Free Lenape culture lecture coming to the Museum of Early Trades & Crafts

From the Museum of Early Trades & Crafts:

Beverly Friend posses in traditional Native American dress.

The Museum of Early Trades & Crafts invites visitors to join historian Beverly A. Friend as she presents the family-friendly program "Lenape Culture: An Introduction to American Indian Life in New Jersey" on Sunday, Feb. 21, at 2 p.m.

The Lenape were a Native American tribe that occupied New Jersey, southeastern New York, eastern Pennsylvania and northern Delaware at the time of European exploration and colonization.

Friend will explore the Lenape using a variety of authentic artifacts, crafts and clothing to explain their daily lives, beliefs, history and creative expression. She will also explain the special relationships between the people, the animals and the forest preceding contact with Europeans.

Friend is of Cherokee heritage and has spent the last twenty-five years studying and lecturing on Native American Indian culture, history and folklore. She is a speaker for the New Jersey Council for the Humanities and has given presentations on various Native and diversity topics for many schools, libraries, private organizations and major corporations including Prudential Financial, AT&T Corporate, Johnson & Johnson and Aventis Pharmaceuticals and Montclair Art Museum and New Jersey Historical Society.

Beverly received cultural instruction from her mother and maternal grandparents and other members of the Native American community. In addition, Beverly was the protégé’ of the late James “Lone Bear” Revey, former chairman of the New Jersey Indian Office.

Raised in Newark, New Jersey, Beverly has devoted her life to her family and educating people on Native American Indians, their lives – past and present- and the importance of shared cultures.

This program is funded by the Horizons Speakers Bureau of the New Jersey Council for the Humanities, a state partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Space is limited. Pre-registration is recommended, call 973-377-2982 x14. FREE!

Regular Museum admission is $5.00 for adults, $3.00 for seniors, students & children, and free for Members. Family maximum admission $13.00. The Museum is open Tuesday – Saturday 10 A.M. to 4 P.M. and Sunday Noon to 5 P.M. Closed Monday & Major Holidays. (SUMMER HOURS- July & August, Tuesday – Saturday 10 A.M. to 4 P.M. Closed Sunday & Monday)

Housed in a 1900 Richardsonian-Romanesque Revival building listed on the National Register of Historic places, the Museum explores 18th- and 19th-century American history, with a focus on New Jersey. Drawing on its collection of over 8,000 hand tools and their products, METC uses material culture to interpret the lives and technologies of people who lived and worked before the rise of large-scale industrialization in this country. The Museum offers visitors of all ages a broad range of changing exhibits, and related programs that address many facets of early American history, craftsmanship, and the diversity of trades performed by men and women.

The Museum of Early Trades & Crafts received a General Operating Support Grant from the Borough of Madison, Charles Read Foundation, F.M. Kirby Foundation and Morris County Board of Chosen Freeholders. The Museum of Early Trades & Crafts received an operating support grant from the New Jersey Historical Commission, a division of the Department of State.

The Museum of Early Trades & Crafts is located at 9 Main Street in the heart of downtown Madison, just two blocks from the Madison train station. For information, please call 973-377-2982 x10 or visit our website at www.metc.org.