New Jersey State Museum
Encyclopedia
The New Jersey State Museum is located at 205 West State Street in Trenton
, New Jersey
, United States
, overlooking the Delaware River
. The Museum is operated as part of the New Jersey Department of State. General admission is free.
The Museum's main collection of artifacts
and fine art
dates back to items collected in the early 19th century. The Museum also includes a 150-seat planetarium
and a 380-seat auditorium
.
The Museum's replica
of a Hadrosaurus
— a specimen unearthed in Haddonfield
in 1858 that was selected as the state's official dinosaur in 1991 — was the target of a renovation project in the late 1990s to correct a display that had been on exhibit since the 1930s. The replica's original skull, a model created as a substitute because the actual skull was not preserved, was to be replaced with the narrower skull of another duck-billed dinosaur
.
The New Jersey State Museum serves a broad region between New York and Philadelphia. Because the Museum’s general admission is free and all programs are free or offered at a very low-cost, the Museum is accessible to visitors with low- to moderate incomes.
, was the first state museum in the country established with education as a primary focus of its mission. The New Jersey Legislature formally established the Museum by law in 1895; the Museum received re-accreditation from the American Association of Museums in August 2003.
As eloquently put forth in the mission statement: The New Jersey State Museum serves the life-long educational needs of residents and visitors through its collections, exhibitions, programs, publications, and scholarship in science, history, archaeology, and the arts. Within a broad context, the Museum explores the natural and cultural diversity of New Jersey, past and present.
In its beginning, like many museums of its era, the Museum focused on natural history. The first major collections were of rocks, minerals and fossils from the New Jersey Geological Survey, which began in 1836. In 1912, the Museum expanded its focus to include archaeology through an acquisition of artifacts produced by Native Americans in the region. These artifacts dated from the prehistoric and historic periods as well as from New Jersey's diverse populations during the Colonial and post-colonial eras. In 1922, the Museum was one of the first on the east coast to exhibit, as art, a collection of North American Indian objects. With the acquisition of these objects, the Museum started its ethnographic collections. In 1924, decorative arts were added to the Museum with examples from the Trenton-area ceramics industry. And while fine art had been exhibited and acquired through the mid-20th century, the Museum began a strong collecting emphasis on paintings, sculpture and works on paper in the early 1960s.
In 1964, the Museum moved from the State Capitol complex into the newly-created Capitol Cultural Complex. The Main Building, now a classic example of modernist architecture, consists of four floors of exhibition space, a 150-seat Planetarium and public spaces including a Gift Shop and Café. A second building holds a 384-seat Auditorium as well as gallery spaces. Additionally, the Museum’s Civil War Flag Gallery, which exhibits the Museum’s Civil War flag collection on a rotating basis, is located at 225 West State Street.
specimens as the definitive systematic research collection for the study of the prehistory of New Jersey. Important sub-sets include the archaeological collections from both the Abbott Farm National Historic Landmark Site and the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area
. The Museum’s archaeology collections are respected as one of the most important collections for the regional study of northeastern North America, and provide data on the entire span of human occupation in New Jersey from prehistoric times to the 19th century.
The ethnographic collection consists of specimens that represent the Lenape
and other North American Indian groups, and also include a small number of West African specimens collected to interpret the heritage of New Jersey's African-American population. Additionally, the collection also consists of a small grouping of Asian objects collected by New Jersey donors while they were on business or pleasure trips during the late 19th century through the 1950s. In a move toward reinterpreting the African and Asian works, these objects are now being presented as examples of cultural objects from people who have moved to New Jersey from around the globe.
, paleontology
specimens (fossils), osteology
specimens (bones), modern shells, and a systematic study skin component. Smaller sub-collections include pinned insects, fluid-preserved fauna
, taxidermy
mounts and glass lantern slides. The Museum displays an early reconstruction of the first nearly-complete dinosaur
ever excavated; Hadrosaurus foulkii (affectionately known as “Haddy” among school children) which was found in Haddonfield, New Jersey
in 1858. The bureau is also the repository for about 300 type (first documented) specimens of Paleozoic
and Mesozoic
fossils, as well as a large number of fossils documenting the Paleozoic strata
within the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area
. Minerals from the zinc-mining locality of Franklin-Sterling Hill are well-represented, including the largest number of fluorescent mineral species
in the world, as are mine-specific specimens from New Jersey’s industrial iron mining past. Specimens from beyond New Jersey are used for comparative purposes in exhibitions and educational programming, to augment the systematic collections, and for research purposes.
