[This exhibit ran from December 7, 2018 – March 31, 2019 at the Rochester Museum & Science Center. A digital version is available here.]
How can an object both connect us with the past and inspire the present? Explore this question as you discover the intricate beadwork created by eight contemporary Onondawaga (Seneca) artists side-by-side with the art of their ancestors from the 1930s from the WPA Indian Arts Project, as well as examples from the 1850s from the RMSC’s Lewis Henry Morgan Collection. Among the examples of beadwork are pieces by Caroline Parker Mount Pleasant, the great aunt of one of RMSC’s early museum directors, Arthur C. Parker.
The Lewis Henry Morgan Collection at RMSC is the largest one assembled by the pioneer ethnographer that exists today. Morgan bequeathed Native American ladles, gorgets, cornhusk dolls, moccasins, war clubs, archaeological artifacts, and much more to the University of Rochester as part of his estate. In 1970, the University of Rochester donated nearly 200 objects to RMSC after lending the Morgan Collection to the Museum for several decades.
Now, on the occasion of Lewis Henry Morgan’s 200th birthday year, RMSC is part of a communitywide collaboration to remember and critically appreciate Morgan’s legacy, organized by the University of Rochester with support from the Humanities Project.