Exhibit Design
Victorian Pastimes: Games of Yesteryear
June 5th - August 28th, 2021
During the long nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, family leisure time was marked by a variety of diversions inside the home. Victorian board games, puzzles, parlor games, and card games could be found in the homes of both the elite and of the working class, with differences in quality and content present due to access and wealth disparities. This exhibit highlights the rise and transformation of the American board game industry and the use of gaming in the home for comfort during times of hardship. The exhibit was inspired by the Hunter’s extensive puzzle and game collection and the mental and emotional effects of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic in our communities. We hope you will enjoy the collections on display and being at home with the Hunters this summer.
Thoroughly Modern Victorian
How the Victorian Era Birthed the Modern Age
June 4th - August 27th, 2022
A dishwasher, a pen, aspirin, a gas pump, and jellybeans. What do these things have in common? They were all inventions and products of the Victorian Era. Our summer 2022 exhibit, Thoroughly Modern Victorian: How the Victorian Era Birthed the Modern Age invites you to look at the modern world from the lens of the past. From mail-order catalogs to online shopping, electricity to solar panels, stereoscopes to instagram, the list goes on. Odds are that daily you pick up items and use brands that were created by the Victorians. Over the last century innovations and progress have changed and molded them into what we see today, but many of these items were thought of by the innovative minds of Victorian men and women. Our exhibit aims to explore these inventions and the progress that shaped the world we live in today.