State Museum To Celebrate Indiana's Bicentennial With '200 Objects'

INDIANAPOLIS -- The Indiana State Museum will open a special exhibit Saturday as a part of the state’s bicentennial celebration. It’s called “Indiana in 200 Objects.” Among the items on display are Ameila Earhart’s jacket, jazz legend David Baker’s trombone, and a 1.3 billion year old meteorite.

Susannah Koerber is the Senior Vice President of Collections and Interpretation. She says that themes emerged as the museum began to pull the objects together.

“I think throughout the exhibition, we tried to mix things from different time periods. We tried to mix natural and cultural objects. So, it’s just really trying to get people to see things in a little bit different light,” says Koerber.

A team of 12 curators selected what items were added to the temporary exhibit. Many of the objects were already in the State Museum’s collection, but others came from collections outside of the museum such as corporations, private collections, and the U.S. National Archives.

“I hope it really makes people think about what a Hoosier is [and] what Indiana is. And again… how we got to where we are today and where we’re going,” says Koerber.

The exhibit will run from this Saturday to January of next year.