The 150-seat Planetarium
features a Minolta MS-10 instrument for sky shows and visual displays of the solar system. Exhibits include displays of constellations, solar system models and space exploration. , the planetarium is closed for construction.
Trenton, New Jersey
Trenton is the capital of the U.S. state of New Jersey and the county seat of Mercer County. As of the 2010 United States Census, Trenton had a population of 84,913...
, New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, overlooking the Delaware River
Delaware River
The Delaware River is a major river on the Atlantic coast of the United States.A Dutch expedition led by Henry Hudson in 1609 first mapped the river. The river was christened the South River in the New Netherland colony that followed, in contrast to the North River, as the Hudson River was then...
. The Museum is operated as part of the New Jersey Department of State. General admission is free.
The Museum's main collection of artifacts
Artifact (archaeology)
An artifact or artefact is "something made or given shape by man, such as a tool or a work of art, esp an object of archaeological interest"...
and fine art
Fine art
Fine art or the fine arts encompass art forms developed primarily for aesthetics and/or concept rather than practical application. Art is often a synonym for fine art, as employed in the term "art gallery"....
dates back to items collected in the early 19th century. The Museum also includes a 150-seat planetarium
Planetarium
A planetarium is a theatre built primarily for presenting educational and entertaining shows about astronomy and the night sky, or for training in celestial navigation...
and a 380-seat auditorium
Auditorium
An auditorium is a room built to enable an audience to hear and watch performances at venues such as theatres. For movie theaters, the number of auditoriums is expressed as the number of screens.- Etymology :...
.
The Museum's replica
Replica
A replica is a copy closely resembling the original concerning its shape and appearance. An inverted replica complements the original by filling its gaps. It can be a copy used for historical purposes, such as being placed in a museum. Sometimes the original never existed. For example, Difference...
of a Hadrosaurus
Hadrosaurus
Hadrosaurus is a valid genus of hadrosaurid dinosaur. In 1858, a skeleton of a dinosaur from this genus was the first dinosaur skeleton known from more than isolated teeth to be found in North America. In 1868, it became the first ever mounted dinosaur skeleton...
— a specimen unearthed in Haddonfield
Haddonfield, New Jersey
Haddonfield is a borough located in Camden County, New Jersey. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough had a total population of 11,593....
in 1858 that was selected as the state's official dinosaur in 1991 — was the target of a renovation project in the late 1990s to correct a display that had been on exhibit since the 1930s. The replica's original skull, a model created as a substitute because the actual skull was not preserved, was to be replaced with the narrower skull of another duck-billed dinosaur
Hadrosaurid
Hadrosaurids or duck-billed dinosaurs are members of the family Hadrosauridae, and include ornithopods such as Edmontosaurus and Parasaurolophus. They were common herbivores in the Upper Cretaceous Period of what are now Asia, Europe and North America. They are descendants of the Upper...
.
The New Jersey State Museum serves a broad region between New York and Philadelphia. Because the Museum’s general admission is free and all programs are free or offered at a very low-cost, the Museum is accessible to visitors with low- to moderate incomes.
History
The New Jersey State Museum, located in Trenton, New JerseyTrenton, New Jersey
Trenton is the capital of the U.S. state of New Jersey and the county seat of Mercer County. As of the 2010 United States Census, Trenton had a population of 84,913...
, was the first state museum in the country established with education as a primary focus of its mission. The New Jersey Legislature formally established the Museum by law in 1895; the Museum received re-accreditation from the American Association of Museums in August 2003.
As eloquently put forth in the mission statement: The New Jersey State Museum serves the life-long educational needs of residents and visitors through its collections, exhibitions, programs, publications, and scholarship in science, history, archaeology, and the arts. Within a broad context, the Museum explores the natural and cultural diversity of New Jersey, past and present.
