(Deerfield, Massachusetts) May 17, 2021 — Inspired by Historic Deerfield’s William H. Guthman Collection of American Engraved Powder Horns from the French and Indian War and the American Revolution — the finest public collection of engraved powder horns in the world — retiring Historic Deerfield President and CEO Philip Zea will curate a traveling exhibition and write the definitive publication on engraved powder horns entitled “Revealing the Culture of Conflict: Engraved Powder Horns from the French and Indian War and the American Revolution.” The exhibition will focus on the world of the citizen soldier through the cultural meaning of their equipment, particularly engraved powder horns, and will commemorate the 250th anniversary of American Independence. The exhibition is slated to debut in April 2025.
In addition to the traveling exhibition and publication, the project will also include a website to serve as a reference resource center and photographic catalog for recording significant engraved powder horns and related artifacts and documents owned by institutions and private collectors in the United States and northern Europe. Innovative “in the round” photography will give website visitors the opportunity to see both sides of the powder horn for easier reference.
“I have been thinking about this project since the museum acquired the powder horn collection – 75 of them – from Bill Guthman, by partial purchase and generous gift, sixteen years ago,” Zea said. “With the 250th anniversary of the Revolution approaching, now is the time to focus cultural history away from standard domestic topics and aim at a different 18th-century world. The one that was male-oriented, mobile, outdoors, and at risk. What can we learn about that world from the materials legacy of the Revolution? That’s the question.”
American soldiers from New England to Georgia often carried gunpowder for their flintlock muskets and rifles in hollowed cattle horns, plugged at both ends. These lightweight containers were watertight to “keep their powder dry.” Powder horns were a less expensive alternative to the bulky leather cartridge boxes with pine inserts drilled to store pre-measured paper cartridges of gunpowder carried by professional soldiers. The horns were harvested from the cattle driven behind the soldiers during each campaign so that “the army could travel on its stomach.”
When dexterous comrades applied their knives or burins to elaborate engraving of the new owner’s name and illustrations from the soldier’s world, his powder horn became a portrait of the meaning of each man and one of the few original art forms of colonial America. Engraved powder horns are transient survivors from public service centuries ago. They depict camp life and shifting political allegiances from loyal colonists to ardent revolutionaries. While history only remembers the generals, few artifacts recall the world of the rank-and-file, part-time citizen soldiers who filled the muster rolls for each summer’s campaign. Engraved powder horns carry personal history lessons about their owners and carvers—both soldiers pressed into near anonymous roles in securing and then later destroying a major portion of the British Empire.
The powder horns, however, are most sobering as a kind of early-day ‘dog tag’ with their owner’s name as a window on the deep ironies of warfare. Some of the powder horns are the only extant records of the very existence of these men. From the Battle of Lake George and the Plains of Abraham before Quebec City, to Lexington Green, Washington’s Crossing of the Delaware, and on to Yorktown, the powder horns are inspiring eyewitnesses to events and the psychology of an era in a way their owners no longer can be.
The exhibition and publication seek to understand the roots of an indigenous art form and the culture of life on the move when our country was new. The advisory committee for this project includes Timothy H. Breen, William Smith Mason Professor of American History Emeritus at Northwestern University, and James Marsh Professor at Large at the University of Vermont; Colin Calloway, Professor of History and Native American Studies at Dartmouth College, and R. Scott Stephenson, President and CEO of the Museum of the American Revolution, with which Historic Deerfield has collaborated since MAR’s founding. They are joined by Barbara Mathews, Historic Deerfield’s Public Historian and Director of Academic Programs.
Historic Deerfield Assistant Curator Dan Sousa will assist Zea with research for the exhibition and publication.
For more information about the exhibition and publication, please contact Philip Zea at [email protected].
About Historic Deerfield, Inc.
Historic Deerfield is a museum of early American life situated in an authentic 18th-century New England village in the Connecticut River Valley of Massachusetts. Its historic houses and world-famous collection of early American decorative arts open doors to new perspectives that inspire people to seek a deeper understanding of themselves, their communities, and the world.
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