Saturday, March 2–Sunday, May 5, 2024
Available weekends 1:00–4:30 pm | Exhibition access times can be pre-booked online at 1:00, 2:00, and 3:00 pm
Weekdays with a guided tour or by appointment.
Call 267.502.2993 or email leah.smith@glencairnmuseum.org for by-appointment access.
$5.00 per person, included with a guided tour/event attendance

Exploring Pennsylvania’s colorful and diverse Easter egg traditions, Easter Eggs: Symbols of Rebirth and Renewal, is a collaborative exhibition at Glencairn Museum produced in partnership with the Pennsylvania German Cultural Heritage Center at Kutztown University. Featuring an unparalleled display of historic and contemporary Easter eggs, artifacts, documents, and ephemera, the exhibition traces the origins, history, and cultural diversity of Pennsylvania’s unique role in the development of Easter traditions in North America.

For hundreds of years, the egg has captured the imagination of cultures and religions throughout the world as a symbol of the mystery of creation and the reawakening of the earth at springtime. Since the Middle Ages, Christians have decorated eggs as symbols of resurrection and new life. This exhibition explores age-old European Easter egg traditions and how present-day Pennsylvanians are keeping them alive. From the colorful pysanky eggs of Ukrainian immigrants to the intricate scratched eggs of the Pennsylvania Dutch and the Lithuanians, the Easter egg embodies the vibrant mosaic of Pennsylvania’s diverse cultural and sacred expressions.

Exhibition Catalog

We are pleased to offer the full color, 47-page catalog, Easter Eggs: Symbols of Rebirth and Renewal. This is available as a free PDF, or you can access it directly on our website in an issue of Glencairn Museum News. Printed copies are available for purchase at Glencairn Museum and the Heritage Center for $10.