Potato Museum

The Potato Museum is a non-profit organisation dedicated to the history and social influence of the vegetable that has most influenced people and places. It is the world's largest collection of potato related items assembled from around the world.

For other Potato Museums, see List of potato museums.

History

It started as a classroom project by the students of teacher Tom Hughes at The International School of Brussels, Belgium in 1975.

The museum was based in Washington, D.C., for several years and open by appointment only.[1][2][3]

In the early 1990s The Potato Museum's collections were involved in two major national exhibitions, one at Ottawa's National Museum of Science and Technology, the other at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. The museum moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1993.[4] Hughes and his wife, Meredith Hughes, started a spinoff website, the Food Museum,[5] in 1996.[6]

Artifacts

The museum's collections include:

  • Ancient specimens and pottery depicting potatoes
  • Farm tools
  • Modern potato-derived products
  • Curiosities made from potatoes

References
  1. Ruth Richman, "Potato Museum Seeks a New Home", The New York Times, November 22, 1989.
  2. "The Museum of Second Helpings", The Washington Post, November 24, 1989  – via HighBeam Research (subscription required) .
  3. Sara Lowen, "This spud's for you at a-peeling Potato Museum", Chicago Sun-Times, February 7, 1988  – via HighBeam Research (subscription required) .
  4. Clara Germani, " Spotlight on the Lowly Spud: Worldwide odyssey awakened couple to the food's historic role - and led to Potato Museum", The Christian Science Monitor, February 27, 1992.
  5. "Hot!Media: Future of Food", Mother Jones, March-April 1997, pp. 71, 73.
  6. Abby Wihl, "Virtual museum gives food its due", Scripps Howard News Service in Daily Herald, October 23, 2007.

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