These pictures from my visit to the Mercer Museum in Bucks County Pennsylvania are two years old, but worth sharing. The Museum founded by archaeologist Henry Mercer is a very large collection of hand crafted items that were commonly used by people in America before the machine age and widespread industrial revolution. These pictures include gorgeous butter molds and combs and hair accessories made from actual tortoise shell. One of my favorite sections of the museum is the very top floor, housing an enormous collection of ornate cast iron stoves.
“By 1897 handmade objects were being discarded in favor of new machine-made goods. Historian and archaeologist Henry Mercer (1856-1930) recognized the need to collect and preserve the outmoded material of daily life in America before it was swept away by the Industrial Revolution. Mercer gathered almost 30,000 items ranging from hand tools to horse-drawn vehicles and assembled this encyclopedic collection in a system of his own devising. To enhance the collection’s educational value, and to share it with the public, Mercer decided to design and build a museum to display the artifacts.”
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