In its beginning, like many museums of its era, the Museum focused on natural history. The first major collections were of rocks, minerals and fossils from the New Jersey Geological Survey, which began in 1836. In 1912, the Museum expanded its focus to include archaeology through an acquisition of artifacts produced by Native Americans in the region. These artifacts dated from the prehistoric and historic periods as well as from New Jersey's diverse populations during the Colonial and post-colonial eras. In 1922, the Museum was one of the first on the east coast to exhibit, as art, a collection of North American Indian objects. With the acquisition of these objects, the Museum started its ethnographic collections. In 1924, decorative arts were added to the Museum with examples from the Trenton-area ceramics industry. And while fine art had been exhibited and acquired through the mid-20th century, the Museum began a strong collecting emphasis on paintings, sculpture and works on paper in the early 1960s.
In 1964, the Museum moved from the State Capitol complex into the newly-created Capitol Cultural Complex. The Main Building, now a classic example of modernist architecture, consists of four floors of exhibition space, a 150-seat Planetarium and public spaces including a Gift Shop and Café. A second building holds a 384-seat Auditorium as well as gallery spaces. Additionally, the Museum’s Civil War Flag Gallery, which exhibits the Museum’s Civil War flag collection on a rotating basis, is located at 225 West State Street.
Bureau of Archaeology/Ethnology
The Bureau of Archaeology/Ethnology collections encompass approximately 2,400,000 prehistoric and historic specimens acquired by nearly 100 years of excavation, as well as more than 4,000 ethnographic objects acquired as gifts to the Museum. Scholars widely recognize the Museum’s archaeologyArchaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
specimens as the definitive systematic research collection for the study of the prehistory of New Jersey. Important sub-sets include the archaeological collections from both the Abbott Farm National Historic Landmark Site and the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area
Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area
Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, administered by the National Park Service, preserves almost of land along the Delaware River's New Jersey and Pennsylvania shores, stretching from the Delaware Water Gap northward almost to the New York state line...
. The Museum’s archaeology collections are respected as one of the most important collections for the regional study of northeastern North America, and provide data on the entire span of human occupation in New Jersey from prehistoric times to the 19th century.
The ethnographic collection consists of specimens that represent the Lenape
Lenape
The Lenape are an Algonquian group of Native Americans of the Northeastern Woodlands. They are also called Delaware Indians. As a result of the American Revolutionary War and later Indian removals from the eastern United States, today the main groups live in Canada, where they are enrolled in the...
and other North American Indian groups, and also include a small number of West African specimens collected to interpret the heritage of New Jersey's African-American population. Additionally, the collection also consists of a small grouping of Asian objects collected by New Jersey donors while they were on business or pleasure trips during the late 19th century through the 1950s. In a move toward reinterpreting the African and Asian works, these objects are now being presented as examples of cultural objects from people who have moved to New Jersey from around the globe.
Bureau of Cultural History
The Bureau of Cultural History preserves and interprets historical objects that document the lives of people who have lived in New Jersey from the 17th century to the present. The collection includes over 13,000 artifacts documenting New Jersey’s cultural, economic, military, political, and social history, as well as aspects of its decorative arts. Ranging from ceramics produced by Trenton potteries to decorative quilts made and used by New Jersey women to utilitarian artifacts reflecting the rich maritime and agricultural heritage of the Garden State, the Cultural History Collection is one of the largest material culture collections dealing with New Jersey history. Textiles, trade tools, furniture, and an array of artifacts documenting craft, work, play, community, and family life are also represented in the collection. The Cultural History Bureau also oversees the preservation and interpretation of the NJ State Capitol’s collection of military flags used by New Jersey regiments in the Civil War and World War I.Bureau of Education
The Museum’s Bureau of Education offers programs or events designed to offer activities that not only engage our audiences but help to instill a desire for life-long object-based learning. School groups may attend auditorium-style performances and Museum-based classes, as well as access classroom resources such as curriculum guides and object loans. Teachers’ workshops offer opportunities for classroom teachers to gain additional knowledge and skills which they may employ back in their own classrooms. General audiences can participate in a variety of performances, lectures, gallery walks, demonstrations, film series, scout programs and more.Bureau of Fine Art
The Bureau of Fine Art maintains more than 12,000 paintings, drawings, sculptures, prints and photographs from the 18th century to the present. The collection emphasizes important works by significant New Jersey artists within the context of American art, as well as works that depict New Jersey history or historic events. Included in the collection are works by the American modernists associated with Hoboken-born Alfred Stieglitz and by the American Abstract Artists group of the 1930s and 1940s, contemporary American art, the complete graphic output of New Jersey artists Ben Shahn and Jacob Landau, and a nationally-based collection of works by African-American artists from the 19th to 21st centuries. Additionally, there are small holdings of European and non-Western art for comparative purposes.Bureau of Natural History
The Bureau of Natural History holds a diverse collection of about 250,000 specimens which have historic and cultural significance, in addition to their scientific value. The natural history collections are especially strong in industrial minerals and oresOrés
Orés is a municipality in the Cinco Villas, in the province of Zaragoza, in the autonomous community of Aragon, Spain. It belongs to the comarca of Cinco Villas. It is placed 104 km to the northwest of the provincial capital city, Zaragoza. Its coordinates are: 42° 17' N, 1° 00' W, and is...
