# Small(er) museums **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 10, 2005, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-er-museums/325638 "2005-10-10T21:53:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![beckwall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b487fb/32.png) [@beckwall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beckwall)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2005, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-er-museums/325638/1 "2005-10-10T21:53:31Z")
In traveling the US or abroad, have you stumbled upon any wonderful museums that are not average size? I keep thinking about the Hans Memling museum in Brugge, Belgium. Six perfect pieces of art, all tryptichs if I recall correctly, set in what used to be a hospital. I love all museums, but sometimes I long for ones that are less crowded and less overwhelming to maneuver. I remember the few presidential libraries (more like museums) I have visited to be quite nice, especially the one in Iowa (hmmm, Hoover I think). The missions here in CA. are also wonderful to visit. Tell me about your favorite “small places” that commerorate art, sports, history, whatever. ---
**Author:** ![Giant\_Spongess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/94ad74/32.png) [@Giant\_Spongess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giant_Spongess)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2005, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-er-museums/325638/2 "2005-10-10T22:27:15Z")
There’s always the [Mt. Horeb Mustard Museum.](http://www.mustardweb.com/) The gift shop is larger than the display area. ---
**Author:** ![Llama\_Llogophile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@Llama\_Llogophile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Llama_Llogophile)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2005, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-er-museums/325638/3 "2005-10-10T23:15:04Z")
Being a spaceflight history buff, I made a trip to Sparta, Wisconsin to see the Deke Slayton Museum. The other half of it was about bicycles. But they had a moon rock! It was truly bizzare to go into this podunk town, enter a tiny museum, and find a piece of the moon. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2005, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-er-museums/325638/4 "2005-10-11T00:18:21Z")
> [@Giant\_Spongess](#): > > There’s always the [Mt. Horeb Mustard Museum.](http://www.mustardweb.com/) The gift shop is larger than the display area. There’s also a Coleman’s Mustard museum in Norwich, England. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2005, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-er-museums/325638/5 "2005-10-11T01:07:24Z")
Car buffs traveling thru northern Indiana will not want to miss the [Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum](http://acdmuseum.org/) (actually the old ACD factory building) in Auburn, IN, and the [Studebaker Museum](http://www.studebakermuseum.org/) in South Bend. Friendly, uncrowded places with stuff you will see nowhere else. If you can only see one, go to Auburn, but if you’re in a hurry, go to South Bend, as Auburn is way off the main roads. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2005, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-er-museums/325638/6 "2005-10-11T01:16:26Z")
A great little Museum we just discovered this year is the [Morris Museum](http://www.morrismuseum.org/static/index.html). It contains [The Murtogh D. Guinness Collection](http://www.morrismuseum.org/static/collections/collections.html) > [@](#): > > The Morris Museum was recently awarded The Murtogh D. Guinness Collection of 700 historic mechanical musical instruments and automata (mechanical figures). The extraordinary collection represents one of the most significant of its kind in the world. The museum is currently showcasing 60 of these objects in the exhibition Musical Machines and Living Dolls: Mechanical Musical Instruments and Automata from the Murtogh D. Guinness Collection. ---
**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2005, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-er-museums/325638/7 "2005-10-11T02:22:26Z")
I like house museums. Like the Florence Griswold Museum: > **[Home - Florence Griswold Museum](https://florencegriswoldmuseum.org/)** > > Expanding Horizons: Celebrating 20 Years of the Hartford Steam Boiler CollectionNothin which has a collection of American Impressionist art (who knew such a movement existed? but it did, and the painters liked to spend their summers at Florence’s house out in Connecticut). I also love Olana: [http://www.olana.org/](http://www.olana.org/) Frederic Edwin Church’s home. An incredible collection of paintings (all his) and probably the best view in the Hudson Valley. ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2005, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-er-museums/325638/8 "2005-10-11T03:23:13Z")
