Historic House Museums
Historic House Museums

Author: Sherry Butcher-Younghans

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 1996-02-08

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 0195355504

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Historic house museums can be found in nearly every city in the United States and Canada. These are the homes of the earliest settlers, statesmen, frontiersmen, great writers, artists, architects, and industrial magnates. These are the places, carefully saved and preserved, that represent a cultural heritage. Despite their popularity, it is not uncommon to find museums that are in poor repair, their collections neglected and their staffs grossly overworked. Many are run by well-meaning and hard-working volunteers who have little or no professional training. Often they survive on shoestring budgets and are able to present only limited programs. Serving both as a hands-on guide and reference, this book examines these problems, offering practical advice and solutions which can be easily implemented. Its useful "lessons" include governance, where to find help, care of collections, conservation, security, and interpretation--all designed to increase the professionalism of the historic house museum.

New Solutions for House Museums
New Solutions for House Museums

Author: Donna Ann Harris

Publisher: AltaMira Press

Published: 2007-04-16

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 0759113823

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A generational shift is occurring at historic house museums as board members and volunteers retire while few young people step forward to take their place. These landmarks are also plagued by serious deferred maintenance, and many have no endowment funds. What will happen to these sites in the next ten years, and what can be done to assure their continued preservation for generations to come? In New Solutions for House Museums Harris examines possible options and provides a decision-making methodology as well as a dozen case studies of house museums that have made a successful transition to a new owner or user.

Preventive Conservation for Historic House Museums
Preventive Conservation for Historic House Museums

Author: Jane Merritt

Publisher: Rowman Altamira

Published: 2010-01-16

Total Pages: 218

ISBN-13: 0759119414

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Preventive Conservation for Historic House Museums describes the care routines that a historic house should practice to protect the site and its collections from damage, wear, deterioration, and catastrophic loss.

Anarchist's Guide to Historic House Museums
Anarchist's Guide to Historic House Museums

Author: Franklin D Vagnone

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-07-01

Total Pages: 263

ISBN-13: 1315435047

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In these days of an aging traditional audience, shrinking attendance, tightened budgets, increased competition, and exponential growth in new types of communication methods, America’s house museums need to take bold steps and expand their overall purpose beyond those of the traditional museum. They need not only to engage the communities surrounding them, but also to collaborate with visitors on the type and quality of experience they provide. This book is a groundbreaking manifesto that calls for the establishment of a more inclusive, visitor-centered paradigm based on the shared experience of human habitation. It draws inspiration from film, theater, public art, and urban design to transform historic house museums while providing a how-to guide for making historic house museums sustainable, through five primary themes: communicating with the surrounding community, engaging the community, re-imagining the visitor experience, celebrating the detritus of human habitation, and acknowledging the illusion of the shelter’s authenticity. Anarchist's Guide to Historic House Museums offers a wry, but informed, rule-breaking perspective from authors with years of experience and gives numerous vivid examples of both good and not-so-good practices from house museums in the U.S.

Rebranding
Rebranding

Author: Jane Mitchell Eliasof

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2022-03-11

Total Pages: 185

ISBN-13: 1538148919

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The name “Historical Society” or “Historic House” has a bad rap. Before potential visitors even know your museum, they may assume it’s not for them, even if you lead progressive, inclusive tours and host innovative programs. If you’re part of the leadership team of a historic house museum or historical society, you may have considered rebranding -- either renaming your organization or developing a new look – to be more appealing to a younger, more diverse audience or to reflect changes to your mission, interpretation, site, etc. Using examples from museums of all sizes across the country, this book helps you decide whether to move forward with a rebranding effort and give you a concrete outline to work from. The book will help you: Decide if you should rebrand (and that you’re not just putting lipstick on a pig) Nitty-gritty details about how to go about it How to react when someone says you’re making a huge mistake How much it will cost and where you can cut corners How to evaluate what you’ve done. Rebranding: A Guide forHistoric Houses, Museums, Sites and Organizations is a step-by-step guide that helps Executive Directors, Board members, and staff at history organizations decide if it’s time to rebrand and, if so, how to go about it. The book will guide readers through the process of deciding if a rebranding is in order, testing ideas, developing a plan and budget, implementing the launch, and even handling naysayers. It’s an essential guide for anyone rebranding a history organization.

