Oxford Museum reflects on past 60 years with new exhibit

This coming season, the Oxford Museum is looking back to its founding year to celebrate its 60th birthday with “Oxford 1964: The Times They Were A-Changin’.”

These were tumultuous times across America as dramatic events unsettled nearly every aspect of public and private life.

America’s popular culture in the 60s was driven by the expanding reach of national magazines and television. Corporate advertising embraced a new modernism, promoting the latest music, film, home appliances, fashion, packaged foods and cigarettes. The Ford Motor Company introduced the Mustang in 1964, the Beatles arrived in New York that year, NASA launched rockets toward Mars, the World’s Fair opened in Queens, and the summer Olympics opened in Tokyo.

Civil rights issues were coming to a head. The summer of 1964 brought passage of the Civil Rights Act, just as Freedom Riders headed to the South and race riots erupted in Harlem and Philadelphia.

In September, the Warren Commission released its report on the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and in November, Lyndon Johnson defeated Barry Goldwater to secure a full term in the White House. In December, Martin Luther King Jr. accepted the Nobel Peace Prize.

What was life in Oxford like when the Museum first opened in 1964? The population of Oxford in 1964 was around 750. The town was just transitioning from septic tanks and outhouses to its first sewer system. There was no development yet on Bachelor’s Point or Morgan’s Point, but on Jack’s Point in 1965, the entire 12 acres of farmland sold for $20,000.

Oxford’s white and Black families lived in separate neighborhoods and worshiped in separate churches. White and Black students attended Oxford elementary school together, but Talbot County schools were not integrated fully until 1966.

By the mid-1960s, two parasites (MSX and Dermo) had spread up the Bay, decimating the oyster populations. One by one, Oxford’s profitable packing houses were forced to shut down and lay off their workers. Oxford would never again be considered “a waterman’s town.”

The Oxford Museum was organized in 1964 with a total of 17 museum members and a budget of $300. The first gallery space, exhibiting the first donated artifacts, was opened on the second floor of the old municipal building on Factory Street (the current Town Hall building) after the Oxford Volunteer Fire Company moved to its new quarters on the Oxford Road.

“Oxford 1964: The Times They Were A-Changin’” will run through July 29 at the Oxford Museum, located at 101 S. Morris Street in Oxford. Admission to the Museum is free of charge and special programs are free to museum members.

An Opening Reception for museum members will be April 25. Museum hours are Friday through Monday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

For more information, visit oxfordmuseummd.org.