The Reece Museum will be closed to the public for Winter Break from December 22 through January 9. The Museum will be open by appointment only from January 12 through 16, please email Spenser Brenner at brenner@etsu.edu to set up an appointment. The Reece will open for regular hours on January 20.
For more than 60 years the Reece Museum has told the many stories of Appalachia. Housing approximately 22,000 artifacts, the Reece collection captures the region's past as well as its contemporary art and culture.
Online Collections Portal Exhibition Publications
As one of the first museums in Tennessee to be accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, the Reece continues to meet AAM's high standards of excellence. Currently, the Reece is one of only eighteen museums in Tennessee to receive this accreditation.
The Museum began in the late 1920s as a class project created by history professor Maxine Mathews. Under the supervision of ETSU President Charles C. Sherrod, the Museum continued to grow. During the 1930s and 1940s, librarians staffed the Museum and provided tours to visitors.
In August 1961, Louise Goff Reece, wife of the late Congressman Brazilla Carroll Reece, donated her husband's personal library, including congressional reports, files, and other materials of educational and historic value, to ETSU. Formally dedicated on October 10, 1965, the B. Carroll Reece Memorial Museum was established as a tribute to the memory of First District Congressman B. Carroll Reece as a "storehouse of knowledge ... for the use of the university's students and the citizens of the state."
The current mission of the Reece Museum is to serve the Appalachian region through exhibitions, collections, and community engagement.
The Reece Museum, a unit of the Center for Appalachian Studies and Services, is free and open to the public. For more information, 423-439-4392.
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