Maple Park Cemetery in Springfield, Missouri, is a rural cemetery established in the 19th century as part of a movement to create burial grounds with a focus on nature. Rural cemeteries are designed not only to be tranquil resting places for the dead, but attractive landscapes where people could both honor their loved ones and spend their free time enjoying the park-like … [Read more...] about Infant Gravestones in Maple Park Cemetery: Researched, Conserved, and Reconstructed by Madison Baker
Dolls in many different sizes and made of many different materials have been popular toys since ancient times, and they provide both entertainment and education for children to learn child care through play. “China dolls” are made of porcelain, a type of ceramic composed of fine clay along with ground quartz and feldspar. This formula was developed in China in 7th century, but … [Read more...] about China Dolls: Researched and Conserved by McKenna O’Connor
Marbles are among the world’s oldest toys, with the earliest-known examples made of highly polished stone appearing in Mohenjo-Daro, Pakistan by 2,500 BCE. Marbles of fired and unfired clay also appear in ancient times, and throughout history, clay has been the most common material used to make marbles – earning clay marbles the enduring nickname of “commies.” The two clay … [Read more...] about American Toys: Researched and Conserved by Zane Wigton
The Union Campground Cemetery was established in 1840, and the graves in this integrated cemetery include people from all levels of wealth and status. Slaves and the poor marked their family graves here with rough fieldstones and sometimes with molded concrete grave markers, while people of more wealth erected monuments of local limestone and sandstone that were carved in … [Read more...] about Union Campground Cemetery Gravestones: Researched, Conserved, Reconstructed, and Reset by Jordan Davis and Sharlee Gunther
The colorful textiles featured in this exhibit are known as molas, which are artworks designed and produced by female artists of the Guna culture (also known as the Cuna or Kuna culture) of Panama. A mola is a rectangular panel of cloth that is decorated using a reverse appliqué technique: Two to six layers of different-colored fabric are stacked one on top of the … [Read more...] about 20th-century Guna Culture Molas from Panama by: Kylei Giles, Brianna Shatto, and Melissa Payte