NYS Museum May 21, 2014

Skull, face and description of a man buried in Almshouse cemetery.

While the skull and face might look very real, it is not. The skull is a masked version of the real skull of the individual, and the face was recreated by artists to look how the man might have appeared while alive. This part of the tour interested me most not only because that was the first exhibit and I was wide awake, but because it allowed me to reflect on classes I took in high school. The bone structure of an individual can tell you their ethnicity, how they lived, and the diet they had. I learned many methods to figure out the lifestyle of an individual in a forensics class in high school. I remember learning that the shape of the nose and eye socket can differentiate between ethnicity. African Americans would have a wider bone structure in the nose, while Caucasians would have a narrower nose. Bone structure can also tell an archaeologist the age at which a person died. The man above, died at the age of about thirty-two. I would assume that this male died so early of an age because of the time frame the Almshouse was running (1826-1926). During those times, there was not any advances in medicine to allow an individual to live up until their late seventies. The skeleton assessed above, and many others discovered by Archaeologists, reflect the conditions of life for Albany’s poor population. 

A plaque which shows the conditions the
Jewish Community lived in.

A plaque that shows the ideas and pictures
of the Nazi Germany Soldiers. 

A recreation of a living space a Jewish individual
would live in while in hiding. 

Ever since sophomore year of high school, learning about World War Two and the Holocaust was a great interest of mine. I have read many books on the topic, watched documentary films, took a college course on the Holocaust, met 3 Holocaust survivors, and visited museums. I was thrilled to know that the NYS Museum had a little section of the Holocaust. Whenever I visit an exhibit on this topic, I am extremely silent and curious. There are always new things to learn and see. Walking through the section made me feel very sad. I have never seen a recreation of the living conditions a Jewish individual lived in while in hiding. The area I saw was very small, and I can only imagine the horrible conditions these innocent people had to live in. No one should ever be massacred because of their religion, ethnicity, or cultural background. 

Artifacts of pharmacist tools discovered by archaeologists. 

The only thing I could think about while looking at the artifacts shown on the right was the book Down from Troy. The artifacts of the pharmacists reminded me of Richard Selzer’s father, a local doctor for the town of troy. The crucibles shown reminded me of the black bag filled with instruments Richard’s Father carried around on his visits. Some of the china in the back made me imagine Richard and his brother Billy competing at the dining room table to see who learned the most words in Latin. It is interesting to see how most of the things we do in our program relate to one another. I would have never guessed that going to a museum and seeing artifacts would relate to a book we are reading for our Book Club.