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Organized beginning in 1880 around an outsized fireplace in an oversized room is a clutter of what eventually grew to more than 800 items related to domestic life with the message that "here this progressive age can come and ponder over and wonder at the various utensils used in the domestic economy of 100 years ago." The colonial kitchen at Memorial Hall inDeerfield Massachusetts, represents a view of pioneer domesticity seen through the eyes of 19th century antiquarians. The room is a very early, perhaps the first, use of the period room concept in an American museum, and borrowed inspiration from the Sanitary Fairs of the Civil War era and the Philadelphia Centennial of 1876.

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