Category Archives: Historical interpretation

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 →

Outdoor Interpretive Panel for Hot Humid Places

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During a recent visit to Middleton Place, an historic site in Charleston, South Carolina, I spotted an outdoor interpretive sign that’s so nicely crafted that it’s withstood several years of weathering outdoors.  The wooden frame supports a one-inch thick plywood panel (two thinner panels secured together) whose edges are sealed and entire surface painted black (black is Middleton’s standard color for sign posts).  The interpretive sign is printed on a 1/16″ thick sheet of vinyl (or a similar synthetic material) and glued onto the face of the panel.  The top edge of the sign is protected from rain by a copper cap. One corner of the vinyl has turned up over time, but otherwise, the sign seems to be in perfect condition, despite the heat and humidity of summer in the Lowcountry.

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 →

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 →

AASLH Workshops for Historic Sites

The American Association for State and Local History offers a wide range of educational workshops and professional training that is particularly helpful for staff and volunteers for work at historic sites and house museums–if you know where to look.  I’ve previously mentioned the sessions during its annual meeting but people often forget that it also has half-day and day-long workshops before and after the annual meeting to explore topics in depth.  What most people don’t know is that you can register for just these workshops; you don’t have to attend the annual meeting–a great advantage for local folks!

This year, AASLH is offering 14 workshops, including: