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Monday, February 19, 2024

Our Purpose

The more I run the American Doll and Toy Museum, the more I realize a lot of people of all ages have no clue what a museum is. “What is the purpose of this?” asked one woman in her seventies or early eighties. She grew up in our area, which has several museums besides ours, including The Putnam Museum, The German American Heritage Center, The Hauberg Indian Museum, and The Rock Island Historical Society, to name just a few. I don’t think she has been in any. She wanted to know if we bought and sold dolls and other things. No, I answered, we aren’t retail. Our purpose is to educate, and to tell the story of humanity through dolls and toys. Our collection represents Prehistory to the Present. Many of our artifacts also represent the ethnicities or our community. They tell the progress of immigration in our area. We also curate to preserve, even things no one else may want. We have several libraries of books about our objects, but also about them. Our best visitors are children twelve and under. They are fascinated by the antiques, and delight when they find something they recognize. They behave well, and aren’t jaded. Their favorite exhibits are Polly Pockets, My Little Pony, and Disney Princesses. I direct those who want to know more about to museums to the blog, “The Future of Museums.” My cousin who is a pastor, calls the museum a ministry for children, both because we try to preserve objects for posterity, but because we are dedicated to childhood and its pursuits, to a time more innocent than today. We a 501c not for profit; we do not make money in this venture, far from it. Dolls and toys are humanity’s historians. Dolls are often the only thing left to us from civilizations long gone from the earth, and are portraits of their creators. Brick and mortar museums exist to teach as well as entertain. There museums for kitchen utensils, washing machines, tractors, trucks, textiles and mores. What is our purpose? Come see us to find out, but if you have to ask, well . . .

Thursday, January 18, 2024

Sunday, December 17, 2023

Eulenspiegel Angel

My angel ❤️

Puppet Show by a Legendary Troup

From Eukenspiegel Puppet Theater performance December 16th. We do have a bouple Monica Leo dolls. made a finger puppet at workshop that followed.
Singers are from Bucktownn Christmas Revue.

Tuesday, December 5, 2023

Skyward Dec 2023 with Dr. David Levy

Skyward for December 2023 By David H. Levy On the fourteenth of October 2023, I witnessed my 99th eclipse. This tally includes everything from barely noticeable penumbral eclipses of the Moon, where one can occasionally distinguish a slight shading of one side ofc the Moon as it wanders past the Earth’s outer shadow, to the dramatic and life-affirming total eclipses of the Sun. The October eclipse was actually an annular eclipse or “ring” eclipse. The annular phase occurs during which the entire Moon covers the Sun, but because the Moon is near its apogee, or farthest point from the Earth in its orbit, then the Moon is surrounded by a ring of sunlight. I was all set to join the group heading to southern Texas to see the annular eclipse, but last month I was invited to be the keynote speaker at the Homecoming festival at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh. This invitation meant so much to me that I was not about to pass it up. So, I took a big chance, and it paid off. The night of my lecture was clear and starry. I began the lecture with my own definition of what a university can be. The world is as it is; we can try but, in the end, it is difficult if not impossible to change it. A university, however, at its best represents the world as it can be. For me, this represents the ideal of what a university can accomplish. The case of SUNY Plattsburgh is a specific example of that possibility. The not-too-large student population, understandable relationships among students and faculty, careful and interesting course offerings, and even the Plattsburgh Cardinals sporting program, all help to promote this goal. But this University offers one thing more. About 40 miles to the south, within the ancient Adirondack mountains, lies their rural campsite called Twin Valleys. As a youngster I attended the Adirondack Science Camp there in what were three of the happiest summers of my life. And for the past 20 years there has been the Adirondack Astronomy Retreat at this magnificent place. On the eve of the eclipse my friend Ed Guenther and I led a small group of people to observe at our Adirondack Astronomy Retreat site, during which time I did a little comet hunting. The following morning the sky was cloudy but there were plenty of breaks in the clouds so we got a magnificent view of the partial eclipse. We were excited; the crowd was excited, and we thoroughly enjoyed the partial eclipse that lasted about two hours. During this excitement, the solar system continued its inexorable motions, as the Earth, the Moon, and the planets slowly wended their way through space and time.