The Bethesda Historical Society, established in 2020 in Maryland, has made a commendable stride by crafting a collections management policy ahead of their growing collection of 400 artifacts and documents. Thanks to a local foundation grant, the Historical Society enlisted Mary van Balgooy from Engaging Places to develop a policy that aligns with professional standards and is manageable by a small organization using PastPerfect.
We’re thrilled to share this policy as a benchmark for small museums and historical societies. It succinctly addresses mission; roles of board, staff, and volunteers; ethical and legal aspects; collection scope, definitions, acquisitions, loans, documentation, appraisals, intellectual property, and policy reviews—all within a concise 15 pages!
This small selection of historic sites operated by The National Society of The Colonial Dames reveals the enormous diversity of house museums and historic sites in the United States.
In 2007, I helped organize the Forum on Historic Site Stewardship in the 21st Century, which resulted in an influential issue of Forum Journal that laid out the major challenges and opportunities, including the need for financial sustainability, a willingness to change in response to the needs of the community, and a balance between the needs of buildings, landscapes, collections, and the visiting public. It also recognized that museum standards may not be the best practices for historic sites and that the profession “must develop new measures, beyond attendance, that document the quality of visitor engagement at sites and the extent of community outreach beyond the bounds of historic sites.”
So what has happened in the 16 years that followed? We’ll find out this week as the American Association for State and Local History hosts a virtual summit on the Sustainability, Relevance, and the Future of Historic House Museums on July 11-12. Sessions will address measuring the impact of house museums, broadening interpretation, care of buildings and landscapes, and the evolution of mission statements.
Scholars reviewing the archives at the Haas-Lilienthal House.
The National Endowment for the Humanities, a federal granting agency, recently announced a special grant program to support interpretive planning at small organizations for up to $25,000, no match required.
What does “small” mean? You need to meet at least two of the following:
Annual operating expenses of less than $1,000,000
Located in a community with less than 300,000 residents
A staff of less than 50 people
Rely primarily on volunteers or part-time staff.
A mission to interpret under-told stories or serving a non-traditional audience
Hmm…that describes most history organizations in the US, so if you’re reading this post, you’re probably eligible.
Now, what will it support? Nearly anything that improves or enhances the interpretation of your collection, site, or community, such as:
help you think creatively about the hidden strengths of your collections or historic site
generate new ideas for engaging with the community
train staff and volunteers on interpretive methods and techniques
develop a framework for developing public programs
creating interpretive plans for exhibitions, tours, or school programs
visiting other historic sites or museums to sharpen skills and knowledge
evaluating existing tours or exhibitions
testing new programs for their ability to engage new audiences
conducting historical research to support new interpretive themes
Projects must include at least one scholar from a humanities discipline (e.g., history) or one consultant specializing in interpretation to the public (Engaging Places can help you with this), as well as at least one expert on your local community.
Applications are due June 28, 2023 for one to two year projects beginning between March 1 and May 1, 2024. You will need all of that time to prepare an application and NEH will read draft applications submitted by May 24. Remember to register in advance with the System for Award Management (SAM) and Grants.gov—those are steps you cannot do at the last minute.
The Class of 2022 celebrating their graduation from the HLI Seminar.
The History Leadership Institute, AASLH’s professional development program for mid-career history professionals, introduced its long-running Seminar in a new format in June.
In 1959, the Seminar began as an effort to train newly graduated history students and directors of history museums in the unique skills of managing museums, historic sites, and archives in a six-week program held at Colonial Williamsburg, During the decades that followed, the Seminar has continually changed to meet the needs of the field and explore new and emerging practices.
Washington County Museum of Fine Arts, Hagerstown, Maryland.
