Winston Churchill Memorial and Library [MO]

Description

The Memorial is housed within the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Aldermanbury, a 12th-century church from the middle of London, redesigned by Sir Christopher Wren in 1677, that was relocated to Fulton. The undercroft of this historic Wren church is a museum filled with a treasury of artifacts and information relating to the life and times of Sir Winston Churchill.

The site offers exhibits, tours, research library access, educational programs, and occasional recreational and educational events.

Museum of the Moving Image [NY]

Description

The Museum advances the public understanding and appreciation of the art, history, technique, and technology of film, television, and digital media. It does so by collecting, preserving, and providing access to moving-image related artifacts; screening significant films and other moving-image works; presenting exhibitions of artifacts, artworks, and interactive experiences; and offering educational and interpretive programs to students, teachers, and the general public.

The museum offers exhibits, tours, film screenings, educational programs, and occasional recreational and educational events.

Mission Mill Museum [OR]

Description

Mission Mill Museum interprets the history of the Thomas Kay Woolen Mill which produced wool products from 1889 to 1962 and represents one of Oregon's earliest and strongest industries. Mission Mill also interprets the history of Jason Lee's Methodist Mission to Oregon which settled in the Willamette Valley in 1834 before the major Oregon Trail migrations. The missionaries brought formal education, industry, and large scale agriculture and advocated for U.S. government in the Oregon country. The Museum preserves Mission houses; an Oregon Trail settler's house; a historic church; and the structures, equipment, and original water-powered turbine of the Thomas Kay Woolen Mill with related artifacts. The museum's two histories are shared with visitors through individual and group tours, interpretation, speakers, living history, children's programs, hands-on activities, and special events.

The museum offers exhibits, tours, workshops, educational programs, and recreational and educational events.

First Division Museum [IL]

Description

The Museum preserves, interprets, and presents the history of the First Infantry Division in the context of American military history and affairs.

The museum offers exhibits, educational programs, lectures, research library access, and occasional recreational and educational events.

Old Idaho Penitentiary

Description

Idaho Territory was less than 10 years old when the territorial prison was built east of Boise in 1870. The penitentiary grew from a single cellhouse into a complex of several distinctive buildings surrounded by a high sandstone wall. Convicts quarried the stone from the nearby ridges and completed all the later construction. Over its century of operation, the penitentiary received more than 13,000 convicts, of whom 215 were women. Spurred in part by conditions that sparked a general riot in 1971 and an even more severe riot in 1973, the inmate population was moved to a modern penitentiary south of Boise and the Old Idaho Penitentiary was closed on December 3, 1973. Visitors begin with a video presentation recalling prison history, notorious inmates, and daily prison life. Once inside the Yard, they can imagine life in the foreboding sandstone cellhouses, see the contrasting beauty of the historic rose gardens, and view the effects of the 1973 riot. They may also visit Solitary Confinement, known as "Siberia," as well as Death Row and the Gallows.

The site offers a short film, exhibits, and educational programs.

Sam Azeez Museum of Woodbine Heritage [NJ]

Description

The Sam Azeez Museum of Woodbine Heritage was created to remember and record Woodbine's past while also actively collecting the materials to preserve its continuing heritage. It is a destination for visitors and a local resource for the entire Woodbine community so that they may continue to use the Woodbine Brotherhood Synagogue building as a place to come together. Built by the early Woodbine colonists, the synagogue is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The sanctuary has been restored and is available for special worship services. The lower level, Brotherhood Hall, houses the museum's permanent and temporary exhibitions. Also included is a community sculpture, the Collective Memory Wall, where the Woodbine community has contributed personal memories of Woodbine.

The museum offers exhibits and occasional recreational and educational events.

Alexandria Black History Museum [VA]

Description

The mission of the Black History Museum is to enrich the lives of Alexandria's residents and visitors, to foster tolerance and understanding among all cultures, and to stimulate appreciation of the diversity of the African American experience. The institutional complex is composed of the Museum, the Watson Reading Room, and the Alexandria African-American Heritage Park. The Museum, devoted to exhibiting local and regional history, incorporates the Robert H. Robinson Library as one of two exhibition galleries. The Robert H. Robinson Library was originally constructed in 1940 following a sit-in at the segregated Alexandria Library. The Reading Room, established in 1995, provides an environment for learning about the diversity of African American cultural traditions. A nine-acre green space and wetland, the Park offers a place for celebration, commemoration, and quiet reflection.

The museum offers exhibits, tours, educational programs, research library access, and occasional recreational and educational events.

Crater of Diamonds State Park [AR]

Description

In 1906, John Huddleston, the local farmer who owned this property, found the first diamonds here in Murfreesboro, AR, and started the diamond mining rush. After a series of ill-fated mining ventures followed by tourist attractions, the site became an Arkansas state park in 1972. Visitors today are invited to prospect in the park's diamond search area, a 37-acre plowed field that is the eroded surface of an ancient volcanic pipe that, 95 million years ago, brought to the surface the diamonds and some of the semiprecious stones lucky visitors find here today. Within the park boundary many remnants of old mining ventures remain including the Mine Shaft Building, the Guard House, mining plant foundations, old mining equipment, and smaller artifacts. Nowhere else is North American diamond mining history as evident or as well-preserved as here.

The site offers short films, exhibits, tours, educational programs, and occasional recreational and educational events.

Redwood Library and Athenaeum [RI]

Description

The Redwood Library and Athenæum is the oldest lending library in America, and the oldest library building in continuous use in the country. Founded in 1747 by 46 proprietors upon the principle of "having nothing in view but the good of mankind," its mission continues over 250 years later.

The library offers tours, exhibits, and all standard library services (including recreational and educational events, though not focused specifically on history).