Category Archives: Historical interpretation

Workshops for History Museums and Historic Sites

The American Association for State and Local History unveiled an assortment of workshops for spring (there’s one in every time zone!):

Project Management for History Professionals
Dates: March 7 – 8
Location: History Colorado, Denver, CO
Instructor: Dr. Steven Hoskins, Trevecca Nazarene University, Nashville, TN
Cost: $475 members / $550 nonmembers
$40 discount if payment is received by January 31 (coming up next week!)

This unique two-day workshop improves how history museums operate and serve their community by teaching the fundamentals of project management to history professionals. Everyday work—exhibitions, programming, fundraising, special events, outreach, and collections care—benefit from the knowledge gained. Registration for the onsite workshop also includes access to an online course with related material.

From Children to Adults: Public Programming at History Organizations
Dates: March 14 – 15
Location: Homestead Museum, City of Industry, CA
Instructors: Tim Grove, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; Alexandra Continue reading →

Historic Homeowners Get Special Behind-the-Scenes Access

Getting a closer look at the chimney in the 17th century Boardman House in Massachusetts.

Getting a closer look at the chimney in the 17th century Boardman House in Massachusetts.

This month Historic New England launched, “Insight on Site: Inside the Old House” to give historic homeowners an opportunity to go behind the scenes with staff and learn how to date building materials and identify architectural styles.

Insight on Site takes visitors into parts of Historic New England properties rarely seen by the public, such as the Modern house located adjacent to the newly acquired Eustis Estate in Milton, Massachusetts; a caretaker’s residence at the seventeenth-century Browne House in Watertown, Massachusetts; and the newly reacquired Jewett Eastman House in South Berwick, Maine. Free and exclusively for Historic Homeowner members, the series of four Insight on Site programs runs from January 12 to Continue reading →

Collecting Memories from Visitors

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Maymont, a Gilded Age estate that’s now a public park in Richmond, Virginia, has an extensive exhibit on the domestic servants in the first half of the twentieth century.  To continue to collect stories about and remember the many people who work in domestic service, the exhibit includes a small area that invites family, friends, and neighbors to share their memories with a label that reads:

Sharing Memories

In creating this painting–a symbolic tribute to the individuals who worked as domestic employees at Maymont–I felt special gratitude to my own loved ones.  My grandmother, mother, two aunts, and three uncles were all once employed on the Dooley staff.

Was there a significant person in your life who  Continue reading →

History News looks at Historical Interpretation

History News, Autumn 2012

History News, Autumn 2012

The autumn 2012 issue of History News arrived in my mailbox a couple weeks ago and its four feature articles on interpretation that will be of interest to historic sites:

  • “From Quiet Havens to Modern Agoras:  Libraries and Museums in an Era of Participatory Culture” by Nancy Rogers, Susanna Seidl-Fox, and Deborah Mack is a report, including the key overarching messages, from an international seminar held in Salzburg, Austria in October 2011.
  • “‘No More Wiggle-Tail Water’: Interpreting the History of Morgantown’s Water Supply at the West Virginia Botanic Garden” by Barbara Howe is a case study on integrating history in a place that focuses on horticulture and nature.
  • “When Histories Horrify: Supporting Visitors’ Responses through Responsible Interpretation” by Linda Norris, Danny Cohen, and Stacey Mann is a continuation of a session at the American Alliance of Museum’s annual meeting on the roles and responsibilities of museums in preserving and mediating horrific histories of crimes, violence, terrorism, and oppression, with references to the Kilmainham Gaol, Majdanek, Robben Island, and the Greensboro Woolworth.
  • “Entering the Mainstream:  Interpreting GLBT History” by Ken Turino and Susan Ferentinos addresses four common challenges (institutional policies on discussing sex, lack of documentary evidence, applying modern labels to historical figures, pressure to avoid controversial topics) using examples from Pendarvis, Walt Whitman House, Beauport, Sarah Orne Jewett House, Alice Austen House, and Charles Gibson House.

Also included are Continue reading →

Navigating a Changing Economy: A New Normal for Museums?

