Where what's old is new

By Mary Alice Garrett

This story originally appeared March 12, 2009 in The News Journal of Wilmington, Delaware.

The creation of new museum exhibits can be a long and rigorous process, says Felice Jo Lamden, director of exhibitions at Winterthur.

At several area museums, the planning for a new exhibit is done by a committee. It can take up to five years and involve hundreds of workers. The ideas for new exhibits may come from visitors' comments or staffers' analysis of what hasn't been done before. Items may come from the museums' own collections (perhaps from storerooms not open to the public) or other museums.

Exhibit specialists are resourceful in getting visitors' attention. Three-dimensional exhibits are the norm at the Delaware Historical Society.

"We don't want to do a book on a wall," said Stephanie Przybylek, director of collections and museums.

The Delaware Museum of Natural History borrows eight-foot robotic creatures to intrigue their audience of young families.

Most exhibit items at the Delaware Historical Society come to them as donations. Pieces that tell a Delaware story are preferred.

"We're here to collect Delaware's history -- not random old stuff," said director Connie Cooper.

Hagley's collections began in 1954 with 2,000 items -- "a group of things that the DuPont Co. pulled together," said Debra Hughes, director of collections and exhibits. Today, Hagley has more than 50,000 items -- from gunpowder to synthetics -- covering more than 200 years. "We try to focus on consumer products."

In 1958, Louise Crowningshield, the daughter of Henry Algernon du Pont, donated Eleutherian Mills and its contents to Hagley. Eleutherian Mills, the first du Pont family home in America, has been open full-time to visitors since 1977.

Life-size or pint-size

Both Winterthur and Hagley are preparing for major upcoming exhibits: On March 21, Winterthur will open "Harbor and Home: Furniture of Southeastern Massachusetts, 1710-1850. Hagley will feature two exhibits: "From the Orient: Souvenirs from Captain Samuel Francis du Pont's Voyage of 1857-1858 and "Nineteenth Century Patent Models: Innovation in Miniature." The first exhibit will open Saturday and the second on April 25. This will be Hagley's fourth patent model exhibit. Staffers said previous exhibits of the models have been favorites with visitors.

At Winterthur, the gallery areas recently were awash in designers, painters, packers and lighting experts setting up the "Harbor and Home" exhibition. It features 200 objects -- 84 pieces of furniture and more than 100 paintings, prints and historical photographs from 50 public and private collections. Many of the objects have never before been displayed publicly. The exhibit is the result of five years of research by Brock Jobe, professor of American decorative arts in the Winterthur/University of Delaware graduate program in American material culture. A highlight is a collection of tall-case clocks.

"Brock found that no scholarly study had ever been done on this region [southeastern Massachusetts]," said director of exhibitions Lamden. "This seemed like a story that was perfect for us."

The gallery walls were painted brownish ocher and blue to complement the wood tones of the period furniture. The paint had to cure on the walls for four weeks. And the furniture and clocks are dusted (never polished) daily by a full-time cleaning crew.

Lamden compared the setting up process to "like getting the camel through the eye of the needle. Everything is sort of hinged on a domino effect," she added. "We are constantly making adjustments based on size [of the pieces.]"

The exhibit will run through May 25. After that, it moves to Nantucket, Mass.

Hagley's patent model exhibit will include more than 120 models dating to the 19th century. The U.S. Patent Office formerly required applicants to submit a working model no greater than 12 inches square of their inventions. Included in the exhibit are patents by women inventors, transportation-related models, inventions pertaining to laundry and other household chores.

In 1961, Hagley received a patent model collection from E. Tunicliff Fox which had been exhibited at the 1939 World's Fair in New York. An anonymous donor gave another 120 patent models in 2007. The models include a combination piano and bed, an invalid-lifter and early washing machines and irons.

"Kids like them because they're kind of like toys, and women like the washing machines," Hughes said.

The "Orient" exhibit includes 30 items collected by du Pont on his 1857 voyage. Besides rose medallion china, there's a pair of lotus shoes of the type once worn by Chinese girls and women whose feet had been bound.

Water in depth; Big bad what?

Coming up in June at the Delaware History Museum is an exhibit of the history of harvesting from the water which will focus on the Delaware River, Delaware Bay and the Nanticoke River. Przybylek says it's a topic which hasn't been addressed in depth.

For its current "Backyard Monsters" exhibit, the Delaware Museum of Natural History borrowed giant robotic bugs from a firm in California. Carpenter ants, a scorpion and a praying mantis enlarged up to 96 times their normal size demonstrate lifelike movements. The exhibit will close May 3.

From June 6 through Oct. 4, the museum will feature "Deep Sea Treasures," specimens found off Nova Scotia. An unusually and appropriately large exhibit, "Super Croc," will follow from Nov. 7 through Jan. 11. This exhibit will include a 40-foot prehistoric crocodile from the Museum of Science and Industry in Tampa, Fla.

The museum borrows from and loans to other institutions, including Longwood Gardens.

Ideas for new exhibits often come from surveying visitors, said Gary Bloomer, director of exhibits and graphics. "They have to be appropriate for our audience of families with children ages four to 12."

Museum guides say it's gratifying when a youngster or adult gets turned on to something in an exhibit.

"If you've captured someone's imagination, there's nothing like it," said Lamden.

OLD RECORDS REALLY DO MATTER (YOURS, TOO)

Despite the wealth of information about the past available online, there's still a need for a place like the Delaware Historical Society, concludes Ellen Rendle, curator of maps and photos.

Rendle said about two-thirds of its visitors come to research genealogy. The society has a strong working relationship with the Delaware Genealogical Society, which doesn't have a facility of its own.

Items from the past tell stories, once they're preserved and archived. That's why Rendle is thrilled by the donation of a 1732 map of the East Coast, valued at $20,000. She noted that an 1849 wall map of Kent County that was donated is now being indexed. Volunteers also are tracing 1895 records of funerals handled by Chandler Funeral Home.

Saving personal items -- be they baseball cards or report cards -- is a good thing, says Rendle.

"I always tell little children -- you need to be thoughtful about what you save about yourself," she said.