The Fourth of July weekend is over, but Oswego’s Little White School Museum is offering a new way to keep celebrating the nation’s 250th anniversary.
The museum, at 72 Polk St. in Oswego, has opened a new temporary exhibit, “It’s a Grand Old Flag, and a Banner Year for Oswego,” which focuses on a local collection of various banners and flags.
A press release from the museum said the exhibit features “a huge variety of flags and banners from the museum’s collections including U.S. flags, World War I and World War II service banners, commemorative banners and flags, a special exhibit on the Revolutionary War in northern Illinois, and more.”
According to the release, the highlight of the exhibit is a 1840s-vintage 28-star “Great Star” pattern flag, and a 46-star U.S. flag dating before the admission of Arizona and New Mexico to the Union in January and February of 1912.
Naperville resident Joe Noce, museum coordinator, said the museum “wanted to do something for America’s 250th celebration.”
“Oswego has a history of relatively elaborate celebrations – in a good way – and we wanted to display some of our flags,” he said. “We have some cool ones too. We have a 46-star flag and a 48-star flag as well as some from various different celebrations – an Illinois state flag and things like that. We wanted to display those along with some bicentennial paraphernalia as well.”
Noce added that the museum “wanted to also display some banners because it’s a banner year for Oswego.”
“This is a year of celebration so we wanted to recap some of those celebrations Oswego has had since its founding,” he said. “Overall, the exhibit has about 20 major sections. One is all about bicentennial artifacts while another display case that is super fun is about the Revolutionary War era reenactment memorabilia. There will also be between 20 and 30 different banners and flags on display at any time as well.”
Work on the new exhibit began months ago in February and March as Noce and museum director Roger Matile began brainstorming ideas as to what to do for the country’s 250th birthday celebration.
“We kind of came to this idea. Roger really wanted to do some stuff with the flags and the idea kind of materialized from there,” Noce said. “It’s been in the works for a few months.”
The exhibit will continue through mid-October, museum officials said. Admission is free.
“We want people to come. We’re kind of gearing this towards the community of Oswego – we want people to come and reflect on how the community has come together in the past through those old celebrations,” he said. “But we’re also trying to showcase how far we’ve come as a country. We’re hoping to get a broad demographic.”
Noce hopes there is “sustained enthusiasm” about history in the wake of the Fourth of July.
“I really hope this initiates a lot of reflection over what we’ve been through as a community and as a nation,” he said. “I hoping this starts this reflective process.”
Regular museum hours are 2 to 6:30 p.m. Thursdays, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Fridays, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays and 4 to 9 p.m. Mondays. The museum is closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
For more information, call 630-554-2999, email director@littlewhiteschoolmuseum.org or go to the museum’s website at www.littlewhiteschoolmuseum.org.
David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
