Fort Ticonderoga has announced the appointment of Matthew Keagle to serve as Curator of Collections at Fort Ticonderoga, one of the oldest and most significant historic site and museum in North America.
“Matthew begins his tenure as Curator with tremendous vision and enthusiasm for the future as we move forward with bold plans toward an expanded curatorial program,” said Beth Hill, Fort Ticonderoga President and CEO. “He is extremely competent as a leader in the museum profession and has a clear and passionate commitment to developing a premier comprehensive curatorial program that will bring to center stage Fort Ticonderoga’s world renowned collections through exhibitions, digital media, research, programming, and publications.”
“Fort Ticonderoga has always been at the forefront of collecting and interpreting the conflicts that shaped the 18th century. It is a great honor to be entrusted with forwarding a mission begun over a century ago and build upon my predecessor’s excellent work,” said Matthew Keagle. “Material culture represents the most immediate and honest record of the past. The things people engage with everyday are subjected to alteration, wear, and use that reveal many stories if we take the time to look. Fort Ticonderoga’s enviable collections contain all of the elements to narrate the layered stories of this remarkable place and the people that shaped it. Archeological collections reveal what actually happened here at Ticonderoga, while the artifacts collected in the 20th century give context to the archeological material, and the library collections position all of it in the broader theoretical understanding of the 18th century, making the mute objects of Ticonderoga’s past relevant and meaningful in the present.”
Matthew Keagle joined Fort Ticonderoga’s leadership team in May of 2014, serving as Director of Exhibitions. He was named Interim Curator in December 2014 and was recently named Fort Ticonderoga’s Curator of Collections. As the new Curator of Collections, Keagle will utilize his training, scholarship, expertise, and experience to present, augment, and preserve Fort Ticonderoga’s extensive library, archival, and artifact collections as well as oversee Fort Ticonderoga’s broader cultural resources.
Originally from Vermont, Matthew Keagle has been involved in curation, exhibitions, research, historical interpretation, and program development for historic sites and museums in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Delaware, Virginia, North and South Carolina. He holds a Bachelors degree from Cornell University, a Masters in American Material Culture from the Winterthur Museum, and is currently writing a cultural history of military dress in the Revolutionary Atlantic as a doctoral candidate at the Bard Graduate Center in New York.