Mercer Museum
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Mercer Museum
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Mercer Museum
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| Location | Doylestown, Pennsylvania |
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| Coordinates | 40°18′28″N 75°7′38″W / 40.30778°N 75.12722°WCoordinates: 40°18′28″N 75°7′38″W / 40.30778°N 75.12722°W |
| Built | 1904 |
| Architect | Dr. Henry Mercer |
| Architectural style | Colonial Revival, Other |
| Part of | Fonthill, Mercer Museum, and Moravian Pottery and Tile Works (#85002366) |
| NRHP Reference # | 72001097 |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | March 16, 1972 |
| Designated NHLDCP | February 4, 1985 |
The Mercer Museum is a museum located in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, United States. The Bucks County Historical Society operates the Mercer Museum, as well as the Research Library, and Fonthill Castle, former home of the museum's founder, archeologist Henry Chapman Mercer. The museum was individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972, and was later included in a National Historic Landmark District along with the Moravian Pottery and Tile Works and Fonthill. These three structures are the only poured-in-place concrete structures built by Mercer.
Henry Mercer was a gentleman anthropologist. On a cruise up the Ruhr in early adulthood, Mercer was impressed by the eclipse of artisanal culture by industrial production, and resolved himself to preserving artifacts of preindustrial life. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Mercer collected pre-industrial hand tools and other implements of the past. He believed that the story of human progress and accomplishments was told by the tools and objects that people used and saw these time-honored crafts slowly disappearing from memory.
Mercer personally designed plans for a museum to house his collection, six stories tall and cast of poured-in-place concrete. Mercer's museum was completed in 1916. In addition to tools, it displays furnishings of early America, carriages, stove plates, a gallows, antique fire engines, a whaleboat, and the Lenape Stone. The Spruance Library, which houses the Bucks County Historical Society's archive of historical research materials, is located on its third floor. In June 2011, construction was completed on a new, extensive visitors center at the front of the museum.
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