Main Page

The main exhibition space and research areas of the Museum as they appeared in 2007.

Museum headquarters—the renovated White River Junction Fire District One building.

A German critic, W. Bürger [writes] "Our Museums...are veritable graveyard-yards in which have been heaped up, with a tumulour-like promiscuousness, the remains which have been carried thither...all are hung pell-mell upon the walls of some noncommittal gallery—a kind of posthumous asylum, where a people, no longer capable of producing...come to admire this magnificent gallery of débris.” —G. Brown Goode, Museums of the Future, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C., 1891: p. 427

General Introduction

Fox (Vulpes) or trickster.

The Collection of artifacts at the Main Street Museum is a unique experiment in material culture studies, consisting of objects of varied origins—man-made, historical, biological, botanical and mineralogical. The objects' significance lies in their layered meanings. These layered meanings are called forth by a collaborative effort of Museum visitors, staff, and donors.

Our website is constructed on a “wiki” code platform and includes the catalog of our varied holdings utilizing open source technology that is fully accessible and available for unmoderated modifications and additions.

Assigning nuanced values to artifacts is increasingly difficult in the environment of most major collecting institutions. The neutrality of theoretical systems utilized by any museum is currently being called into question. As a small independent repository the Main Street Museum has the flexibility—indeed the mandate—to examine the layered and ever changing meanings of objects and their relationships to their surroundings. As the uses for objects are more or less continuously in flux, we analyze these uses through traditional disciplines (art historical, scientific and qualitative methods), but also through psychological analysis as well. Our emotional relationships with objects are formed circuitously. Therefore the meaning of objects is unlocked only through similar, indirect means. [learn less]

History

“White River Junction—a beauty spot in the midst of a valley of beauty and cheer.” —Gateway to Vermont, 1903

The museum opened on South Main Street in 1992 and immediately attracted a broad cross-section of citizenry: academics, art professionals, musicians, politicians, journalists, the under-employed, habitual evil-livers, and also quite ordinary people (it might as well be admitted, that many in all of these categories were my own blood relatives). Here then was the first site for the museum. It had been the former home of a renown local restaurant, “Lena’s Lunch”. It was a narrow storefront space which had been a public space for over 100 years—a silent picture theater, indoor miniature golf, and a bowling alley, also a restaurant with transvestite waitresses—yes, submarine sandwiches by day and “Judy” and “Barbara” by night. There ought to be a plaque. Here Elvis impersonators and High-Art all enjoyed equal admiration. (or, High-Art claimed as much admiration as it can, when competing with Elvis impersonators.) Our home was directly across the street from an American Legion Hall; and there are no better critics. They would be completely and utterly potted every night. They withheld nothing. [learn less]

Recent News

“The Main Street Museum—White River Junction’s answer to the Library of Congress.” —Peter Welch, U. S. House of Representatives, 2007.

our latest pr... [learn less]

Testimonials

A lecturer discusses the Sea-Monster.

“It is only due to organizations such as yours that the important works of our Country are brought to the attention of the public.” —Marie Reilly, Museum of Bad Art, Dedham, 1998. [learn less...]

Categories including Series and Subseries and Vinculum Categories

Categories are often both overlapping (vinculum) and mutable. At the Main Street Museum they include, but are not limited to: Flora; Fauna; Exotica (geographically diverse objects); Shoes (and Tiny Shoes); Fiber, Textiles and Costumes; Tangled Things; Objects Associated with Famous People; Round Things; Objects with Orifices; Bad Art; Bad Craft; Recreated Artifacts Refused by Dartmouth Realia; Amulets and Sacred Objects; Judæica; Vermontiana; Relics from the Civil War/War Between the States; and Unidentified Mammals or “Flocked Pets.”

What is he thinking about, right now?

Objects as Evidence of Human Culture

Artifacts as Evidence of Religion; Comparitive Religious Studies

• Judaica
• Relics
  • Secular Relics
    • Pieces of Wood
  • Religious Relics
    • Associated Relics
    • Sacred Utensils; Consecrated Objects designed for ceremonial Use

Geographically Significant Artifacts

• The Americas
• Asia
• Europe
• Oceana

Tumbler which may—or may not—have come to America on the Mayflower.

Historic Artifacts, Miscellaneous Historic Things

• Household Items
• Objects Associated with Vermont or New Hampshire Artists
• Things, or Fragments of Things Once Owned by, or Associated with, Notable People—Particularly Notable Vermonters
• Objets d'Art
• Pictures
• Recreated Artifacts Denied by Dartmouth Realia

Manuscripts and Journals

• The Heather Collection

The Work-day World of White River Junction

• Drugs
• Food
• The George Williston Smith Memorial
• Tools

Pet Toys

• Cats
• Dogs

Two Dimensional Evidence Paper; Archive Collections

Postcards

• The Harvey/Muhly Comparitive Postcard Studies and Taxonomy
• Postcards from Around the World
• Postcards from the United States
• Novelty Postcards

Military History Collection

The War of the Rebellion/War Between the States

• Botanical Specimens
• Bullets
• Eating Utensils
• Marbles
• Soil Specimens from Civil War Sites

The Renssalaer William Foote Memorial

• Uniforms and Journals

Armaments and Military Technology

• Actual Miltary Technology
• Substitutes or Stand-ins for Weaponry and Munitions

  (For World War II items see The Leroy Short Sporting and Wild Game Memorial)

Sound (Audible) Artifacts

• 78-80 rpm Recordings
• Digital Files

Art

Two Dimensional Pieces

• Paintings
• Drawings
• Prints

Textiles

• Fabric and Tapestry
• Costumes and Clothing

Elvis Aaron Presley Visual Art Amalgam

• Relics of Elvis Aaron Presley
• Souvenirs of Elvis

Bad Craft

Cat, or Unidentified Mammal? You decide.

Fauna; Living, or Apparently Once Living, Objects

The Ossuary; Bones

North American Mammals

• Other Mammalia
• Flocked Pets
  • Unidentified Mammals

Specimens of (or Objects relating to) Birds of the Americas

• Eggs

• Nests

• Ornithology, Bird Specimens, all types
• The Humingbird Collection
• Pigeons and Doves

Flora; Living, or Apparently Once Living, Objects

Trees; The Animistic Perspective

• The Hall of Fame of Trees
• Pieces of Wood
  • Wood Shavings

Exotic, Tropic and Sub-tropic Vegetable Samples

• The Flora of South Florida and Lousiana
• Theodore Roosevelt in Puerto-Rico
• Other Exotic Botanical Specimens

Corn; Taxanomic Theories relevant to Zea mays

Small flowers that are, probably, some type of violet. 19th century, c.e.

Mosses and Lichens

Minerals; Inanimate, or Apparently Inanimate Objects

• Geological Specimens; Rocks
• Relics from Locations of Interest see, Man Made Minerals
• Soils; Loam, Sand and Dirt

Other

• Corals
• Aquatic Mammalia
• Barnacle Geese
• Borametz (Lamb Tree)

Vinculum Categories

Tangled Things

• Categories Teeth and More Teeth and especially Color as a Hysterical Reaction, Round Things and Tangled Things created by curation teams of the Robert Hull Fleming Museum, University of Vermont.)

References and Archive

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