On my first day on the road, I made my first stop just after an hour in Hagerstown, Maryland to see the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts. Set in a county park near its historic downtown, it has a surprisingly fine collection of American and European art from 17th to 19th century. Exemplary portraits by the Peale family, bronze sculptures by Rodin, vases by Tiffany and Lalique, and pots by George Ohr are found among its collections of 7,000 objects–that’s small compared to most art museums. Along with displaying their collections, they also organize temporary exhibitions, such as one on Joshua Johnson (ca. 1763-1824) of Baltimore, the first professional African-American painter. Anna Brugh Singer and her husband William H. Singer, Jr. (heirs to a family fortune, not of sewing machine fame) established the museum in the 1931 after they had traveled the world.
More interesting, however, was my discussion with board president Roger Fairbourn and curator Daniel Fulco about the vision of the museum. It’s clear they don’t want to collect more to become another Metropolitan Museum of Art, but they do plan to grow. They are hosting more ambitious traveling exhibitions, such as the current one on 17th century Italian paintings. They are adding more facilities for education, but that’s in response to community interest. They are expanding their collections, but it is to diverse their American art by including under-represented stories and move further into the 20th century. They also recognize their primary audience is the surrounding four counties, not tourists. Their strengths are uncommon and a refreshing change from the usual bigger-is-better, get-more-tourists mentality that usually infests the minds of museums. This is a tough position to take because it goes against the usual metrics, in this case, smaller is better.
Washington County Museum of Fine Arts, Hagerstown, Maryland.
Another surprise: a board president who can explain the history of the museum, its vision for the future, and discuss the significance of the current exhibition. I happened to run into him accident, when he caught me taking photos outside and stopped to chat. When I expressed my interest in the history and management of the museum, he took me around to the side of the museum to explain the physical evolution of the building, then took me inside to talk about the exhibitions and their vision. While we were chatting, he noticed another visitor was puzzled by the Johnson exhibition, so he stopped to describe its significance and pointed out a painting that might interest her. And he didn’t do it by flaunting his position at the museum (he just introduced himself as Roger). What!? If anyone on your board of trustees can do this, you’re in luck. Most can’t.
Visiting these small art museums verifies that small history museums, which dominant the field, can be effective and worthy organizations. They just need to develop a vision that pursues impact on their audience rather than size of collections or attendance.
The pandemic is prompting changes throughout museums and history organizations, including the processing of deeds of gift for collection acquisitions. It is the muddy stretch of the road. I’d prepare two deeds of gift, use sticky notes to show where to sign, attach a cover sheet asking the donor to sign both copies and return one to the museum, and enclose a self-addressed stamped envelope to encourage a quick response. Finally, you drop the packet in the mail and hope to hear from the donor soon. Otherwise, it entailed more follow-up that could take weeks, sometimes months, to complete. Meanwhile, the new acquisition stared at you from the shelves in limbo every time you walked into storage.
To streamline the process, the San Diego History Center recently adopted DocuSign, an online service that allows documents to be signed and returned quickly. No need for scanning signatures or using a mouse to write out an illegible name. DocuSign uses your name to craft a “signature” in a script typeface. I recently completed a house sale using DocuSign and sailed through piles of paperwork with ease.
Workshop with Brock Jobe during the Program in New England Studies.
This summer Historic New England is offering its Program in New England Studies (PINES), an intensive week-long exploration of New England decorative arts and architecture from Monday, June 17 to Saturday, June 22, 2019. This biennial program explores New England history and culture from the seventeenth century to the Colonial Revival through workshops, lectures, and visits to Historic New England properties, other museums, and private homes and collections. Highlights include the restored Quincy House Museum, the recently opened museum and study center at the Eustis Estate, and a champagne reception on the terrace of Beauport, the Sleeper-McCann House on Gloucester Harbor.
Registration is $1,600 and includes all lectures, admissions, transportation to special visits and excursions, daily breakfast and lunch, evening receptions, and various service charges. Participation is limited to 24 museum professionals, museum board members, collectors, and graduate students and will next be offered in 2021. Multiple scholarships are available for mid-career museum professionals and graduate students in the fields of architecture, decorative arts, material culture, or public history. At least one scholarship is available for a candidate from diverse cultural backgrounds. All are encouraged to apply. For more information, visit HistoricNewEngland.org or contact Ken Turino, Manager of Community Engagement and Exhibitions, at 617-994-5958.
