CBH Talk | Armed Objects: Weapons, Ornamentation, and the Museum

Weapons have long occupied a complicated place in material culture. Firearms, swords, powder horns, and similar objects are often examples of extraordinary craftsmanship and personal expression, displaying elaborate engravings and ornamentation, even as they are instruments of violence. Inspired in part by the rifle on view in CBH’s exhibition The Battle of Brooklyn: Fought and Remembered, this conversation considers the questions that arise when weapons enter a museum collection; how has the care, documentation, and exhibition of these objects changed over time? Drawing on examples from CBH’s holdings, and the institutional history of its predecessor the Long Island Historical Society, the panel explores the decoration, symbolism, and craftsmanship found on weapons made for both warfare and recreation, and what these details can reveal about the people who made, owned, and used them. The conversation also turns to the responsibilities that come with being the steward of such objects. At a moment when museums are reexamining how they collect, interpret, and display objects connected to violence, what are the ethical considerations? What changes when an instrument capable of inflicting harm is placed behind glass? Material-culture scholar and chief curator at Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum Michelle Millar Fisher joins arms and armor conservator Lola Page, who recently worked with CBH to survey, document, and rehouse its historic firearms collection, and Michelle Kennedy , who oversees CBH’s art and artifact collection. CBH Chief Historian Dominique Jean-Louis moderates a conversation about beauty and violence, craftsmanship and meaning, and the responsibilities museums assume when they preserve and put these complicated objects on view. Pictured above, clockwise from top left: Flintlock rifle, 1750 ca., M1992.677.1; photo of Lola Page; photo of Dominique Jean-Louis; Michelle Millar Fisher, photo by Grace Roselli, Pandora’s BoxX Project; photo of Michelle Kennedy; [John Ruble’s powder horn], 1789, M1991.889.1 Participants Dr. Michelle Millar Fisher is the chief curator at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York. From 2019-2026 she was the Ronald C. and Anita L. Wornick Curator of Contemporary Decorative Arts at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She also collaborated with an independent team on a book (MIT Press, 2021), a touring exhibition, and a program series called “Designing Motherhood: Things That Make and Break Our Births.” Previously she worked at MoMA, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Guggenheim Museum. She holds an MA, two MPhils, and a PhD in Art History, and publishes and lectures widely on craft, design, and architecture. Dominique Jean-Louis, Ph.D, is the Chief Historian of the Center for Brooklyn History at the Brooklyn Public Library. Among the exhibitions she has curated are The Battle of Brooklyn: Fought and Remembered , Trace/s: Family History Research and the Legacy of Slavery in Brooklyn , and a pop-up exhibition, Memories Matter , in the Euclid Avenue subway station as a collaboration with the MTA's Vacant Unit Activation Program. Previously, she held the position of Associate Curator of History Exhibitions at the New York Historical. She received her Ph.D in US History from New York University, with her doctoral research focusing on race, ethnicity, and immigration in post-Civil Rights Era Brooklyn schools. Dominique regularly writes and lectures on Blackness in America, schools and education, and New York City history. Michelle Kennedy is the Art Collections & Exhibition Coordinator of the Center for Brooklyn History at the Brooklyn Public Library. Previously, she held the position of Manager of Collections and Archives at the South Street Seaport Museum, where she cared for a collection of 28,000 works of art and historical artifacts, and over 80,000 archival materials documenting the rise of New York as a port city. She co-curated The Original Gus Wagner: The Maritime Roots of Modern Tattoo (2017) and contributed to Maritime City (2025) and Millions (ongoing). She received her MSLIS at Pratt Institute School of Information and her BA in Art History and BS in Geology from Tufts University. Michelle's career focus is on strategies to connect collections management across archive, library, and museum disciplines. Lola Page is an emerging museum professional specializing in firearm decoration. Previously, she has worked within the curatorial offices of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, specializing in early American arms engraving and attribution. Most recently, she held the position of Lang Social Science Research Fellow at the Higgins Armory Collection at the Worcester Art Museum, the second-largest holding of arms and armor in the country. She received her BA in History/Historical Studies from The New School and is now a fellow and graduate student at Bard Graduate Center: Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture. Her current research includes a survey of the hunting weapons of early modern Northern Europe and their pagan ornamental influences, as well as her forthcoming thesis, “Playthings of Power: The Many Lives of Tsar Alexander I’s Childhood Flintlock.”