Exhibition highlights ‘N.J.’s Gilded Age’

A new exhibition, “New Jersey’s Gilded Age: Opulence, Struggle and Innovation,” has opened at the Cornelius Low House Museum. The museum is located at 1225 River Road, Piscataway.

Focusing on the years of 1870-1900, when New Jersey’s industrial growth was at its peak, the exhibit spotlights education and child labor, immigration, labor and the union movement, social classes and industry, as well as leisure time and philanthropy.

The exhibit includes artifacts such as objects found in tenements, expensive personal items and children’s toys.

Free educational workshops will highlight specific sections of the exhibit and give students a firsthand experience of what it was like to live during this period, an age rife with the excesses of wealth, abject poverty, unparalleled immigration, burgeoning industry, leisure, and a newfound interest toward philanthropy.

The exhibition is open Tuesday-Friday and Sunday, 1-4 p.m., through November 2009. School and large group tours are welcome by appointment. Call the museum, 732-745-4177, for more information.