The Abbe Museum was founded in 1926 by Dr. Robert Abbe to exhibit Native American artifacts from Maine. The museum has two locations, one in Acadia National Park and the other in Bar Harbor. The collection includes prehistoric and modern crafts, and the museum offers educational outreach programs. The original museum building was replaced by a larger facility in Bar Harbor in 2001.
The Abbe Museum is an anthropological and archaeological museum in southern Maine. Dr. Robert Abbe founded the museum in 1926 to exhibit artifacts from Maine’s Native American cultures. The original museum was located on the grounds of what was then Lafayette National Park, now Acadia National Park, on Mount Desert Island. Today, the museum operates from two locations, one within the park itself and the other in the nearby city of Bar Harbor.
Robert Abbe, founder of the Abbe Museum, was born in 1851 in New York. He became a surgeon, specializing in reconstructive surgery; he was an early proponent of radiotherapy as a cancer treatment. In addition to his medical studies, Abbe also developed a passion for archaeology. During his summers in the coastal city of Bar Harbor, Abbe collected Native American artifacts, filling his notebooks with sketches and descriptions of his collection. These artifacts would form the core of the Abbe Museum’s collection.
In 1926, Abbe contacted other collectors of Maine Native American artifacts, convincing them to pool their collections to create a museum. The initial site of the museum was near the Sieur de Monts spring in Lafayette National Park. The museum opened in 1928, but Abbe did not live to see it, having died five months earlier. The museum’s name commemorates his hard work, generosity, and dedication to the study of Maine’s Native American history and culture.
Since 1928, the Abbe Museum’s collection has continued to expand. Its collection includes not only prehistoric artifacts, but historic and modern examples of Native American crafts, especially basket making and crafts of the local Wabanaki people. Other exhibits include material on the history of the museum itself as well as contemporary Native American art. Educational and outreach activities, including work with local schools, accompany each of the museum’s exhibits.
The original Abbe Museum building was located along a hiking trail in what was then Lafayette National Park. The growing size of the collections and the diversity of programs meant that this small building was no longer adequate for the needs of the museum in the 1990s. In 1997, the museum acquired a historic building in downtown Bar Harbor and began renovating it to create modern facilities for exhibits, storage, teaching, and archaeological research. In 2001, this new facility opened as the museum’s main building. The original museum building continues to host smaller exhibits between May and October.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