Safeguarding Cultural Properties
Safeguarding Cultural Properties

Author: Stevan P. Layne

Publisher: Butterworth-Heinemann

Published: 2014-04-01

Total Pages: 161

ISBN-13: 0124201806

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Safeguarding Cultural Properties is a step-by-step guide for creating and maintaining a comprehensive security program in any cultural facility or public institution. Author Stevan P. Layne, the leading expert in the field of cultural property protection, draws from his many years of experience providing protection training and planning to more than 350 cultural and public institutions around the world. Designed especially for those with limited security budgets, the book provides a proven and effective program for hiring the right security personnel, selecting the appropriate electronic security systems, and coordinating critical emergency response, along with all the other security issues unique to the needs of a cultural institution. For individuals responsible for the protection of the people, assets, and collections, Safeguarding Cultural Properties saves time and money by providing the essential resources needed for creating a short- and long-term protection plan. - The only how-to manual written specifically for security managers of museums, libraries, zoos, and other public and private historic sites - Suitable for both large and small cultural institutions, it covers topics such as personnel security, fire protection, physical security, emergency response, theft protection, and more - Provides actionable, cost-effective solutions for institutions with limited security budgets and resources

Domesticating History
Domesticating History

Author: Patricia West

Publisher: Smithsonian Institution

Published: 2013-09-03

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 1588344258

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Celebrating the lives of famous men and women, historic house museums showcase restored rooms and period furnishings, and portray in detail their former occupants' daily lives. But behind the gilded molding and curtain brocade lie the largely unknown, politically charged stories of how the homes were first established as museums. Focusing on George Washington’s Mount Vernon, Louisa May Alcott’s Orchard House, Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, and the Booker T. Washington National Monument, Patricia West shows how historic houses reflect less the lives and times of their famous inhabitants than the political pressures of the eras during which they were transformed into museums.

Historic House Museums in the United States and the United Kingdom
Historic House Museums in the United States and the United Kingdom

Author: Linda Young

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2016-12-13

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 1442239778

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Historic House Museums in the United States and the United Kingdom: A History addresses the phenomenon of historic houses as a distinct species of museum. Everyone understands the special nature of an art museum, a national museum, or a science museum, but “house museum” nearly always requires clarification. In the United States the term is almost synonymous with historic preservation; in the United Kingdom, it is simply unfamiliar, the very idea being conflated with stately homes and the National Trust. By analyzing the motivation of the founders, and subsequent keepers, of house museums, Linda Young identifies a typology that casts light on what house museums were intended to represent and their significance (or lack thereof) today. This book examines: • heroes’ houses: once inhabited by great persons (e.g., Shakespeare’s birthplace, Washington’s Mount Vernon); • artwork houses: national identity as specially visible in house design, style, and technique (e.g., Frank Lloyd Wright houses, Modernist houses); • collectors’ houses: a microcosm of collecting in situ domesticu, subsequently presented to the nation as the exemplars of taste (e.g., Sir John Soane’s Museum, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum); • English country houses: the palaces of the aristocracy, maintained thanks to primogeniture but threatened with redundancy and rescued as museums to be touted as the peak of English national culture; English country houses: the palaces of the aristocracy, maintained for centuries thanks to primogeniture but threatened by redundancy and strangely rescued as museums, now touted as the peak of English national culture; • Everyman/woman’s social history houses: the modern, demotic response to elite houses, presented as social history but tinged with generic ancestor veneration (e.g., tenement house museums in Glasgow and New York).