![]() On Monday, June 11th, 2018, Museum Textile Services director and chief conservator Camille Myers Breeze attended the opening of the long-awaited new exhibit at the American Folk Art Museum called Charting the Divine Plan: The Art of Orra White Hitchcock (1796-1863). Curated by the museum's acting executive director as well as deputy director for curatorial affairs and chief curator Stacy Hollander, the exhibit unites nearly all of Orra White Hitchcock's cotton classroom charts along with manuscripts, botanical and zoological samples, and fossils.
Edward was not afraid to engage his students in geological controversies, such as the origin of the great sand and gravel deposits found throughout New England. While some believed they were caused by a Biblical-style flood, others argued they resulted from the movement of glacier ice. Likewise, Orra’s depictions of megafauna like mastodon and ichtheosaurus clearly acknowledge that prehistoric animals differed from those known in her time. The couple were openly supporting a belief that the earth is dynamic and changing years before the 1839 publication of Charles Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle and On the Origin of Species (1859). Charting the Divine Plan: The Art of Orra White Hitchcock (1796–1863) will be at the American Folk Art Museum through October 14, 2018. In Part II of this blog, we will go into the conservation treatments undertaken by Museum Textile Services to prepare the classroom charts for display.
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