Author Archives: Max van Balgooy

About Max van Balgooy

President of Engaging Places LLC, a design and strategy firm that connects people to historic places.

Montpelier Archaeologists Discover James Madison’s Threshing Machine

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The rich red clay at Montpelier, the Virginia home of the Father of the Constitution has given up more secrets: the remnants of James Madison’s barn and threshing machine, and evidence that Dolley’s son destroyed both in an attempt to remove the machine from Montpelier before the new owner took possession.

As archaeologists excavated the field slave quarters this summer, they found perplexing evidence they had to research and decipher. First, they found bits of iron that appeared to be pieces of machinery, which indicated that the building was used to house farming equipment. Then, in the soil layers below the iron pieces, they found a trench, which proved to be the outline of a 16-foot x 16-foot building. The trench also contained a set of postholes that held more iron pieces. “The iron and postholes in the trench tell us that the building was modified to allow a piece of machinery to be mounted inside the building,” said Dr. Matthew Reeves, Montpelier director of archaeology and landscape restoration.

More digging revealed bits of bone and ceramics, which indicate that Continue reading →

AASLH Meets in Salt Lake City

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The American Association for State and Local History held its annual meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah last week, attracting about 600 staff, volunteers, and board members of history organizations around the country (and about 30 of them were from the Minnesota Historical Society). Four days of educational sessions, workshops, speeches, and receptions kept everyone busy and thinking about improving our work as historians, educators, collections managers, curators, and directors of historical societies, museums, and historic sites. I’ll provide more reports in the future, but for now, enjoy some pics from the meeting.

DC Historic House Museums host Biennial Symposium

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Working in historic house museums often can often seem like an isolated job but not in the nation’s capital, where there is the Historic House Museum Consortium of Washington, DC, an active association of forty sites that mutually support and promote each other. Every two years they also host a half-day symposium that attracts about one hundred museum guides, docents, and interpreters. This year it was held on September 17 at the impressive George Washington Masonic Memorial in Alexandria, Virginia and I joined Dr. George McDaniel of Drayton Hall and Rebecca Martin of the National Archives to talk about various aspects of tours and the visitor experience:

George laid out that the visitor experience is much more than the tour and extends to the visitors’ planning, arrival, and departure. He emphasized the importance of little things, such as the directional signage, staff hospitality, and the condition of grounds and restrooms can have on visitors’ attitudes even before the tour starts
In “Before You Get Engaged: Advice for Lovers of History and Historic Sites,” a light-hearted perspective on visitor engagement, I discussed three issues to consider before getting engaged with visitors: don’t marry a stranger (know your audience), don’t share everything you know about a site on a tour (keep it mysterious), and let them know what you care about (keep your passion alive).
Becky closed the session with Continue reading →

AASLH Meeting in Salt Lake City Today

I’m currently at the annual meeting of the American Association for State and Local History in Salt Lake City, Utah, not only enjoying the camaraderie of friends and colleagues, but also attending a board meeting, moderating two sessions, and speaking at a breakfast of historic house museum and visitor research leaders. If you are attending, I’d love to meet you so please say hello (as a reader of this blog, you have the advantage!) or stop by:

Historic House Museums and Visitor Voices Breakfast on Friday, October 5 at 7 am, when Conny Graft and I will be discussing the perception gap between visitors and historic sites.
Re-imaging Historic Sites: Three Roads to the Same Destination on Friday, October 5 at 10:45 am. I’ll be joined by visitor research consultant Conny Graft, preservation architect Barbara Campagna, and house museum director Gwendolen Raley.
Meshing Mission and Community: Identifying Strategies for Engagement on Saturday, October 6 at 9:00 am. I’ll be joined by Deborah Schwartz of the Brooklyn Historical Society and Lorraine McConaghy of the Museum of History and Industry.

When I return, I’ll have lots to share so look for those posts in the coming weeks.

Los Angeles to Host International Conference on Care and Interpretation of Collections in Historic Houses

Los Angeles is hosting a four-day international conference on the care and interpretation of collections in historic house museums on November 6-9, 2012 called, The Artifact, its Context, and their Narrative: Multidisciplinary Conservation in Historic House Museums. A half dozen organizations are sponsoring and hosting the conference, including ICOM-DEMHIST (the international committee for historic house museums), three ICOM conservation working groups, the Getty Conservation Institute, Getty Research Institute, the University of Southern California’s School of Architecture/Heritage Conservation Program, and the Gamble House. Historic sites encounter some of the most challenging preservation issues in the museum field because it is often impossible to maintain environmental conditions that are ideal for the collections, building, and visitors. Indeed, some leaders in the field have wondered whether historic sites should be even considered museums because it establishes such an impossible standard.

