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I I M >4* a h J * a M A X * I m m k a I m m » X m m m a A ■ Mk m . I um vcidiiy ivnCiOiiiiTiSi i uerricUiOnSi 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 USA St. John’s Road, Tyler’s Green High Wycombe, Bucks, England HP10 8HR Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. I I 1 3 - 1 0 , 5 4 7 ROSENSTEIN, Donna Gail, ’’HISTORIC HUMAN TOOLS” : HENRY CHAPMAN MERCER AND HIS COLLECTION, 1897-1930. University of Delaware, M.A., 1977 History, general Xerox University Microfilms,Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 @ 1 9 7 7 DONNA GAIL ROSENSTEIN ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. “HISTORIC HOMAN TOOLS": HENRI CHATMAN MERCER AND HIS COLLECTION, 1897-1930 BX Donna Gail Rosenstein A thesis submitted to the Faculty of the University of Delaware in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Early American Culture. June, 1977 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. "HISTORIC HOMAN TOOLS": HENRI CHAHttAN MERCER AND HIS COLLECTION, 1897-1930 BT Dorma Gail Rosenstein (Chaii'es P. Hunaael; ‘ Professor in charge of thesis on behalf of the Advisory Committee Approved: Curtis) ir of the Winterthur Program in Early American Dean of t a e >College of Graduate Studies Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. PREFACE Henry Mercer collected almost 25,000 tools, implements, uten­ sils, and other cultural artifacts during a thirty-three-year period of his lifetime. To house his collection, he constructed a nine-story "castle,n of fireproof reinforced concrete. Subsequently, he arranged the objects in the museum into categories based on an anthropological classification system. Mercer's collection, at the Mercer Museum of the Bucks County Historical Society, is viewed today by an enchanted, but often Justified, public. Unfortunately, almost no scholarly material has been written about Mercer's collection or his collecting philosophy until this time. This thesis is the first comprehensive analysis of the Mercer Museum, focusing on the development of Mercer's own collecting, between 1897 and 1930. The introduction deals with the early years of Mercer's life, to 1897, mentioning some of the influences and interests which affected his later collecting. A great deal of biographical information (for example, his family background) is omitted because I did not feel it was directly applicable to the subject of the thesis. I used secon- dary sources almost completely for this section, none of which, unfortunately, cited specific sources for their information,, 1 1 1 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. iv Chapter 1 describes the history of Mercer's collection. It explains how Mercer conceptualized the collection and how he presented the objects to the public so that their importance in depicting human history was readily apparent. General trends and specific changes in his collecting philosophy are emphasized. The moot quality and lack of material available during certain years of his collecting prevented an absolute uniformity in the text, however. For the early years of Mercer's collecting, I primarily referred to newspaper articles concerning the general activities of the Backs County Historical Soci­ ety. Mercer's own papers became much more numerous after about 1916, when he seems to have saved, organized, and dated practically every­ thing he wrote and received— including copies of his own letters. The information presented in chapter 2 is the result of nu­ merous lists and statistics I compiled about Mercer's collection from the museum's records. Appendix F, a forty-page chart analyzing the artifacts in the collection between 1897 and 1930, is the first sur­ vey of its type which has been assembled for the museum. I hope this chart will serve not only as an extension of ny thesis, but also as a general reference guide to the collection. Chapter 3 is an attempt to assess the inpact of the Mercer Museum and the collection since 1930, in comparison with Mercer's own intentions for them. The information extends in scope to the 1970's, bringing many of the activities and events concerning the collection to the present. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The content footnotes, illustrations, and appendices are an integral part of the thesis* I include then to help put Mercer and his collection into a more comprehensible perspective. As evidenced by my footnotes, the "Fonthill Manuscripts" were my most valuable source of information. This manuscript collection comprises the personal papers and notebooks that Mercer had kept at his hone, "Fonthill*" As part of a museum studies internship, I spent many days last summer (1976) organizing and cataloguing these manu­ scripts. The manuscript collection is now arranged, numbered, and inventoried, and is located in the Library of the Bucks County Historical Society. I found through my research that it was often impossible to note specific influences on Mercer or to place him in a historical context. More information on Mercer and his collection is constantly turning up, and I hope my thesis can provide the basis for further research an both Henry Mercer and the Mercer Museum. It is not a biography or an interpretive essay about Mercer, nor does it answer all the questions that the existence of the museum poses. I primarily intend it for people who, like myself, chance upon the Mercer Museum, feel like they have discovered it for the first time, and wonder how it got there. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. vi I would like to express my sincere appreciation to the staff of the Bucks County Historical Society for their interest and help* Special thanks go to Iynne Poirier, Chief Curator of the Hercer Museum. I would also like to thank- T. Catherine Adams, for her help with photography* Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CONTESTS INTRODUCTION ............................................ 1 I. HISTORY OF COLLECTION AND MERCER'S ATTITUDE TOWARD I T ................................. 5 1897-1910 ....................................... 5 1911-1918 19 1919-1930 ....................... 27 n. DESCRIPTION OF COLLECTION ........................ 37 m . IMPACT OF COLLECTION .............................. bS SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................... 66 APPENDICES .............................................. 70 ILLUSTRATIONS .......................................... 127 T i i Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. LEST OF APPENDICES A* Placement of larger Objects in "New Museum" of the Bocks County Historical Society ................... 70 B. “Forgotten Trades"^ "Forgotten Trades Needed for Museum" ............ ........ ......... 71 C. A Classification of Historic Homan Tools, As Shown in Many Types Used From the First to the Nineteenth Century, H.C.M. 1921 . ......... 77 D. "Guide Chart" and “Objects Displayed Upon the Galleries or Walls of the Central Hall" from Guide to the Museum of the Bocks County Historical Society at boylestown, Pennsylvania, ti.S.A., Decemoer 1927 . • ..................................... 78 E. Artifact Collections, in Museum Daring Mercer ’s Lifetime, 1897-1930 ..................................