visitors are greeted by a big, bright red and white tent and can take part in a singalong that tests their knowledge of Victorian hit tunes, play board and card games, and look inside Victorian children’s books. There’s a popcorn machine and a chance to win a warm bag of corn. The exhibit is open on Sunday afternoons, with tours.

The period rooms upstairs are included in the tour, and in the parlor, guests will see the game board that belonged to Matilda Gray Hewes, an early resident of the house.

The exhibit was researched and designed by Camron-Stanford House volunteers who were also responsible for previous exhibits “Spreading Their Wings: Victorian Women of the Ebell Society” in winter and spring 2014-15, “Morbid Desire” in fall 2015, and “Slough, Cesspool, City Jewel: The Evolution of Lake Merritt” in 2016. The exhibit team has delved deeply into local history and come up with facts and images that have not been known or seen by the public in many decades.

Camron-Stanford House, the last Victorian on Lake Merritt, is at 1418 Lakeside Drive in Oakland. The 1876 landmark house and museum is open on any Sunday for a house and exhibit tour at 1, 2 and 3 p.m. Admission is $5; $4 for seniors and children are free.

— Jean Wieler for Camron-Stanford House