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The Delaware Agriculture Museum was recently selected by the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum on Main Street as one of its six nationwide recipients of Smithsonian curatorial assistance for creation of an exhibition focused on food.
The Delaware Agricultural Museum’s collaboration with MoMs brings national context to the museum’s local exhibition, creating an integrated, seamless presentation of both national and local content. Delaware Produce and Transportation: Guiding the Eating Habits of the Nation is the title of the museum’s winning application.
To celebrate Delaware’s contribution to a well-fed society and officially announce its recent collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution, the Delaware Agricultural Museum and Village will hold a gala farm-to-table dinner Thursday, June 15. For details, go to agriculturalmuseum.org/june-farm-to-table-dinner.
The exhibition marks the second collaboration between the Smithsonian and the Delaware Agricultural Museum in 2022-23 and was made possible in part with support from Delaware Humanities. Read More...
The Delaware Agriculture Museum and Village and Executive Director Carolyn Claypoole recently hosted a celebration of the 100th anniversary of Cecile Steele’s 1923 founding of the chicken industry on her farm in Sussex County.
Starting with the accidental delivery of 500 chicks to her Ocean View farm, Steele parlayed the fortuitous mistake into a prosperous business for her family. Now, 100 years later, Sussex County is No. 1 in chicken production in the world. The museum proudly displays Steele’s original chicken house, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. The structure represents the birth of the broiler industry, which now employs more than 18,000 residents on Delmarva.
Conceived five years ago by Claypoole, former Sen. Ernie Lopez, R-Lewes, and National Chicken Council President Mike Brown, the celebration was organized by the Delmarva Chicken Association, represented by Director Holly Porter, and the national council, represented by Brown.
Speakers included Delaware Agricultural Museum Board of Trustees President Grier Stayton, U.S. Sens. Tom Carper and Chris Coons, Delaware Lt. Gov. Bethany Hall-Long, Delaware Secretary of Agriculture Michael Scuse, and several members of the Delaware General Assembly including Rep. Sherry Dorsey Walker, D-Wilmington, House Agriculture Committee member; and Sen. Russ Huxtable, D-Lewes, Senate Agriculture Committee chair.
Also present were members of the James Baxter IV family, led by matriarch Ruth Baxter, whose service as longtime leaders in Sussex County’s farm community is being celebrated with a special tribute to James H. Baxter Jr. in the museum’s new poultry exhibit.
The Museum's new poultry exhibit features one of Cecile Long Steele's original chicken houses. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.
"Then One Day The Lights Came On"
Exhibit Opening and Village Lighting Ceremony
The Delaware Agricultural Museum and Village recently launched a largescale indoor/outdoor exhibit that explores the lifechanging impact of rural electrification on Delaware agriculture and the state’s rural communities. “Then One Day The Lights Came On” is a journey that leads visitors from the time before electricity was widely available in the state (ca. 1940) through our present-day focus on renewable, clean sources of energy. The exhibit curator is Heidi Nasstrom-Evans (Horizon Philanthropic, Lewe, DE), designer, Karen Carney (Art of Area Design).
“Then One Day the Lights Came On” is about the rural electrification movement in the United States and the 1936 formation of the Delaware Electric Cooperative (DEC), which introduced power to thousands, modernizing farming and rural life in Sussex, Kent, and lower New Castle County. As the nation emerged from the Great Depression of the 1920s and ‘30s, the electrified farm at once symbolized the ethos of America’s agrarian past as well as the future promise of scientific and technological advances, which increased efficiency and productivity while bringing new comforts and relief from the constant drudgery of rural life. Read more...
Whittlin' History Exhibit
Undergoes Extensive Renovation
Local Artist's Murals Adorn the Walls of the Delaware Agricultural Museum
Bay to Bay News, May 7, 2022
On May 4, 2022, the Delaware Agricultural Museum and Village took formal possession of a Bentley first offered to the Museum in 2021. According to Museum Director, Carolyn Claypoole, the transfer of this very special gift was delayed on account of a lack of adequate storage and later, due to weather. “You don’t want to take a Bentley out for a drive in anything other than optimal road conditions, nor do you want to leave it sitting out in the elements” Claypoole stated. Board President Grier Stayton was entrusted with the Bentley on the drive up from Milford, DE. Both arrived safely at the museum early Wednesday morning. Click here to view photos!!!!
