Workshops
Administrator
2017
The Lure of the Mine
The exhibition grew out of a collaboration between the EMS Museum & Art Gallery and the Center for the Performing Arts at Penn State. The exhibit mirrored the theme of the oratorio, Anthracite Fields, composed by Julia Wolfe.
2016
Ocean Acidification and Its Effect on Marine Life
The exhibit was a product of a graduate student seminar taught by museum staff in Fall 2015. The students designed the project, composed a story line, identified objects and images to illustrate their story, and installed the exhibit in the museum at the end
of the Spring 2016 semester.
2015
Iron and Coal, Petroleum and Steel: Industrial Art from the Steidle Collection
The James A. Michener Museum of Art, an internationally recognized art museum in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, hosted an exhibition of 54 paintings from the EMS Museum’s Steidle Collection of American Industrial Art.
2014
Antarctic Coal, Rocks & Minerals: Specimens from the Second Byrd Antarctic Expedition
Specimens collected by expedition scientists Stuart Paine and Olin Stancliff and presented to the EMS Museum by Paine in 1935. The exhibit was designed to make connections between last century’s Antarctic discoveries with this century’s Penn State’s Ice and Climate Exploration program in Antarctica and other polar locations.
2011
Wonders of Work and Labour: From the Steidle Collection of American Industrial Art
Grohman Museum, Milwuakee School of Engineering, Milwaukee, Wisconsin exhibited 44 paintings from the Steidle Collection depicting workers engaged in various extractive industries in Pennsylvania.
2010
Beyond the Edge of the Sea
A travelling exhibit from the Muscarelle Museum of Art at the College of William and Mary. The exhibit featured water colors and drawings of deep sea creatures and ocean vents created while the artist, Karen Jacobsen, was working in a deep-sea submersible and collaborating with submersible pilot and marine biologist Dr. Cindy Lee Van Dover.
2024-2025 Academic Year
A Century of PSU Geosciences Fieldcamp (in collaboration with Geosciences faculty, post-docs, and students)
People and Geohazards in our National Parks (in collaboration with Alex Czeczulin, Geosciences '25)
The EMS Museum & Art Gallery on the first floor of the Deike Building at University Park is our primary venue for exhibits and programs. Large and small exhibits rotate and change on a regular basis. Most exhibits are in collaboration with EMS faculty, staff, and students.
The Scientific Instruments and Tools collection is the fastest growing collection at the museum. It reflects both this history of the College of EMS, but also the industries that the college is built upon. It encompasses a large selection of both rare and common items including historic lab equipment, modern microscopes, mining technology and safety equipment, maps (both historic and current), surveying tools, cameras, calculators, and glassware are just a small selection of the items that make up this intriguing collection.
Edward Steidle believed art reflected life and experience. As Dean of the School of Mineral Industries (1928–1953), now the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences (EMS) at Penn State, Steidle commissioned and collected artwork that depicted Pennsylvania’s extractive industries.
What are Earth Materials? In this instance, they are any materials that were created or formed by earth processes or manipulated from their original form into another by these same processes. The Earth Materials collection include sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic rocks, minerals, fossils, oil and other extractable resources, meteorites (and meteor-wrongs), industrial byproducts, and specimens grown or created in a laboratory.
The EMS Museum & Art Gallery currently has a two person staff consisting of the director and a curator who work closely with the collections and exhibits. The museum also has an active advisory board drawn from the faculty, staff, alumni, and students of the EMS college and the University, as well as local and regional educators, learners, and entrepreneurs.
EMS Museum & Art Gallery Staff
The Museum & Art Gallery was established in 1859 when the Pennsylvania State Legislature consigned one of four cabinets of the state's mineralogical and geological collection to Farmers' High School--the institution that became Pennsylvania State College and then the Pennsylvania State University.
The Earth and Mineral Sciences Museum & Art Gallery's art collection was initially was started with the artwork collected by Edward Steidle, dean of the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences (1928 - 1953). Steidle collected the artwork to demonstrate visually to his students various industrial processes and the critical role of mineral industries in Pennsylvania.
The founding piece given to the college in 1918 by the artist John Willard Raught, and the bulk of the collection was assembled during the Great Depression—a time when Americans needed reassurance about their country’s economic stability. Rather than turn a critical eye toward Pennsylvania’s industry, most of the paintings in the exhibition instead celebrate the state’s industrial power and its proud workers, who rise from the canvas like modern heroes, draped in the tools of their trade. We continue to use the Steidle Collection of American Industrial Art for visual education as well as historic evidence of the industrial heritage of Pennsylvania.
The collections of the Earth and Mineral Sciences Museum & Art Gallery have continued to grow. The collections now include approximately 19,000 Earth Materials (rocks, minerals, fossils, industrial byproducts), 4500 Historic Tools of Scientific Research and Education (mine safety equipment, microscopes, pyrometers, etc.), and 325 works of art in the Steidle Collection of American Industrial Art (paintings, works on paper, sculptures).
We are committed to ensuring the Earth and Mineral Sciences Museum & Art Gallery is a safe, inclusive, and respectful place for all visitors and museum staff. Help us make the museum an enjoyable place for everyone by being considerate of each other and the gallery space, exhibits, specimens, art, and objects on display. The museum’s exhibition gallery is located on the ground floor of the Deike Building on Penn State’s University Park campus. The gallery is open to everyone and is always free of charge.
LOCATION
6 Deike Building
University Park, PA 16802-5000
814-863-6017
museum@ems.psu.edu
Spring Semester (normal hours)
Monday - Friday, 10 am to 5 pm
Spring Break (reduced hours)
Tuesday, March 11: 10 am to 3 pm
Wednesday, March 12: 10 am to 3 pm
Closed most weekends, legal holidays, and scheduled University breaks (Thanksgiving week), and Winter Break (from Christmas Eve to the New Year). Email us for special appointments.