This fall I’ll be teaching a project management class in the Museum Studies Program at George Washington University (GW) and the final project will be writing a grant application to the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). The final project gives graduate students a real-life experience and provides museums with a foundation for an Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) grant application.
If you’ve been thinking about applying for IMLS grant to improve the care of your collections, better engage your community, or improve learning through your museum but have been too busy or unsure where to begin, GW graduate students may be able to help. It’s part of our effort to serve the museum field, especially smaller institutions that are often juggling too many responsibilities without sufficient resources.
IMLS’ Museums for America (MFA) is one of the best federal grant programs available because it supports “projects that strengthen the ability of an individual museum to serve its public.” That’s pretty flexible but projects do need to focus on one of three areas: Continue reading →
San Diego’s Comic-Con, the international conference “dedicated to creating awareness of, and appreciation for, comics and related popular artforms,” has morphed into one of the biggest events in the nation with attendance topping 130,000 people. It’s also spawned local versions around the country, including Indianapolis at the end of this month.
The Indiana Historical Society has cleverly combined its mission to connect “people to the past by collecting, preserving and sharing the state’s history” with the interests of the Comic Con audience by creating “Comic CONservation.” Participants will “learn how professionals use science and technology to restore and care for comic books” plus they get to play vintage arcade games and see original Ray Bradbury cover art from the nearby Center for Ray Bradbury Studies at IUPUI. Wow! IHS collections consists primarily of documents and photographs, plus they have a team of conservators working in a state-of-the-art paper conservation lab (The forceps are strong with this one), so they are drawing on their strengths to reach a new audience. Can’t wait to hear how this turns out (especially if people can dress as their favorite comic book character!).
Do you have a clever idea for using conservation or preservation to reach a new audience? Please share it in the comments below.
“I cannot live without books,” said Thomas Jefferson in this letter on display at the New-York Historical Society.
Did you know that one of the largest collection of manuscripts related to Thomas Jefferson are in Massachusetts, not Virginia? And for a few months, 36 of these documents and artifacts are on display in Thomas Jefferson: The Private Man at the New-York Historical Society. It’s not much but it’s amazing. I’ve read about them over the years and sometimes seen images, but there’s nothing like seeing Jefferson’s actual garden book, his last letter to John Adams, his sketch of a slave cabin, manuscript leafs from his Notes on the State of Virginia, early drawings of Monticello, a copy of the Declaration of Independence in Jefferson’s hand, and the oft-quoted letter that states, “I cannot live without books.” Cool!
“Thomas Jefferson: The Private Man” at the New-York Historical Society.
So how did they get to Massachusetts? President Jefferson’s granddaughter, Ellen Wayles Randolph, married Joseph Coolidge of Boston in 1825. Their son purchased Jefferson’s documents from the Randolph family in 1898 and donated them to the Massachusetts Historical Society, where he was a member. The collection continued to grow with gifts from subsequent generations and are now digitized and available online thanks to a grant from Save America’s Treasures (a superb funding program that was eliminated by President Obama in 2010, alas).
But the ties between Massachusetts and Virginia continue. Their granddaughter, Dr. Catherine Coolidge Lastavica, loved the family history so much that in 1968 she built the Brick House on the family estate in Manchester, Massachusetts, modeling it on the George Wythe House in Williamsburg, Virginia—that’s where Jefferson studied law under Wythe’s tutelage. Historic New England recently accepted the Brick House as a study property and conference facility in partnership with the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Center. Wow, what a small world.
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But the ties between Massachusetts and Virginia continue. Their granddaughter, Dr. Catherine Coolidge Lastavica, loved the family history so much that in 1968 she built the Brick House on the family estate in Manchester, Massachusetts, modeling it on the George Wythe House in Williamsburg, Virginia—that’s where Jefferson studied law under Wythe’s tutelage. 
Engaging Places 