Connecting Dots

August 7th, 2015 |

Connecting the dots.  That sums up quite a bit of what curators do on a daily basis with objects.  Like all museums Historic Bethlehem’s partner organizations all have mission statements that define what they collect.

The mission of the Moravian Museum of Bethlehem is to interpret the history of the Moravian Church and its community in Bethlehem and beyond by collecting, preserving, and exhibiting artifacts relating to the life of the Moravians for the purpose of demonstrating the industry, home life, religious practices, educational ideals, and faith and vision of the Moravian community.  So the majority of the Moravian Museum’s collections are made up of objects previously owned by or used by Moravians who lived or were in some way connected to Bethlehem.

The mission of Burnside Plantation is to restore, interpret, and maintain the historic site known as Burnside Plantation for the public benefit and to promote, support, and conduct historical and scientific research and educational activities relating to the site, its residents, its relationship with the Moravian Community and with the Indians of the nearby settlement.  So Burnside’s collections include agricultural tools that could have been used at the site, archaeological materials from the Moravian settlement of Nain, and documentation of the Burnside and Hillman families.

While each of the partners originally collected and continues to collect based on their individual missions, some overlapping occurs.  Both the Moravian Museum and the Kemerer Museum have several Polly Heckewelder dolls (traditional hand-crafted dolls made by ladies of Central Moravian Church since the 1870s).  The dolls have been preserved for their connection to the Moravian Church and their namesake by the Moravian Museum,  and as an example of local traditions and decorative arts (the dolls have hand painted faces by documented artists) by the Kemerer Museum.

These overlaps and the structure of Historic Bethlehem allow me to connect a vast number of dots.

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