Joseph Allen Skinner Museum

11/17/2016

Two MHCAM alums, Pheobe Cos ’16 and Ally LaForge ’16 (front and middle), during their fellowship at Historic Deerfield’s awesome summer program!

Historic Deerfield Accepting Applications for 2017 Undergraduate Summer Fellowship Program

10/28/2016

Thanks to all you fabulous students who braved snow and sleet and rain to come to Night at the ! We ❤️ you !

10/27/2016

TONIGHT! Join us for a Night at the Skinner Museum! Candy, cider, donuts, button making, scavenger hunt, mysteries of history, and weird prizes! Costumes strongly encouraged! 👻🎃💀 7:00-8:30pm, rain or shine!
In the event of rain, or if you just don’t feel like walking, a shuttle bus will leave the Art Museum at 7:00pm and return at 8:15. Check our page for more details!

10/26/2016

This intriguing object in the is made from and called a butler’s ball. In affluent homes in the 19th century this would have been placed on the buffet for dinner service and used by wait staff to keep an eye on guests behind them. Now we use it for making weird faces!
See more awesome Skinner objects on the MHCAM blog in Associate Curator of Visual and Material Culture Aaron Miller's article, "Skinner Weird!" http://bit.ly/mhcamskinnerweird

10/12/2016

Happy !🐚 This hefty tooth in the Skinner Museum collection came from a Carcharodon megalodon in the Cooper River of North Carolina and is a mind-boggling 23 – 2.6 million years old! The megalodon (meaning big tooth) was a ginormous prehistoric shark measuring more than 50 feet in length-that's more than 3 times the size of a great white shark and half the size of a blue whale. Associate Curator of Visual and Material Culture Aaron Miller will be in Florida this weekend scuba diving for fossils from megalodons, wooly mammoths, and giant sloths!⚓️
See more awesome Skinner objects on the MHCAM blog in Dr. Miller's article, "Skinner Weird!" http://bit.ly/mhcamskinnerweird

09/21/2016

The original Skinner Museum label for this early 19th-century tooth key reads: "The claw is fixed deep between the tooth and gum, when with one turn, which should be cautious and slow, the tooth is pulled out at once." 😖

See more weird and terrifying things on the MHCAM blog in Associate Curator of Material Culture Aaron Miller's article, "Skinner Weird!" http://bit.ly/mhcamskinnerweird

09/12/2016

😫First day of classes got you feeling like this British inkwell? Distract yourself with the hilarious MHCAM blog article about the weirdest things at the Skinner Museum! http://bit.ly/mhcamskinnerweird

08/26/2016

This way to the MHCAM blog! http://bit.ly/mhcamskinnerweird. Check out a recent post by Associate Curator of Visual and Material Culture, Aaron Miller, on some of the weirdest objects at the Skinner Museum. About this disembodied arm, he writes: “Somewhere along the line a ship’s figurehead lost its arm. In the nineteenth century, female figureheads on the prows of ships would often have outstretched arms pointing the way. Now, this particular arm resides on the wall of the Skinner Museum, pointing to who knows what.”

See it in the flesh at the Skinner Museum! Open now through October, on Wednesdays and Sundays from 2:00-5:00pm.

10/24/2013

Tonight is the night!

10/18/2013

MHC students, next Thursday evening come check out YOUR Skinner Museum!

06/07/2013

An original late 18th- or early 19th-century acrostic poem written by Dr. Aaron John Miller of Ludlow honoring Washington. Another documentary gem from the Skinner Museum.

Great Cheif Columbia venerates thy name;
Europe with awe, proclames thy deathless fame;
On Asias plains, where Priests adore the sun;
Rajahs, and Nabobs owe Great Washington;
Grim Afric's Sons, who wars eternal wage;
Earth's savage nations all revere our sage;
Where Philidelphia graces yonder plains;
Adorn'd with Laurel our Lov'd Hero Reigns;
Serene He guides the helm of every State;
His skill in War, and Politicks Compleat;
Illustrous Statesman thou in vertuas cause;
Nowdeigns to sit The gaurdian of our Laws;
Graced with the lovaly olive branch of Peace;
Thy praise O Washington shall never cease;
On thee, this Western World have turn'd their Eyes;
Ne'er to revert them, till thou mount thee Skies.