: The Mercer Museum opens a new temporary exhibit, "Ducks, Decoys
and the Delaware: A Regional Hunting Tradition" on Saturday,
April 17, exploring wildfowl hunting on the lower Delaware River
from the late 1800s to the mid-Twentieth Century. The exhibit
will focus especially on the regional folk tradition of decoy
carving.
The show will include materials borrowed from important private
collections, as well as some artifacts and images from the Bucks
County Historical Society's own holdings. Along with an array of
public programs, the exhibit will make connections between the
natural history, social history and folk culture of the region,
portraying the lives of hunters, carvers, boat builders and
others whose existence was intimately linked to the river.
More than just decoys - though many stellar examples of this folk
art form will be included - the show reveals the links between
hunting and carving traditions and the environmental changes seen
in the Delaware River during the Twentieth Century. It describes
the effects of human activities on the waterway, especially
dredging and pollution and their impact on the decline of
wildfowl hunting, especially during the mid-1900s. After World
War II, the dredging and deepening of the Delaware River from the
"falls" at Trenton to the city of Philadelphia resulted in the
filling in of many shore marshes that had attracted fowl,
sustained favorite foods, such as wild celery and rice, and
provided a habitat. Species declined and hunting traditions
suffered the same fate.
A major feature of the new exhibit will be an original,
well-preserved example of a 1930s duck hunting boat, built by
Jess Heisler of Burlington, N.J., and used for many years by
members of the Biddle family of Bensalem Township. The watercraft
will be on loan courtesy of The Andalusia Foundation. Other
materials in the exhibit will include typical firearms, mounted
wildfowl specimens, carving tools, rare hunting images and of
course decoys by such noted Delaware River carvers and painters
as John Blair, the English family, John Dawson, Joe King, Bill
Quinn and many others.
Though the emphasis of the exhibit is on working decoys intended
for hunting, the show acknowledges and portrays the growth in
decoy carving as decorative art during the second half of the
Twentieth Century. The exhibit's subject matter is expected to
attract a diverse au-dience of folk art enthusiasts, hunters and
sportsmen and those interested in the natural and environmental
history of the Delaware region.
Serving as volunteer consultants to the exhibit are Bob and
Pauline White of Tullytown, Bucks County. One of the last
traditional decoy carvers, Bob White continues to craft decoys in
his shop in Tullytown. In a video being produced especially for
the exhibit, White will demonstrate his craft and show the
traditional method of setting out and using decoys on the river.
The video may be viewed continuously during the exhibit's run.
The show will run through January 2. Also on view at the Mercer
Museum is the popular children's exhibit, "Animals on the Loose,"
which has been extended through 2004.
The Mercer Museum is at 84 South Pine Street. For information,
215-345-0210 or www.mercermuseum.org.
