Why a Museum of Visual Materials?

I was recently asked, “what is a museum of visual materials?” The museum was created by Dr. Rose Faithe in 2005. Rose had collected and saved years of treasures and collectibles. Technically everything the museum has in it is a type of material. When we went over to the Faithe home to look over the inventory that Rose was going to donate to the museum I couldn’t believe how all of this stuff fit in one house. This wasn’t like the TV show “Hoarders” by any means. Every single thing in that home was inventoried, packaged, and cleaned up. We always said that her heat bill in the winter had to have quadrupled the next year after everything was removed. All of these collectibles which consisted of old lamps, collectible ceramics, paintings or all types, antique bead work, dolls, old tin toys, and even cases of treasure trolls. Treasure trolls were one of Rose’s favorites and she had all colors, themes(valentine, wedding, Halloween, etc.), and sizes. If you are ever wondering what it would look like to have 300 treasure trolls, spot by some time. The trolls were just on display filling our display shelves and will be on display in the future as well.

Not only displays fill this museum but fabrics and materials are all organized in our basement for guests wanting to come in and create something or to sew. Need a button? No problem, we have or 80,000 of them. So if you ever lose a button, come visit us. They are all organized by color, shank, holes, etc in our basement as well.

Books, books, and more books! We have so many books you might call us a library. The only thing is, you can’t check the books out. Guests come into the museum grab an old book and will look through these lost treasures. There are books on gardening, history, science, geology, religion, and even the old fashioned cook books. Some of our books are valued all the way into the four figures.

Last but not least the music room houses the vinyl collection from the Faithe family. The music room allows guests to search through our 1000 plus records, 8-tracks, or cassette tapes and listen to some of the old classics. The museum is all proud to announce that in the end of April the original KSOO vinyl collection from the 1930′s to the mid 1980′s will have a new home at the Museum of Visual Materials. The station that established music in the city will now be available to the public to enjoy once again. Thank you to the generous donation from the Henkin family Sioux Falls will get to enjoy this amazing history hands on.