Higgins Armory Museum

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Higgins Armory Museum, located in Worcester, Massachusetts, is a public, non-profit museum specializing in the history of arms and armor. John Woodman Higgins built a unique steel and glass structure to house his collection of armor, one of the largest such collections in the world. Currently, the museum features thousands of pieces from the ancient military traditions of Western Europe, Ancient Rome, Fuedal Japan, and beyond. One of the largest arms and armor collections in the world with over 80 suits of armor spanning the Medieval to renaissance and early modern periods.

The Museum features important Classical world collections including one of three gladiator helmets in the hemisphere, bronze Homeric swords, Japanese Samurai suits and weapons, Renaissance collections, and a war hammer from the Medieval period. A magnificent early Renaissance/late Medieval Spetum is one of the prides of the collection. A firearm commissioned by Catherine the Great of Russia for her grandson Grand Duke (later Tsar) Alexander I of Russia, is another important piece in the collection.

Higgins Armory is the largest collection of Medieval Arms and Armor outside of Europe

[edit] History

The Museum was founded by John Woodman Higgins in 1927. The building was purpose-built in the Art Deco-style, and is the first free standing glass and steel frame structure of its type to be built in the United States. The Museum has been accredited by the American Association of Museums since the 1970s.

By 1980, the museum was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, under the management of a public Governing Board. By 1994, the Board, with the help of two multi-million-dollar fund-raising campaigns, modernized the facility in adding accessibility to the disabled, a new climate control systems, new exhibits, and new educational facilities.