The Wabun C. Krueger Collection
The heart of the Museum is the 8,000-piece Wabun C. Krueger Collection of Agricultural, Household, and Scientific Artifacts. Critically acclaimed, it offers a fascinating perspective on rural New Jersey life from before pre-Colonial times to the present.
Since 1929 over 500 New Jersey individuals, families, and organizations have generously donated these items. However, the principal contributor was Dr. Krueger himself. He spent half his life inviting families to share the artifacts he believed were of significant value with the Museum and the public.
Dr. Krueger collected masterfully, accumulating objects of extraordinary variety and importance - everything from butter churns and asparagus bunchers to horse treadmills, sleighs, grain threshers, market wagons, and tractors. Appreciating Krueger's keen eye, the agricultural curator for the Museum of American History of the Smithsonian Institution deemed the collection "of inestimable value" to the study of agriculture in New Jersey.
Photograph Collections
George H. Cook College Collection
Complementing the Krueger Collection is the George H. Cook College Collection of Agricultural and Scientific Photographs, a superb array of 20,000 glass negatives, lanternslides, vintage prints, and contemporary photographs that vividly portray farm and rural life in New Jersey from the 19th century to the present.
The Dow/Brown Collection
The Dow/Brown Collection contains some 6,000 historical and contemporary photographs donated by the Dow Chemical Corporation.
The Powell Collection
The Powell Collection includes over 500 images depicting turn-of-the century life in Boonton, NJ.
The Pardoe Collection
The Pardoe Collection encompasses over 2,500 images of early farm markets and businesses in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.
New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station Photographs
The New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station Photographs include the work of three renowned turn-of-the-century scientists - entomologist John Bernhard Smith, plant pathologist Byron Halsted, and plant breeder Maurice A. Blake - who were among the first in the world to employ photography in agricultural research.
Rutgers Cooperative Extension Collection
The Rutgers Cooperative Extension Collection contains photographs documenting efforts to disseminate practical scientific knowledge to farmers, homemakers, and 4-H youngsters in the Garden State.