Qualla: Atlantic City Historical Museum

Atlantic City Historical Museum: Introduction

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

There is a life-sized Mr. Peanut at the Atlantic City Historical Museum. The Planters Peanut mascot - top hat, monocle, cane, peanut-shell body - was created in 1916 by a fourteen-year-old contest entrant in Suffolk, Virginia, and went on to become one of the most recognizable advertising characters in American history. Atlantic City held the rights to Mr. Peanut for a stretch of the twentieth century when Planters operated one of its East Coast plants nearby. The museum's life-sized version is a relic of that era - one piece of a collection that also includes a hundred and fifty years of boardwalk photographs, original Miss America dresses, and a documentary loop showcasing the strange, vivid history of a city that has been many cities at once.

Atlantic City Historical Museum: Florence Miller's Project

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Atlantic City Historical Museum opened in 1985. Its three co-founders were Florence Valore Miller, the photographer and writer Vicki Gold Levi, and the curator Anthony Kutschera. Miller was the driving force - a longtime Atlantic City resident who had watched the city's decli...

Atlantic City Historical Museum: Al Gold's Camera

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

From 1939 through 1964, Al Gold worked as Atlantic City's official photographer. His job was to document the city's official events, the visiting celebrities, the boardwalk crowds, the conventions, the storms. He produced thousands of images that recorded Atlantic City's mid-twen...

Atlantic City Historical Museum: Miss America Dresses

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Because the Miss America pageant began at Garden Pier in 1921 - and was held in Atlantic City for nearly every year until 2006, then sporadically afterward - the museum has accumulated a collection of original dresses worn by the winners. Some are evening gowns. Some are swimsuit...

Atlantic City Historical Museum: Moving Out of Garden Pier

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In 2016 the museum's original Garden Pier location closed when developer Bart Blatstein - the Philadelphia businessman who would later own the Playground Pier - purchased Garden Pier and announced redevelopment plans; the museum's final day on the pier was August 6, 2016. The mus...

Atlantic City Historical Museum: What Survives

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Atlantic City Historical Museum has become, by accident as much as by intention, the primary repository of physical evidence for the city's storied past. Atlantic City demolishes buildings faster than most cities preserve them. The Marlborough-Blenheim Hotel was demolished in...