#TBT in the Archives 11/9/2017: Pennsylvania Museum Extension Project

As part of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal during the Great Depression, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) put millions of people to work throughout the United States. In Pennsylvania, the WPA's most ambitious project involved arts and education in the form of the Pennsylvania Museum Extension Project (MEP).

Based in Harrisburg with workshops located across the state, the Museum Extension Project was the first of its kind in the nation when it launched in 1935. It ended up producing millions of models, art pieces, illustrations, dioramas, and more for use by educators in public schools across the state.

A display case containing 24 varieties of crop seeds showed students the first step in growing food.

With training educators as its main mission during the Great Depression, Shippensburg State Teachers College had a model elementary training school on campus attended by local primary school students. Thanks to the Museum Extension Project, the model school and future teachers had the use of a wide variety of models, dioramas and lantern slides to teach history and science.

These materials now reside at Shippensburg University Archives & Special Collections, and many of the dioramas are on display on the main floor in the Learning Center.


A scale model of Eli Whitney's cotton gin connected students to the spark of the industrial revolution.

Museum Extension Program leaders tried to locate workshops in communities where skilled artisans resided. For example, a workshop in Lancaster County produced scale models of furniture and related items. Some of these models are in Shippensburg's collection.

This tiny printing press only occupies approximately six square inches, but offers a detailed view of a crucial piece of early technology.

By 1939, project staffers began working with the Pennsylvania Historical Commission (later the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission) to document historic sites, houses, and other structures. As a part of this relationship, the MEP began producing dioramas of these sites. Many are in the Shippensburg collection.

A model of a pueblo village.

Dioramas depicting industry, like this oil well, showed students industry close to home.

Still other products of the MEP included lantern slides, which could be used by teachers to show students models and dioramas that did not physically exist in the collection. Dozens of lantern slides at Shippensburg show classical and indigenous dwellings. Other lantern slides include plates showing the traditional costumes of native peoples of the Americas and Asia.

Dioramas and models are on display in Ezra Lehman Memorial Library anytime the library is open. To check out the lantern slides and accompanying description, make an appointment by emailing specialcollections@ship.edu.

Sources:

Curtis Miner, "Art With a Purpose: Pennsylvania's Museum Extension Project, 1935-1943," in Pennsylvania Heritage (Spring 2008), accessed November 7, 2017, http://www.phmc.state.pa.us/portal/communities/pa-heritage/art-with-purpose-pennsylvania-museum-extension-project-1935-1943.html

Pennsylvania Museum Extension Project Collection, Shippensburg University Archives & Special Collections, Shippensburg, PA.