Logan Museum of Anthropology
The Logan Museum of Anthropology is a teaching museum connected to Beloit College just north of South Beloit, Illinois. Founded in 1894, this museum is centralized around experiential learning for visitors and students. The museum was created when the namesake, Frank Logan donated 3,000 objects to Beloit College insisting they be used for teaching.
This museum is located on ancestral land of Native Americans such as the Peoria, Potawatomi, Miami, Meskwaki and Ho-Chunk people. Beloit College focuses on land acknowledgment as part of the learning in the Logan Museum of Anthropology.
Every year over 1,000 students come to the Logan Museum of Anthropology to learn through the exhibits. The museum focuses on hands-on learning, as well. Many of the museum’s exhibits are specifically built for students to use and learn from.
The museum is home to over 350,000 archaeological objects deriving from 129 different countries. Those items come from more than 600 different cultural groups, making it a very diverse collection. Artifacts have been gathered from research expeditions, exchanges, and sales over the years. The collection is ever growing and rotating as new pieces are gained and put on display for learning.
There are several ongoing exhibits in the Logan Museum of Anthropology. One permanent exhibit is A Student’s Laboratory. This exhibit displays the growth of the museum and showcases the teaching aspect. Another permanent exhibit is the “History of Man” Murals on the second floor. This exhibit showcases 12 murals painted by a Chicago artist named John Warner Norton. The collection was commissioned for the Logan Museum of Anthropology to put on display. The murals show different periods of human history that relate directly to the artifacts in the museum. They can be viewed on the second floor.
The Logan Museum of Anthropology is inside Memorial Hall, which was constructed in memory of Beloit residents that died in the Civil War. The first floor is donned with plaques displaying the names of those who died, and increases the historical nature of the museum contents.
Currently, the museum is not open to the general public due to COVID-19, but should reopen again in the future. Students are still able to use the museum for learning. People of South Beloit, IL can visit the Beloit College campus and appreciate the history of the buildings from the outside.
