News Release
September 2001

Payne Gallery reception to highlight Smithsonian Exhibit

Smithsonian Curator Steven Lubar to present gallery talk at public reception

(Bethlehem, Pennsylvania) - Moravian College will host an opening reception for the exhibition, "From Turbines to Tupperware: Two Centuries of Industrial Drawings from the Smithsonian," on Thursday, September 13, at 7:00 p.m. in Payne Gallery. Curator Steven Lubar, Chair of the Division of the History of Technology, Smithsonian's National Museum of American History will present a gallery talk, "How Industry Uses Drawings," at 8:00 p.m.

This inaugural exhibition of the newly renovated Payne Gallery is a culmination of the partnership between Bethlehem Works - National Museum of Industrial History, the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, and Moravian College. The exhibit was organized by the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, and co-sponsored by both the National Museum of Industrial History and Moravian College. Dignitaries from each of these organizations will join with Moravian College students to celebrate the opening of this important exhibition.

"From Turbines to Tupperware" includes more than 80 drawings dating from the 1830's to the 1990's from the collections of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History and the Smithsonian Institution Libraries. On display are inventors' sketchbooks, engineers' mechanical drawings, architects' renderings, and industrial designers' illustrations that provide a glimpse at the type of interesting and illuminating works that will soon adorn The National Museum of Industrial History. This Smithsonian affiliate museum will open to the public in 2002 as part of the Bethlehem Works project in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

This special exhibition is organized by the curatorial team of Peter Liebhold, Steven Lubar, Alison Oswald, and William Worthington of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History/Behring Center. Each curator will present a lecture during the course of the exhibition. Alison Oswald will present, "Preserving Invention Records: It's More Than Just the Patent," on Monday, October 1. Peter Liebhold, will present, "Managerial Propaganda?

Deconstructing Work Incentive Posters," on Wednesday, October 17. William Worthington will present, "An Engineered History: The Drawings of Lockwood Greene Company," on Wednesday, October 31. In addition, a symposium co-sponsored by Lehigh University's Science and Technology Studies Program is planned for October.

Payne Gallery is located on the Priscilla Payne Hurd Campus of Moravian College, in Historic Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The Gallery is open 11:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday, and 6:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings. It is closed Mondays, major holidays and during school breaks. Admission and parking are free, and the Gallery is wheelchair accessible. Bethlehem is sixty miles north of Philadelphia and ninety miles west of New York City.

Moravian College is a private, coeducational, selective liberal arts college located in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Tracing its founding to 1742, it is recognized as America's sixth-oldest college. Visit the Web site at www.moravian.edu.