When I was in Rome this summer, I stumbled upon the [Keats Shelley house](http://www.keats-shelley-house.org/index.php) on the Spanish Steps, a museum in the house where Keats lived, which commemorates the expatriot artists and writers in Rome. It was quite interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Rayne\_Man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/df705f/32.png) [@Rayne\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rayne_Man)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2005, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-er-museums/325638/9 "2005-10-11T06:39:53Z")
In the town of Worksop , in north Nottinghamshire , there is Mr Straw’s house. To quote the advertising leaflet:- _Step back in time to the home of a grocer’s family in the 1920’s. This ordinary semi-detached house was the home of the Straw family, who threw nothing away for 60 years and lived without many of the modern day comforts we take for granted. Photos, letters, Victorian furniture and household objects can still be seen in their rightful places, where their owners left them_ The place is so small that you have to book in advance and you are given a dated and timed ticket. This property is now owned by the National Trust . I have heard that there is a similar property, this time a country cottage, in Lincolnshire. Also in Nottinghamshire you can visit the home of D.H. Lawrence, laid out as a museum, both to show the life of the writer as well as illustrating a typical miner’s house of that time. ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2005, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-er-museums/325638/10 "2005-10-11T07:42:13Z")
[Barnsdall Art Park](http://www.laparks.com/dos/historic/barsndall.htm) is in LA between Santa Monica and Hollywood Blvds. Its a small, drive, very easy to miss, that takes you up hill above the city noise. Its quite amazing. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2005, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-er-museums/325638/11 "2005-10-11T12:40:00Z")
New York City is crammed with small museums, many of which would be “large” museums elsewhere, but in NYC they’re small compared with the Met, or the Museum of Natural History. Unfortunately, as lot of them closed, and I haven’t been back in a while. I’m reluctant to give a liost that would be out of date. Try this: [http://www.ny.com/museums/all.museums.html](http://www.ny.com/museums/all.museums.html) My favorite tiny museum is the one at **Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry** near Perice, Utah. It’s one where they leave the fossils in the ground, partially exposed. Dinosaur National Monument, near Vernal Utah, does the same, but it’s much more well-know, and bigger. Cleveland-Lloyd is smaller and more intimate. But what kills me isd that it’s _waaayyy_ out in the middle of nowhere, with all the utility lines buried. You can’t tell if you’re going the right way, because there are so few signs (and I’ve been told the locals sometimes witch 'em, as a prank). But suddenly you get there, and out in the middle of treeless sandy waste there’s a little two-roo museum, with air conditioning, carpeting, and water fountains with cool water. They’ve got one of the Allosaurs excavated from there mounted on display in a room that looks as if it was transported from the AMNH in New York. (Cleveland Lloyd is the world’s leading exporter of Allosaur skeletons – they’ve sent over 40 of them all over the world. It’s to dinosaurs what the La Brea Tar Pits were to Ice age mammals, and probably for the same reason, only with mud instead of tar.) Closed now for renovations, but opening in the spring: [http://www.blm.gov/utah/price/quarry.htm](http://www.blm.gov/utah/price/quarry.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Philster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2005, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-er-museums/325638/12 "2005-10-11T14:32:05Z")
Rodin Museum. Phialdelphia, PA… [http://www.rodinmuseum.org/](http://www.rodinmuseum.org/) ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2005, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-er-museums/325638/13 "2005-10-11T15:06:37Z")
Two come to mind: [The Hyde Collection](http://www.hydecollection.org/), Glens Falls, NY. It’s a smallish museum centered on the art collected by Charlotte and Louis Fiske Hyde, who managed the Finch, Pruyn paper mill in the area. Charlotte and Louis were art collectors, and had a good eye for art both modern and classic. Much of the museum is set up in their house; which is large, but not ostentatiously so. I realized this was something more than most museums of comparable size when I turned the corner and noticed the Rembrandt. The percentage of [art by big name artists](http://www.hydecollection.org/collections/details.cfm?catID=1) (names that 90% of people will recognize) is incredibly high, with art by Thomas Eakins, Leonardo da Vinci, El Greco, Winslow Homer, Picasso, Renoir, Reubens, and Seurat. And it’s all tucked away in the house (with original furniture), as though these were just everyday paintings someone hung on the walls. Well worth a visit. [The Marcella Sembrech Opera Museum](http://www.operamuseum.org/), Bolton Landing, NY. Sembrech was a major opera star around the turn of the 19th Century; this was her summer studio cottage. And it’s indeed a cottage (basically one room), but filled with charming items documenting her career. The grounds are especially lovely – you can wander along the edge of Lake George. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2005, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-er-museums/325638/14 "2005-10-13T07:27:05Z")
