By Joanne Bailey-Boorsma
joanne@wtkv.org
Sometimes you never know what you will find when you unpack a box. That certainly has been the case for Dr. Cory Redman, the Grand Rapids Public Museum’s science curator, and his team as they unpack the science collection at the Community Archives Research Center located at 223 Washington St. SE.
About 95 percent of the Grand Rapids Public Museum’s collection is displayed at the Community Archives Research Center, also called CARC. Redman has been tasked with unboxing and cataloging the many boxes that contain the science collection.
It was during this process that the team discovered a curious item, a lava medallion.
“These became popular in the 1820 as kind of souvenir or commemorative object,” Redman said during a recent segment on the WKTV Journal.
In the mid-18th Century, taking a Grand Tour of Europe had become fashionable among the wealthy elite. People would visit cities like Paris, Rome, Venice, Florenece, and Naples with a tutor to learn about languages, geography, culture, art, and architecture. When passing through Naples, the volcano of Mount Vesuvius — yes the volcano that destroyed the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum in 79 A.D. — became a must see stop mostly because instead of getting a postcard, you pick up a lava medallion. Mt. Vesuvius is where the Grand Rapids Public Museum’s lava medallion is from.
“The way it is formed is you actually take hot molten lava and you put it in some type of mold,” Redman said. “It is usually a two-part mold to press it and then you dunk it in water to solidify it.”
The museum’s medallion was made by Henry Augustus Ward who in 1862 started the Ward’s Nature Science in Rochester, New York, Redmen said. At that time, the company supplied museums with specimen and artifacts but today provides science equipment and materials to schools.
As to how the museum acquired the medallion, Redmen said his guess is that it came from one of the Grand Rapids Public Museum’s past directors, Henry Levi Ward, who served from 1922 — 1932 and also was the son of Henry Augustus Ward.
For more about the Grand Rapids Public Museum’s collections, visit grpm.org/collections/.
