Atlanta History Center [GA]

Description

The Atlanta History Center consists of the Atlanta History Museum, Swan House, Tullie Smith Farm, Centennial Olympic Games Museum, historic gardens, Kenan Research Center, and the Margaret Mitchell House. The Atlanta History Museum depicts the story of Atlanta, GA, from early settlement to modern day. Permanent exhibits address historical development, the Civil War, folk arts, and golfer Bobby Jones. The Olympic museum presents the history of the Olympic Games and the sports which take place at the games via a collection of artifacts and photographs. Topics addressed include financing the event, community involvement, global travel to the Olympics, the bid process, and building game venues. The six historic gardens represent groups of people who influenced the development of Atlanta. The Kenan Research Center provides resources for the study of the history and culture of Atlanta and the South. Particular emphasis is given to gardens, military history, decorative arts, and genealogy. The 1928 Swan House portrays life in the 1920s-1930s; while the 1840s Tullie Smith Farm home is representative of area rural life, and is surrounded by outbuildings, such as a blacksmith shop. The Margaret Mitchell House is listed separately within this database.

The center offers guided student tours, self-guided student tours, traveling trunks, interactive outreach programs for students, homeschool days, educator workshops, lectures, toddler programs, summer camps, musical performances, gardens, and living history presentations. The Atlanta History Museum offers exhibits, summer camps, and a cafe. The Centennial Olympic Games Museum offers interactive and traditional exhibits, a sports lab, and multimedia presentations. The Kenan Research Center offers research library access. The Swan House offers an exhibit of decorative arts, audio tours, guided tours, and period rooms. The Tullie Smith Farm offers period rooms, guided tours, and demonstrations. The website offers lesson plans, a virtual tour, and a game based on the P.O.W. experience.

Camp Washington-Carver [WV]

Description

Camp Washington-Carver is a beautiful mountain retreat listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The retreat serves as a cultural and arts center, with a variety of performance throughout the year.

Camp Washington-Carver offers special events, presentations, and performances throughout the year. The website offers visitor information, a virtual tour, and a calendar of events.

The Slater Memorial Museum [CT]

Description

The Slater Memorial Museum presents world culture through a collection of fine and decorative arts. Collections include 18th through 19th century American art and decorative arts; African and Oceanic sculpture; casts of Egyptian, Greek, Roman and Renaissance sculptures; Native American artifacts; Tokugawa Period Japanese art; Chinese and Korean art; local maritime artifacts; and European decorative and fine arts from between 1600 and 1800. The museum is located within a circa 1886 Romanesque Revival structure.

The museum offers exhibits, guided tours, and weekly art classes for children. Four to six weeks advance notice is required for guided tours.

Florence Griswold Museum [CT]

Description

The Florence Griswold Museum building was the site of one of the most renowned Impressionist art colonies in the United States. Founded in 1899, the Lyme Art Colony hosted Impressionist and Tonalist artists such as Edward Rook, Childe Hassam, Willard Metcalfe, and Henry Ward Ranger. The artists favored landscapes and plein air painting. The museum itself is housed within the 1817 Late Georgian mansion in which the artists boarded. The upper floor hosts exhibits while the lower maintains the appearance of the home in 1910. The site also includes additional exhibit space, an education center, the restored gardens, and William Chadwick's (1879-1962) studio.

The museum offers exhibits, period rooms, guided tours for groups, self-guided tours, student tours, student hands-on activities, school outreach programs, resource library access, painting opportunities, workshops, summer camps, gardens, lectures, educator workshops and tours, and boxed lunches. If students wish to order boxed lunches rather than bringing a bag lunch, advance notice is required. Outreach program options include art activities and lectures. The website offers the opportunity to watch a video about the colony, a teacher's guide, lesson plans, pre- and post-visit activity suggestions, and suggested reading lists.

Fulton County Historical Society and Museums [IN]

Description

The Fulton County Historical Society seeks to preserve and share the history of Fulton County, Indiana. To this end, the society operates a museum; a 1924 round barn, containing historic farming implements; a living history village; and a research library. Exhibit topics include music, art, living conditions between 1910 and 1935, toys, medicine, Native Americans, education, the military, recreation, trade, religion, and the circus.

The society also manages another site (www.potawatomi-tda.org) which shows the Potawatomi Trail of Death 1838 diary, photos of all 78 historical markers and of the many Potawatomi who had ancestors on the Trail of Death from Indiana to Kansas, exhibits, period rooms, a tour and scavenger hunt for students, and research library access.

Big Springs Historical Society and Museum [NY]

Description

The Big Springs Historical Society seeks to preserve and share the history of the Caledonia-Mumford community, New York. To this end, the society operates a museum. Museum collections include Caledonia’s Seth Green Fish Hatchery artifacts, costumes and textiles, military artifacts, religious artifacts, educational artifacts, natural history samples, fine and decorative arts, and Native American artifacts.

The society offers exhibits and on site research assistance.

Peabody Essex Museum [MA]

Description

The Peabody Essex Museum is an art museum, which seeks to engage visitors' interest in the cultural, historical, and human aspects which the works convey through their context of creation. Museum galleries include American decorative arts, Native American contemporary and traditional art, Korean art, Chinese art for use in China and for export, Japanese art for use in Japan and for export, Asian arts on paper, Indian art for use in India and for export, Oceanic art, maritime art, and photography. The museum also operates Yin Yu Tang, a Qing dynasty (1644-1911) home from Anhui Province, China.

The museum offers traditional and interactive exhibits, hands-on art activities, themed guided tours, self-guided tours, 14 curriculum-based programs for students, programs for educators, family programs, a restaurant, and a cafe. Student programs are available with focuses on American art and culture, Asian art and culture, and the visual arts. The website offers Asia, Chinese aesthetics, and Salem witch trials curricula; a teacher's guide to the American collections; slide shows of select current exhibits; images of collection highlights; and a virtual tour of Yin Yu Tang.

The Art and Nature Center will be closed until June 20, 2009 for the installation of a new exhibit. The galleries housing Intersections, Native American Art in a New Light are closed until August 2009.

Rufus Porter Museum [ME]

Description

The Rufus Porter Museum is located in Bridgton, Maine, the site of some of Porter's most famous workers. Rufus Porter is notable for his fantastic works of landscape art, especially murals, and for being the founder of Scientific American.

The home offers guided tours and exhibitions of Rufus Porter's works. The website offers a biography of Porter, a history of the museum, visitor information, and an events calendar.