Not All Who Wander Are Lost

What knowledge do we impart to others as we carry goods and customs with us throughout our travels? With what new knowledge do we return home? Across the globe and over the centuries, immigrants, adventurers, and peddlers have exchanged ideas and objects, sharing skills and integrating cultures. This exhibit showcases a few of the many instances in which a traveler left their mark on an alien world and explores the ways in which that world experienced increasing globalization. Consider the reciprocity and complexity of cultural exchange evident in the stories of the artifacts below. 

Baltic amber was prized throughout Europe, but its use as the beads of this Vilnius Rosary is evidence that religion too can be spread by outsiders with lasting consequences. Lithuania became the final European country to convert from paganism to Christianity in 1387 and remains predominately Catholic to this day.

This intricate nib, still bearing traces of ink in its grooves, forms the tip of a 20th century replica of a Venetian glass pen. Though Venetian glass-blowing dates to the 8th century, merchants only began trading in pens in the 18th century, after Asian techniques helped perfect the art form.  

This abalone shell hails from the Pacific Coast of California, where native peoples first harvested the mollusk around six thousand years ago. Though Native Americans used abalone for adornment, sustenance, and spiritualism, European-American and Chinese entrepreneurs came to dominate the fishery following the immigration boom precipitated by the1849 gold rush. 

Unearthed in Aurora, NY, this miniature ceramic jug once held a sample of liquor marketed by Cincinnati distillers  Freiberg and Kahn. Listed in state records as the next generation of an old family business, the company   relied upon improved railways and canals to conduct dispatched peddlers from Ohio to Central New York.

Intrepid author Joseph Conrad, whose likeness is embossed on this cover, sailed in the French and British merchant marines to South America, Africa, and Asia. His exotic experiences fueled popular adventure stories like Victory, in which an eccentric Swedish hero rescues a damsel in the South China Sea.