The four-day conference consists of two days of site visits (such as the Gamble House, Huntington Library, Eames House, and Will Rogers Ranch) and two days of presentations and lectures. Sarah Staniforth (National Trust UK) and Linda Young (Deakin University) will be providing broad overview presentations on the challenges and opportunities facing collections in historic sites, but most of the presentations are Continue reading →

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Archives Transferred from his Homes to NYC

Taliesen, Spring Green, Wisconsin, 1932. Drawing by Frank Lloyd Wright.

The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, which owns and operates Taliesen and Taliesen West–the homes and studios last used by Frank Lloyd Wright–has transferred its architectural archives of papers, drawings, and models to the Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library at Columbia University and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The collection includes more than 23,000 architectural drawings, about 40 large-scale, architectural models, some 44,000 photographs, 600 manuscripts and more than 300,000 pieces of office and personal correspondence. “The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation takes seriously its responsibility to serve the public good by ensuring the best possible conservation, accessibility, and impact of one of the most important and meaningful archives in the world,” said Sean Malone, CEO of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. “Given the individual strengths, resources and abilities of the Foundation, MoMA and Columbia, it became clear that this collaborative stewardship is far and away the best way to guarantee the deepest impact, the highest level of conservation and the best public access.”

The decision to transfer the collections couldn’t have been easy for the Foundation–it’s a significant part of their identity with tremendous historical and cultural value. Admitting you can’t care for a collection is difficult–but organizations should regularly ask themselves if they’re the only ones to do this work and if someone else can do it better. It’s especially tough at historic sites and house museums–they typically have the most complex collections management issues of any museum. Not only are they caring for Continue reading →

Schedule Change for ½ Day Workshop at AASLH Annual Meeting

“Connecting Visitors with Inspired Staff: Training Front-line Staff and Volunteers” will be on Wednesday, October 3, 2012, from 1:30-5 p.m. (not Saturday)

As history professionals, we believe that our sites are special places. Helping visitors
find a connection to these places is at the core of what we do—and is essential for our
long-term sustainability. Every year, visitor research and learning theory provide us with
more information about what the public wants from their visits to museums and historic
sites. Yet we often fail to translate this data into meaningful training that enables our
frontline staff to create excellent experiences for our guests. Instead, guided tours and
interpretive programs often take the form of mini lectures on the topics that interest
the front-line interpretive staff or docents. “Connecting Visitors with Inspired Staff:
Training Front-line Staff and Volunteers” will give participants an opportunity to Continue reading →

Video Highlights Internships at Old Sturbridge Village

Smith College student interning at the dye pit at Old Sturbridge Village.

Smith College, a liberal arts college in Massachusetts, recently highlighted the internships of two students at Old Sturbridge Village in a well-produced online video. Yup, they had these nice college students wearing 19th century clothes in 19th century buildings (with 21st century flies) cooking on an open fire, making cheese, and working in the dye pit to learn about life in the 19th century–and about museums. Smith College provides the funding for the internships through their Praxis program, allowing students to explore careers they may not have considered otherwise. Thanks to Sandy Lloyd for sharing this!

Highlights from the Latest Journal of Travel Research

I doubt many people read the Journal of Travel Research (yes, there are such things!) but I’ve been referring to it in preparation for a presentation at the Historic House Museum Consortium of Washington, DC. Looking at the September 2012 issue of the Journal of Travel Research, I thought I’d share some of the highlights from articles that might interest historic sites and house museums:

In “GPS as a Method for Assessing Spatial and Temporal Use Distributions of Nature-Based Tourists,” Jeffery Hallo et al examine the use of GPS devices to study visitor behavior in national parks (an idea that can be easily be applied to large historic sites). This research typically has to be done either by asking visitors to recall their experiences in a survey or by asking visitors to record their own behavior in diaries–both cumbersome and highly subjective methods. GPS provides a better way to study human behavior, but so far the inaccuracy and cost has been major hurdles. A test of three of the newest GPS devices, however, shows that these hurdles have been overcome by Continue reading →

HBO CEO named Mt. Vernon CEO; A Step Backwards IMHO

George Washington’s Mount Vernon

Today, Curtis G. Viebranz becomes the president and chief executive officer of George Washington’s Mount Vernon. Unfortunately, this decision by the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association is a step backward for its mission, history, education, preservation, and ironically, women, too. Viebranz succeeds James C. Rees III, who retired in June. Here’s an excerpt from the official announcement:

Viebranz brings to Mount Vernon more than twenty years of experience at major multinational Internet and cable enterprises, including a successful tenure as president of HBO International, the global arm of Time Warner’s Home Box Office unit. Prior to that, as Time Warner turned its attention to digital distribution strategies, Viebranz was tapped to serve as the first president of Time Inc. Multimedia. During his seventeen-year career at Time Warner and its predecessor company, Time Inc., Viebranz built an impressive resume, also serving as president of Time Inc. Europe and HBO Video.

After departing Time Warner, Viebranz helped to launch Continue reading →