Museum history

The museum collections have been with the University for a long time - some were received as long ago as 1953. But the vast majority of the collection I care for was acquired during the early 1970s when the Anthropology Department founded the Museum of Man. Located in Barge Hall on campus, the Museum of Man had displays and supported the museum studies minor.

I recently located some old photos of what I believe were the store rooms in old Barge Hall. It's pretty neat (for me, at least) to see the objects I work with daily in this context. The rooms are pretty small and the objects very crammed, and I'm sure that archival materials at that time were not what they are today. But the collections were cared for in line with the standards of the day. So take a peek at these old photos and see if you recognize anything from the photos I've shared over the past year and a half.