Historic Sites Gather in Tennessee to Share Challenges and Solutions

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Last week I led an AASLH workshop with George McDaniel on the management of historic house museums at Oaklands, a mid-nineteenth century house in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.  Eighteen people participated, most from Tennessee, but we had a couple from as far as Alaska!  Adding to the diversity were several graduate students from Middle Tennessee State University (which has strong programs in history, public history, and historic preservation) and even though it was near the end of the semester and finals were on their minds, they helped enrich the discussions.

One of the features in the workshop is that every participant brings an issue or problem that they’d like to address.   The range is wide and unpredictable, but it’s a helpful way to check the pulse on the challenges facing historic sites.  In this class, these issues were:

  1. How to prevent staff burn-out (how to keep growing despite small staff; finding the right mix of skills for staff)
  2. How to fund preservation and staffing. Continue reading →

Historic Visitors Help Connect to Today’s Visitors

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Modern visitors encounter historic visitors in Annapolis, Maryland, a clever way to connect people to the past.  In their visitor center on the waterfront, the Historic Annapolis Foundation installed a wall of life-size images of famous and popular celebrities who have visited Annapolis during the past two hundred years.  The main label reads:

Who are these people, and why are they here?

You may recognize a few of them, or perhaps all of them.

Each of these people is famous for one reason or another, and each spent time in Annapolis.  Some were here in the recent past, while others many years ago.  Some passed through the city on a whirlwind tour, and some called Annapolis home.

But what does George Washington have in common with Sarah Jessica Parker?  The Marquis de Lafayette with Mark Twain?  Amelia Earhart with Michelle Obama?

Their common bond is that each of them could return to Annapolis today and recognize downtown because of Historic Annapolis.  Thanks to historic preservation, Annapolitans Continue reading →

Dr. Laurie Ossman Joins Newport Preservation Society

The Preservation Society of Newport County is pleased to announce the appointment of Laurie Ossman, Ph.D. as its new Director of Museum Affairs. Dr. Ossman is currently a Research Historian for the Smithsonian Institution’s forthcoming History of America in 101 Objects.  She was previously the Director of Woodlawn and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Pope-Leighey House, Historic Sites of the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Alexandria, Virginia. She has also held curatorial positions at Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, the Henry Morrison Flagler Museum, and the Maryland Historical Society.

“This is an exceptional appointment for the Preservation Society,” said CEO & Executive Director Trudy Coxe. “Dr. Ossman brings both intellectual rigor and down-to-earth museum experience to this critical leadership position. We are excited to add her breadth of museum experience and academic achievement to the leadership of our combined museum affairs activities.”

The Director of Museum Affairs provides vision and leadership on curatorial, conservation, research and educational initiatives at the Continue reading →

Video: the Mast Brothers

Take a break today and be inspired by this video on the Mast Brothers, a small chocolate maker in Brooklyn.  It’s a combination of craft, history, and biography in a well produced short film by The Scout.  For historic sites that interpret processes past or present, such as food production, building construction, archaeology, or historical research, this might be an engaging approach.

Profiling Your Members Will Improve Engagement

This week I’m teaching a workshop on historic house museum management with George McDaniel for the American Association for State and Local History.  It’s great fun working with people from all over the country because we learn so much from each other.

One of the most popular sections is membership (who doesn’t want more supporters?).  George uses his experience from Drayton Hall to demonstrate some techniques in the tour for showing “membership dollars at work,” which gets visitors so excited that many join at the end of the tour.  With members in more than 7,500 households in all 50 states, Drayton Hall must have one of the nation’s largest membership programs for an historic site, so their techniques work.

I provide a complementary perspective, using profiles to understand member motivations and interests.  In an exercise, I have the class combine a mission statement with a member profile to develop a membership program or activity.  I’m always surprised by Continue reading →

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 →