Historic Cherry Hill

About the Collection

The Van Rensselaer-Rankin family amassed several lifetimes and several households worth of personal papers and possessions during their 176 years of occupancy at Cherry Hill. In 1963, when the last surviving family member died, the house and its contents became the Historic Cherry Hill Collection — an intact assemblage of one family's material possessions spanning five generations and over three hundred years of American history.

A wealth of information for scholars of social history and material culture, Cherry Hill is a unique resource because of the well-documented provenance of its collection. Family members kept meticulous records regarding the history of individual objects and their placement in the household. What is more, objects are often ensconced in a web of associated material, such as notes, photographs, letters, family lore, and old parts that were removed and replaced but never discarded.

In all, the Historic Cherry Hill collection totals over 20,000 objects, 30,000 manuscripts, 7,500 textiles, 5,000 books, and 3,000 photographs. This remarkably complete household “hoard”—including even the mundane items of daily life—sheds light on the complex workings of a household across multiple generations. Yet, as one might expect of the accumulations of a Van Rensselaer estate, the collection also contains some very rare and fine examples of American material culture. Historic Cherry Hill proudly cares for the family's ENTIRE estate from the lowliest toothbrush to the rarest 18th-century silver tankard and everything in between.