, paleontology
Paleontology
Paleontology "old, ancient", ὄν, ὀντ- "being, creature", and λόγος "speech, thought") is the study of prehistoric life. It includes the study of fossils to determine organisms' evolution and interactions with each other and their environments...
specimens (fossils), osteology
Osteology
Osteology is the scientific study of bones. A subdiscipline of anatomy, anthropology, and archeology, osteology is a detailed study of the structure of bones, skeletal elements, teeth, morphology, function, disease, pathology, the process of ossification , the resistance and hardness of bones , etc...
specimens (bones), modern shells, and a systematic study skin component. Smaller sub-collections include pinned insects, fluid-preserved fauna
Fauna
Fauna or faunæ is all of the animal life of any particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is flora.Zoologists and paleontologists use fauna to refer to a typical collection of animals found in a specific time or place, e.g. the "Sonoran Desert fauna" or the "Burgess shale fauna"...
, taxidermy
Taxidermy
Taxidermy is the act of mounting or reproducing dead animals for display or for other sources of study. Taxidermy can be done on all vertebrate species of animals, including mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians...
mounts and glass lantern slides. The Museum displays an early reconstruction of the first nearly-complete dinosaur
Dinosaur
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of animals of the clade and superorder Dinosauria. They were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic period until the end of the Cretaceous , when the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event led to the extinction of...
ever excavated; Hadrosaurus foulkii (affectionately known as “Haddy” among school children) which was found in Haddonfield, New Jersey
Haddonfield, New Jersey
Haddonfield is a borough located in Camden County, New Jersey. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough had a total population of 11,593....
in 1858. The bureau is also the repository for about 300 type (first documented) specimens of Paleozoic
Paleozoic
The Paleozoic era is the earliest of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic eon, spanning from roughly...
and Mesozoic
Mesozoic
The Mesozoic era is an interval of geological time from about 250 million years ago to about 65 million years ago. It is often referred to as the age of reptiles because reptiles, namely dinosaurs, were the dominant terrestrial and marine vertebrates of the time...
fossils, as well as a large number of fossils documenting the Paleozoic strata
Stratum
In geology and related fields, a stratum is a layer of sedimentary rock or soil with internally consistent characteristics that distinguish it from other layers...
within the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area
Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area
Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, administered by the National Park Service, preserves almost of land along the Delaware River's New Jersey and Pennsylvania shores, stretching from the Delaware Water Gap northward almost to the New York state line...
. Minerals from the zinc-mining locality of Franklin-Sterling Hill are well-represented, including the largest number of fluorescent mineral species
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
in the world, as are mine-specific specimens from New Jersey’s industrial iron mining past. Specimens from beyond New Jersey are used for comparative purposes in exhibitions and educational programming, to augment the systematic collections, and for research purposes.
Planetarium
Since its opening in 1964, the State Museum’s Planetarium has been a large part of the Museum’s public programming, incorporating both educational programs and a variety of entertainment features, such as traditional sky shows and laser concerts. The Museum’s Planetarium is now fully renovated and equipped with “Full Dome” video technology, and also includes a digital video hemisphere as part of the Planetarium Lobby exhibitionsThe 150-seat Planetarium
Planetarium
A planetarium is a theatre built primarily for presenting educational and entertaining shows about astronomy and the night sky, or for training in celestial navigation...
features a Minolta MS-10 instrument for sky shows and visual displays of the solar system. Exhibits include displays of constellations, solar system models and space exploration. , the planetarium is closed for construction.