History 206: Trip to The Sigal Museum

This October, around 13 students of Professor Barclay’s ‘Politics and Practices of History’ class visited the Sigal Museum in downtown Easton. The Sigal Museum is “Northampton County, Pennsylvania’s leading institution of local history, and home to significant collections of pre-European settlement artifacts, decorative arts and textiles, farming implements and colonial furniture.”

The students were given a tour around the museum by its curator Brittany Schrum Merriam, who skillfully explained the exhibits on display and their importance to Northampton County. She was later joined by Andrew Glovas, Director of Operations, to answer the many questions the students had about the daily running of the museum, the importance of preserving artifacts, difficulties with funding the museum, how they cater to the right audiences and many other aspects of museum life. The trip to the museum greatly complimented the work the students have been doing in their class as it helped them understand the real life politics and practices of presenting history to the public.