Sneak Peak at Clara Barton’s Office and Warehouse

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On April 18, I enjoyed a sneak peak of the restoration underway at Clara Barton’s Civil War-era office and warehouse on 7th Street in downtown Washington, DC–where she worked and lived before founding the American Red Cross in 1881.  The historic site opens to the public as a museum in fall 2014.

From the street, you’d never imagine that this was a nationally significant historic site.  It’s a simple three-story brick building surrounded by restaurants, towering condos and offices, popular museums, and a major sports arena.  Indeed, it was overlooked by those who were searching for it because it didn’t fit their image of a warehouse.  Its historical significance was forgotten for most of the century until 1997, when a nightwatchman hired to keep vagrants out of the vacant building noticed a document jutting out from the ceiling.  It turned out to be part of a cache of artifacts belonging to Clara Barton that had been stored in the Continue reading →

The Emergency Response Wheel has Turned into a Mobile App

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Long known as the authoritative resource for salvaging artifacts after a disaster, the Emergency Response and Salvage (ERS) Wheel has been used by historic sites, museums, libraries, and archives around the world.  In partnership with the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training, Heritage Preservation has turned the Wheel into a mobile application, providing invaluable guidance accessible to anyone who is in need of practical advice for saving collections in the first 48 hours after disaster strikes.

ERS app provides the same reliable content found in the original Wheel. The app outlines critical stages of disaster response and provides practical salvage tips for nine types of collections, from photographs to natural history specimens. ERS can help users protect precious collections and significant records, access reliable information instantly, and save damaged objects.

The “ERS: Emergency Response and Salvage” app is available free for Continue reading →

HBR: Working with Crowds to Innovate or Solve Problems

Harvard Business Review, April 2013

Harvard Business Review, April 2013

TrendsWatch 2012 identified crowdsourcing as one of the seven major trends affecting museums, allowing more people to volunteer in meaningful work.  If you’re not familiar with crowdsourcing, it’s a “process of soliciting content, solutions, and suggestions from an undefined set of participants via the Internet.”  The April 2013 issue of the Harvard Business Review includes two articles on working with crowds in different ways:  one to innovate and the other to solve problems.

In “Using the Crowd as an Innovation Partner“, authors Kevin Boudreau and Karim Lakhani claim that “for certain types of problems, crowds can outperform your company.  You just need to know when–and how–to use them.”  If you’re hesitant to work with large groups on a project, the authors have identified four ways that best use crowd-powered problem solving and how to manage them:

  1. Contests (example: Longitude Prize)  “The most straightforward way to engage a crowd is to create a contest.  The sponsor (the company) identifies a specific problem, offers a cash prize, and broadcasts an invitation to submit solutions.  Contests have cracked some of the toughest scientific challenges in history, including the search for a way to determine longitude at sea.”
  2. Collaborative communities (example:  Wikipedia).  “Like contests, collaborative communities have a long and rich history.  They were critical to the development of Continue reading →

History News reprises Salt Lake City meeting and more

History News, Winter 2013

History News, Winter 2013

The Winter 2013 issue of History News, the quarterly magazine of the American Association for State and Local History, just hit my desk and focuses on the annual meeting held last fall in Salt Lake City.  Featured are the speeches of out-going president Stephen Elliott, award-winner Robert Archibald, and keynote speaker Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, which include such memorable quotes about history and museums, such as:

  • Ulrich:  “It is a truism that without sources there is no history, but we also need to understand those sources.  Most people who had looked at Martha Ballard’s diary said it was filled with mundane detail of little interest, filled with trivia.  The same has been said of Patty Sessions.  What I want to emphasize is that there is, if not drama in these humdrum records, a powerful story.  It is a history that pushes back against conventional sources.”
  • Elliott:  “To appreciate who others are and where they’re coming from, it’s important to Continue reading →

Sequestration to Hit Smithsonian Collections

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Congress’ recently enacted sequestration cuts funds at many federal agencies, including the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.  Secretary Wayne Clough announced today that sequestration would not affect public visiting hours nor result in staff layoffs, however, “we can no longer be the nation’s attic. Congress has provided us an ideal opportunity to re-examine the value of collections in our overburdened system.” Clough provided few details except that he has directed each of the Smithsonian’s departments to determine how to reduce their collections by 8 percent—the across-the-board amount adopted by Congress in the sequester.

Response by Smithsonian staff has been mixed. Most departments are still developing solutions but questions remain. The Smithsonian holds about 137 million artifacts, more than 90 percent in the National Museum of Natural History. “We’re currently uncertain if an 8 percent reduction applies to the quantity or volume,” said Terry Erwin, curator of coleoptera in the department of entomology. “We have hundreds of Continue reading →

NEH Shares Film Series on Civil Rights

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The National Endowment for the Humanities and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History recently launched Created Equal, a new program to bring four nationally-acclaimed films on civil rights to historic sites, museums, and libraries.  They can easily fill a summer series of programs when accompanied by an historian and spark a conversation about your community’s experience with civil rights.

The films include:

  • The Abolitionists.  A small group of moral reformers in the 1830s launched one of the most ambitious social movements imaginable: the immediate emancipation of millions of African Americans who were enslaved. 
  • Slavery by Another Name.  Even as slavery ended in the south after the Civil War, new forms of forced labor kept thousands of African Americans in bondage until the onset of World War II. Produced and directed by Sam Pollard. 
  • Loving Story.  The moving account of Richard and Mildred Loving, who were arrested in 1958 for violating Virginia’s ban on interracial marriage. Their struggle culminated in a landmark Supreme Court decision, Loving v. Virginia (1967). 
  • Freedom Riders.  The Freedom Rides of 1961 were a pivotal moment in the long Civil Rights struggle that redefined America. This documentary film offers an inside look at the brave band of activists who challenged segregation in the Deep South. 

Up to 500 communities across the nation will receive these four inspiring NEH-funded films, accompanied by programming resources to guide public conversations. Each participating site will receive an award of up to $1,200 to support public programming exploring the themes of the Created Equal project.  Applications are due May 1, 2013 and open to museums and historical societies; humanities councils; public, academic, and community college libraries; and nonprofit community organizations.