Madison, New Jersey’s Museum of Early Trades & Crafts has showcased the technology used by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century craftsmen for over fifty years. Throughout this time, the museum has served nearly half a million people with its various educational programs, exhibits, and tours. The museum recently announced plans to expand into a second building in order to serve even larger audiences in the future.
The board of trustees announced that all educational and community programming will be moving into a second building located across the street from the current museum. This new building, called the Education Annex, will allow the museum to accommodate larger school groups and provide more workshop and lecture space. It will also free up space in the current building for expanded exhibits and a new viewable storage facility for the museum’s collection.
The Education Annex will be located in the historic James Building. The building was built by D. Willis James and was Madison’s first town hall and commercial building. James used the profits from that building to finance the James Library, the museum’s current location.
Executive Director Deborah Farrar Starker said that the expansion was inspired about concerns for the museum’s long term growth. “We could have continued with the limited space we occupy, but this would not have allowed our programs to expand. Instead, we decided to look to create a sustainable future for this unique history museum,” she said in a press release.