Le Hewitt Sisters

Abstract

Sarah and Eleanor Hewitt were the first women to found an American museum: the Cooper Union Museum for the Arts of Decoration on May 21, 1897. The Museum’s collection consisted of textiles, decorative engravings, etchings, furniture, books and rare books, as well as the plaster casts from France. The Cooper Union Museum, was free and accessible to all. Visitors – particularly students – were encouraged to handle objects in a way that was unimaginable then and in museums today. Encyclopedic scrapbooks of design and a reference library were available to assist in research.