Exhibitionist, Fall 2012

Exhibitionist, Fall 2012

The Exhibitionist, the journal of the National Association for Museum Exhibition (NAME), has devoted its fall 2012 issue to the longterm impact of the economic downturn on the museums.  Daniel Spock, director of the Minnesota History Center, and Marilyn Hoyt, a fundraising consultant, discuss the trends affecting exhibitions but whose lessons can apply to other museum departments.  Spock believes that museums may be, “moving into a period of permanent instability–a special challenge for museums which have traditionally been in the continuity business.”  Hoyt sees that museums are compensating by relying more on in-house resources and phasing projects, often with good side effects, including more prototyping of ideas and a fresh look at familiar collections.

Complementing these opening articles are: Continue reading →

Virginia Turns Penal Colony into Art Colony

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I recently had an opportunity to visit the Occoquan Workhouse Prison, an early 20th century federal prison in northern Virginia, which was transformed by Fairfax County in 2008 into the Workhouse Arts Center, a collection of 100 artist studios and galleries.  Once regarded as a model for reform-minded incarceration with open dormitory-style residences accompanied by honest work on the surrounding country farm, its image was soon tarnished by the imprisonment and force-feeding of the women who were picketing the White House for suffrage–which helped turn public opinion against the Wilson Administration.  I had long known about this infamous event and wanted to get a better sense of the conditions.  At the small museum on site, I learned much about the prison’s history and the struggle for woman’s suffrage, however, I also learned that Continue reading →

The Many Flavors of Touring Historic Places

Monticello Explorer provides several virtual tours.

Monticello Explorer provides several virtual tours.

Although guided tours of period rooms is the most common form of interpretation at historic sites, audio tours, video tours, and virtual tours are growing in popularity thanks to technologies that are lowering the cost of production and increasing access to new audiences.  From a short list of examples, the students in my “historic site interpretation” class at George Washington University developed a list of ten best practices for different types of tours of historic sites.  You’ll discover that many of their suggestions emphasize the need for a plan, themes, and a focus–and projects that failed to have these elements were weaker and less effective.

A.  Guided Tours of Period Rooms

Reviewed by Johanna Bakmas, Melissa Dagenais, Emma Dailey
 

Suggested Best Practices

Do
  1. Develop an interpretive plan and themes
  2. Consult primary sources for the property
  3. Decide whether to have reproduction or original pieces Continue reading →

Interpretive Planning at Historic Sites is a Three-Part Harmony

Historic sites and house museums probably represent the largest type of museum in the United States, and yet less than a handful of books or articles have been written about the interpretation of historic sites in the last fifty years.   Part of this weakness can be attributed to the usual “last place” position that historic sites hold in terms of funding, staffing, and other resources, but it can also be due to the additional complexity of historic sites compared to other educational and cultural institutions. If you imagine interpretation as a melody, most museums can choose from all the keys on a piano and play the notes as desired, whereas historic sites have to play specific notes, such as the buildings and landscapes, and often in a certain order.   Nevertheless, all museums have to address three primary areas to effectively teach and educate:  content, audience, and method.

  1. Content:  This comprises all the potential and unique Continue reading →

Picturing the Seasonal Changes at Your Historic Site

Views of the exhibit gallery under construction in January, February, March, and April 2012 at the Museum of History and Industry.

The Museum of History and Industry in Seattle is moving into a new facility this year and to give the public a chance to experience the work and construction progress behind-the-scenes, they’ve installed a webcam overlooking the main exhibit gallery.  Webcams aren’t a new idea (remember the panda cubs at the National Zoo?) but what’s clever about the construction camera provided by OxBlue is that users can see timelapse movies and four views for different dates at the same time.

Many historic sites change their programs, events, and exhibits throughout the year to reflect the changing seasons, but I wonder if this same system could be used to Continue reading →

AASLH and AAM Align Efforts to Raise Standards and Practices

The American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) and the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) recently announced they will work together to raise awareness of national museum standards and align their assessment programs in order to streamline application and self-study processes.  The agreement outlines ways in which applicants of AAM’s Museum Assessment Program (MAP) will benefit after completing AASLH’s StEPs program, in other words,  AASLH and AAM have linked StEPs with MAP.  If you understand that sentence, you’ve been working in this field a long time.

What’s this mean for historic sites?  Both StEPs and MAP are great programs for improving your organization’s work, but they’re very different from each other.  StEPs allows you to Continue reading →