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Date: 3/29/2021
SOUTH HADLEY – It was in 1932 that Joseph Allen Skinner opened the Skinner Museum that now sits on the grounds of the Mt. Holyoke Campus in South Hadley.
Associate Curator of Visual and Material Culture at the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, Aaron Miller, said while the museum was gifted to the college in 1946 after Skinner’s death, it’s in the last decade that it has become part of the college’s art museum. “The last 10 years in particular it’s really become a part of the art museum. Once the art museum transitioned to this idea of a teaching institution, the Skinner Museum really started to make so much more sense engaging with the college audience,” he said.
Miller said Skinner, who was one of the sons of a wealthy mill owner in Holyoke, began to collect a unique collection of seemingly random items when he traveled and had them sent back to South Hadley. “When he traveled, he acquired things and had them shipped back to South Hadley. There’s about 7,000 objects in the collection, we don’t know the paths all the objects took. Skinner is the common thread,” he said. “He was buying things locally, local history, what I think he saw as American history. It’s a very eclectic mix of things.”
According to the museum’s website, the building the Skinner Museum sits in was acquired by Skinner in 1929 and was once a congregational church from the town of Prescott, “a structure that was scheduled for demolition to make way for the Quabbin Reservoir.” The church, along with other buildings, were “moved piece by piece and reconstructed on the present site in South Hadley.”
Miller called the Skinner Museum “a unique collection in that it’s assembled by one person.” He said due to the vast nature of the collection, you can go into the space several times and still find new objects that you haven’t seen before.
“When you go into the space, when you see images of it, it’s a mix of objects across time and the world. There’s some order to it, but it looks like disorder,” he said. “There are labels that originate to when Skinner was alive and interacting with the museum, but many objects don’t have a label so it’s left up to the viewer to work through what they’re looking at.”
Some objects included in the collection are a hippopotamus skull, a 150 pound meteorite, 18th and 19th century surgical tools, a glove that was hung in a cave and turned into a stalactite, and even a piece of Skinner’s wedding cake that is more than 100 years old.
“In Skinner’s own words, he wrote every time he went to his own museum, he saw something new,” Miller said. “I’ve been here almost 10 years, there’s so many objects I realize I never really looked at this object. When you’re in there you’re seeing hundreds of objects, it’s tough to narrow your gaze.”
Miller explained that while the college was “working to spread word about its existence,” the museum was not currently open to the public. He said, “We’re part of the college here making sure we’re protecting students on campus.” Miller said the museum would likely not going to open again until the spring of 2021.
More information and some photos of the museum can be found online at https://artmuseum.mtholyoke.edu/collection/joseph-allen-skinner-museum