Museum Stores
Shop for handcrafted items such as redware, fraktur, tinware, and painted boxes made by local artisans at our museum store, located at the Dewees Tavern. The store is open during our regular weekend hours, special events, or by appointment.
Our artisans include Cinnamon Treasures, Countrybrooms, Ivan E. Hoyt, Kennedy Redware, L.T. Short Folk Art and Fraktur, River Rat Pottery, Springerle House, Tinmanroy, and Wilz Pottery.
We also carry books on local history and Pennsylvania German culture, which may also be ordered online and shipped to you via USPS Priority Mail. Below is a selection of titles that we have in stock; contact us at [email protected] if you have any questions.
Valley Culture: Constructing Identity Along the Great Wagon Road
Exhibition catalogue with 116 pages, featuring nearly 100 color images of Pennsylvania German folk art including painted boxes, chests, and fraktur. Available exclusively from Historic Trappe.
Native Son: The Life and Art of David Ellinger
A fully illustrated catalogue with 132 pages, providing a comprehensive study of Ellinger's life and work. This catalogue makes a significant contribution to the understanding of Pennsylvania German folk art in the twentieth century. Available exclusively from Historic Trappe.
Trappe and Collegeville (Images of America)
Trappe & Collegeville features more than 200 vintage photographs with chapters on churches, businesses, people, Main Street, and much more. Highlights include rare views of Augustus Lutheran Church and the Perkiomen Bridge Hotel.
Pastors & Patriots: The Muhlenberg Family of Pennsylvania
Pastors & Patriots brings the Muhlenberg family to life based on original documents, buildings, and artifacts such as portraits, silver, and furniture. Learn how the family navigated life in colonial Pennsylvania and the changes wrought by the American Revolution.
Roots: Ursinus College and the Pennsylvania Germans
Roots includes a short history of Ursinus College and its Pennsylvania German origins, together with highlights from the college's collection of Pennsylvania German folk art. Numerous examples of scratch-decorated Easter eggs, fraktur, redware, metalwork, samplers, and more are illustrated.
Paint, Pattern & People: Furniture of Southeastern Pennsylvania 1725 - 1850
Paint, Pattern, and People explores the fascinating and diverse furniture of southeastern Pennsylvania through the people who made, owned, inherited, and collected it. Delving into the cultures and creativity of the area's inhabitants, primarily those of British and Germanic heritage, this comprehensive work looks closely at localisms and regionalisms of form, ornament, and construction that were influenced by ethnicity, religious affiliation, settlement patterns, socioeconomic status, and the skills of the craftsmen.William Penn's policy of religious tolerance attracted people of various faiths and ethnic backgrounds, making Pennsylvania the most culturally diverse of the thirteen colonies. Through the study of well-documented furniture, fraktur, needlework, paintings, and architecture produced by this mixed multitude, the region's great diversity comes into focus.