Drawing from innovative organizations across the United States, Reimagining Historic House Museums is an indispensable source of field-tested tools and techniques drawn from such wide-ranging sources as non-profit management, business strategy, and software development. It also profiles historic sites that are using new models to engage with their communities to become more relevant, are adopting creative forms of interpretation and programming, and earning income to become more financially sustainable.
The book is a combination of a museum conference, a hands-on workshop, and toolbox. It contains five main parts:
This authoritative guide from the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) will help house museum boards, directors, and staff seeking a path forward in rapidly changing times. Graduate programs in public history, museum studies, curatorial studies, and historic preservation will discover models and approaches that will provoke lively discussions about the issues facing the field.
Since 2015, co-editors Kenneth C. Turino and Max A. van Balgooy have led the popular reinventing historic house workshop for the American Association for State and Local History.
Kenneth C. Turino is Manager of Community Partnerships and Resource Development at Historic New England. He oversees community engagement projects throughout the New England states and is responsible for exhibition partnerships at the Eustis Estate, Langdon House, and Sarah Orne Jewett Museum and Visitor Center. He consults on interpretive planning and community engagement projects at historic sites, including Madame Johns Legacy in New Orleans and the Palmer Warner House in Connecticut. Ken teaches courses on the future of historic houses in the Tufts University Museum Studies Program and is vice president of the board of the House of Seven Gables in Salem, Massachusetts.
Max A. van Balgooy is president of Engaging Places, a design and strategy firm that connects people and historic places. For more than thirty years, he has worked with a wide range of historic sites on interpretive planning and business strategy, including Cliveden, Molly Brown House, Haas-Lilienthal House, James Madison’s Montpelier, and Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage. He is an assistant professor in the Museum Studies Program at George Washington University, directs the History Leadership Institute (formerly known as the Seminar for Historical Administration), and regularly leads workshops for the American Association for State and Local History.
Table of Contents
Introduction by Kenneth Turino and Max A. van Balgooy
Part I Fundamentals and Essentials
Chapter 1 Imagining a Reimagining Process for House Museums by Max A. van Balgooy
Chapter 2 Enterprising House Museums by Lawrence J. Yerdon
Chapter 3 Evaluation is Not Just Nice, It is Necessary by Conny C. Graft
Chapter 4 The Essential Role of Boards in Reimaging House Museums by Donna Ann Harris
Chapter 5 Reaching New Heights with Volunteers in Historic House Museums by Alexandra Rasic
Chapter 6 Surviving a Capital Campaign: A Slightly Irreverent Guide to Fundraising by Nina Zannieri
Chapter 7 Success Factors for Small Historic House Museums by Monta Lee Dakin and Steve Friesen
Chapter 8 Reimagine House Museums: Loosen Up but Don’t Let Go! By Thomas A. Woods
Chapter 9 Value of History Statement by History Relevance
Part II Audiences
Chapter 10 Using Historic House Museum Audiences to Drive Change by Katherine Kane
Chapter 11 Cultural Heritage Travelers and Historic House Museums by Amy Jordan Webb
Chapter 12 Finding Numen at Historical Sites by Ron M. Potvin
Chapter 13 Community Engagement: Radical Renewal for Historic House Museums by Dawn DiPrince
Part III Different Approaches to Familiar Topics
Chapter 14 “Do Something Transformative” by Callie Hawkins and Erin Carlson Mast
Chapter 15 Listening for the Silences: Stories of Enslaved and Free Domestic Workers by Jennifer Pustz
Chapter 16 Interpreting Women’s Lives at Historic House Museums by Mary A. van Balgooy
Chapter 17 Where the Magic Happened by Susan Ferentinos
Chapter 18 Reflecting Race and Ethnicity in House Museums by Jane M. Eliasof and Claudia Ocello
Chapter 19 Why Do Furnishings Matter?: The Power of Furnishings in Historic House Museums by Laura C. Keim
Chapter 20 Rethinking Architecture in the Realm of House Museum Interpretation by Cheryl A. Bachand
Chapter 21 Looking Beyond the Front Door to Find Spirit of Place by Lucinda A. Brockway
Part IV Methods
Chapter 22 The Historic House Museum Tour: A Matter of Life and Death by Patricia West
Chapter 23 Everyone’s History Matters: School Programs at Historic New England by Carolin Collins
Chapter 24 Creating Minds-On Exhibitions in Historic House Museums by Robert Kiihne
Part V Imagining New Kinds of House Museums
Chapter 25 Reinventing the Historic House Museum: Three Potential Futures by Elizabeth Merritt with responses by Carol B. Stapp, Susie Wilkening, Brian Joyner, Jorge A. Hernandez, Emiliano ‘Nano’ Calderon, Nathan Ritchie, Barbara Silberman, and Joe McGill
Chapter 26 Yes, America, You Need Another House Museum (But Read This Book First) by Kenneth Turino
Bibliography
National and Regional Organizations
About the Editors and the Contributors
Whats best about this book is its comprehensive view of the process of reimagining historic house museums and the many voices it offers to the reader. Used thoughtfully and diligently, it poses many ways to make sure that historic house museums meet the challenges that face them, reinventing themselves for new audiences and renewed futures.
— The Public Historian
Turino and van Balgooy have translated their acclaimed one-day workshop, Reimagining Historic House Museums, into a provocative and eminently actionable volume that should be required reading anyone in or out of the field who cares about the future of our countrys historic places.
— Sean Sawyer, Ph.D., Washburn & Susan Oberwager President, The Olana Partnership
At times practical, at times thought provoking, Reimagining Historic House Museums: New Approaches and Proven Solutions is both a checklist for the basic operation of your museum, and a bundle of wildly divergent ideas to take your organization to the next level. Editors Turino and Van Balgooy set out on an ambitious journey, bringing the expertise of multiple scholars and practitioners in the field together in one volume. The result is an utterly readable book that addresses fundamentals and essentials, audiences and different approaches, methods and imaginations. Together with the list of resources after each of its 26 chapters, in combination with the extensive bibliography at the end of the book, Reimagining Historic House Museums may well make this volume the go-to resource par excellence, for staff, board and volunteers in historic house museums, at every level of their career or engagement.
— Remko W.T. Jansonius, Deputy Director, Collections and Curatorial Affairs, Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, Miami, FL, Board Secretary, DEMHIST (ICOM’s International Committee for Historic House Museums)
Can historic house museums, long a staple of sanitized pasts, be repurposed for new audiences? Could they even ‘enliven participatory democracy?’ Turino and van Balgooy, in Reimagining Historic House Museums, make the case that they already have. Both prescription and provocation, this guide is especially for readers who know that educating visitors sometimes means re-educating boards.
— Seth C. Bruggeman, Director, Temple University Center for Public History
Every chapter of Reimagining Historic House Museums pulls from the best in the field. From the chapter authors to the research, writings, and model sites, each facet of running a historic house and making it relevant to the community it serves is well covered. This title will become indispensable as a resource for any sized museum.
— Andrea Malcomb, Director, Molly Brown House Museum
