Museum of Early Trades and Crafts (9/22/2023)

Friday, September 22, 2023

On our way to Rhode Island, a quick stop at the Museum of Early Trades and Crafts in Madison, NJ, a Tyler Arboretum reciprocal museum.

The museum is located in the former James Library (1899,
by Willard Adden and Charles Brigham), a rare non-religious
example of the Richardsonian Romanesque Revival style
in the county; the library closed in 1967

Tiled flooring of the "porch"

Stained glass windows

Vaulted front room with fireplace

Woodwork of arched doorway

In collaboration with The Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES), the main gallery hosted Journey Stories that explores how movement has shaped our nation’s history, from the earliest European settlers and Native American displacement to the effects of transportation advancements on modern mobility.

Artifacts from the Museum of Early Trades and Crafts
collection are used to illustrate the journeys

One room is maintained as a library

Evidence that this building was a library

The door to a safe

The safe displayed objects found during renovations

This object is unidentified

The permanent exhibit is Working the Land,
telling the stories of how people in New Jersey
during the 1800s used tools to work the land

An example of lace created by tatting

A 19C bee hive

A smoker and a beehive frame; the wooden box with removable
frames was developed in 1852 by Lorenzo Langstroth in
Massachusetts, who also invented the queen excluder

Unfortumately, the lower level of the museum was closed; this area contained the bulk of the personal collection of Agnes and Edgar Law Land, who founded the museum in 1970. The 18th and 19th century artifacts representing the lives of the early immigrants to New Jersey includes tools, textiles, pottery, and archival materials.

James Building (1898-1899, also byWillard Adden and
Charles Brigham, with Flemish details)

James Building (detail) houses the annex of the museum

Green Village Road in Madison, NJ

Next: Manitoga.