Historic Homeowners Get Special Behind-the-Scenes Access

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

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

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 →

Video: ABC of Architects

For all you architecture and preservation buffs, a short fun video for Friday on The ABC of Architects from fedelpeye on Vimeo. How many do you recognize? Thanks to Conny Graft for alerting me to this new video.

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 →

Compact Calendar for 2013

Detail from the Compact Calendar

Happy New Year!

For those who plan events, programs, and activities months ahead of time, I’ve updated my Compact Calendar for 2013 based on a design by David Seah. The entire year is listed on one page as a continuous series rather than broken out by months so you can quickly calculate time between dates and avoid getting messed up by months with five Mondays. In addition, it includes major holidays to schedule towards or around them, as needed. I’ll use the Compact Calendar to plot out all my events and deadlines for the year to ensure they don’t pile up too much in one place, and I’ll place a copy in a project file to have a handy calendar to determine milestones and coordinate tasks. If the last three sentences didn’t make any sense, you probably don’t need this calendar (and if they do, this calendar will make your year happier!).

For more time and project organization ideas, visit David Seah’s blog (I use his emergent task planner as well).

See You Next Year!

This will be the last post for this year as I close out 2012 with a couple weeks of vacation from posting on this blog (but I’ll probably be updating the design and layout). Thanks to all my readers and especially those who shared their thoughts, comments, and recommendations via comments and emails.

I launched the EngagingPlaces blog on October 24, 2011, so I’m also celebrating a one-year+ anniversary with some statistics for those who like them:

The top referrers for 2012 (how readers find the blog)

Google Search
Facebook
Twitter
Linked In

Not so much through Bing, Yahoo, Pinterest, delicious, or StumbleUpon. Although Google Reader and NetVibes weren’t among the top, their popularity surprised me so perhaps folks are becoming convinced of the benefits of news aggregators).

See you in 2013!

Donations Aren’t Keeping Pace with NPO Growth

In its December 6, 2012 issue, the Chronicle of Philanthropy reported that, “the nonprofit world continues to grow both in number of organizations and in its share of the U. S. work force” but “fundraising isn’t keeping pace”–and the gap is especially wide for those working in arts, culture, and humanities (that includes historic sites and house museums). If you felt that you’ve been spinning your wheels in the last few years, you can now confirm it with some national statistics.

In the last decade (2000-2010), the number of charities that focused on arts, culture, and humanities grew at 45% but the rise in revenue was only 26%–the bottom of the eight fields studied. Compare that to health-related charities, whose number grew at 22.4% but their revenues rose by 96.6%. At the top of the revenue growth for the decade were Continue reading →