permanent EXHIBITS
Sandy Springers innovated ceaselessly through the centuries. In our general store exhibit, encounter their imports of bat and bird guano to rebuild the soil, and the refrigeration device invented by Thomas Moore to carry fresh milk and butter all the way to the growing city of Washington, DC. Other commercial innovations included the first bank to accept African Americans and white women as account holders in their own right, and the state’s first insurance company.
Quaker leaders began working to end slaveholding by members of the Sandy Spring Friends Meeting right after the American Revolution. Newly-freed families worked tirelessly to acquire farms and build a future for themselves. The Museum chronicles the history of the families that lived and grew here on farms and in trades, creating one of the oldest sustained communities of African-American landowners in the nation.
In our schools exhibit, learn about the sustained local commitment to education, from the first decades of settlement through the present day. Having schools at all was an achievement, but having schools for girls as well as boys, for African-American children as well as white, these make Sandy Spring’s commitment notable.
Our farm house kitchen showcases the work of every member of the household in the manufacture of food, clothing, heat, light, and shelter. Home used to be a workplace – at the Museum you’ll see what that was like.
In the parlor display, encounter the unparalleled tradition of Sandy Spring social clubs – nurturers of a resilient civic fabric and productive of political leaders like Allen Bowie Davis, and dissenters like Quaker suffragists Caroline Hallowell Miller and Mary Bentley Thomas.
And don’t miss the story of Dr. Jacob Wheeler Bird, founder of Montgomery General Hospital. His initiative kept these communities moving forward in the 20th century, and you can see his tools, his colleagues, and even his country doctor’s carriage at the Museum.
17901 Bentley Road • Sandy Spring, Maryland 20860 • 301.774.0022 • electronic mail • sitemap
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