> [@Beware of Doug](#): > > Auburn is way off the main roads. Unless you consider Interstate 69 a main road. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2005, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-er-museums/325638/15 "2005-10-13T13:53:57Z")
> [@toadspittle](#): > > I like house museums. Like the Florence Griswold Museum: > > [http://www.flogris.org/](http://www.flogris.org/) > > which has a collection of American Impressionist art (who knew such a movement existed? but it did, and the painters liked to spend their summers at Florence’s house out in Connecticut). LOL That house is in my town =) They tore down the carriage house [before it could fall down] and are now working on a bit of added renovation. Did you ever get to one of their afternoon teas? I think they do them once or twice a summer=) It was also a ladies boarding school back in its day. Very pretty proportions in the house. I would love to live there. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2005, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-er-museums/325638/16 "2005-10-13T13:59:18Z")
Just went to the BArnum Museum in Bridgeport with my parental units last weekend. Very pleasant - not a lot of circus stuff, more stuff associated with his family, and Bridgeport [GREAT room of the industries present in Bridgeport at the end of the 1800s, and an entire room of Jenny Lind stuff] Not something kids would really appreciate because it isnt really lots of circus stuff, but if you are into the history of the time it is a nice peek into one slice of it=) The building it is in is fascinationg also, Barnum left the construction costs and land to Bridgeport in his will. For years there was a small museum on the top floor and the bottom 2 floors were the City Offices … then when the city moved into larger building in the 60s they decided to make the whole thing into a museum=) staffed by really nice people=) ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2005, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-er-museums/325638/17 "2005-10-13T15:15:34Z")
The Desert Caballleros Western Museum in Wickenburg, AZ is pretty cool. The history of the area and the town is portrayed in a series of dioramas, all hand-made from scratch by one of the volunteers there. Downstairs, they have re-created several storefronts with lots of artifacts–I especially enjoyed the drugstore with “Grove’s Tasteless Chill Tonic” and “Dr. Spiegel’s Worm Killer” on the shelves. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2005, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-er-museums/325638/18 "2005-10-13T15:32:28Z")
The Timken Gallery in Balboa Park, San Diego would be a good example of a boutique museum. It’s very small but the collection is of remarkable quality, including a number of paintings by first-rank Renaissance artists, including Murillo, Caravaggio, and Peter Bruegel the Elder. The Timken Bruegel, “The Parable of the Sower”, is one of only 40 known works by Bruegel, and the only one in the U.S. west of the Mississippi. IIRC it’s a private museum not affiliated with the County or City, and oddly enough has very little web presence. If you google it you will find a few mentions of it, but it has no web site which is a shame. ---
**Author:** ![Rocketeer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocketeer/32/4437_2.png) [@Rocketeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rocketeer)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2005, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-er-museums/325638/19 "2005-10-13T16:58:53Z")
This is a lovely little museum, located in Bellevue, WA: [http://www.dollart.com/](http://www.dollart.com/) ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2005, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-er-museums/325638/20 "2005-10-13T22:23:50Z")
In Salisbury, Maryland, there’s a must-see; the Ward Museum of Wildfowl Art. Originally, it was about decoys. Now, it is a stunning, jaw-dropping collection of incredible detailed and lifelike carvings of wild birds. Did you know there’s an annual competition of _feather sculptures?_ A real feather is displayed alongside its carved mate, and it’s astounding, right down to the curly little down at the base of the feather. You can buy blue-jay feather earrings, except they’re carved from wood. [www.wardmuseum.org/](http://www.wardmuseum.org/) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-er-museums/325638.md?page=2)