California Oil Museum [CA]

Description

The California Oil Museum recounts the boom in black gold in the city of Santa Paula during the late 19th century. The museum contains exhibits that display oil rigging tools, oil advertisements, wildcatter memorabilia, and other relevant artifacts.

School tours are available for K-12 with the option of hands-on educational programs.

Washington Crossing State Park and Johnson Ferry House [NJ]

Description

On December 25, 1776, the icy waters of the Delaware River provided the setting for one of the pivotal events of the American Revolution. The Continental Army had little to celebrate that Christmas and seemed beaten by hunger and cold. After crossing the rough winter river at night, General George Washington and the Continental Army landed at Johnson's Ferry, at the site now known as Washington Crossing State Park. At 4 am, they began their march to Trenton where they defeated the Hessian troops in an unexpected attack. This battle was quickly followed by the Second Battle of Trenton on January 2, 1777, and the Battle of Princeton on January 3, 1777. The Johnson Ferry House, an early 18th-century gambrel roof farmhouse and tavern near the Delaware River, was owned by Garret Johnson, who operated a 490-acre colonial plantation and a ferry service across the river in the 1700s. The house was likely used briefly by General Washington and other officers at the time of the Christmas night crossing of the Delaware. The keeping room, bedchamber, and textile room are furnished with local period pieces, probably similar to the furniture used by the Johnson family from 1740 to 1770. The site also includes an 18th-century kitchen garden.

The site offers exhibits, tours, demonstrations, short film screenings, and occasional recreational and educational events (including living history events).

Cuneo Museum & Gardens [IL]

Description

The Cuneo Museum is a great example of elegant living in the Gilded Age. Built as a home for Samuel Insull in 1914, the house was bought by the Cuneo family in 1937. The house was designed in the Venetian style of architecture and is filled with antique furnishings and artwork.

Group guided tour and self-guided tours (with a booklet) are available. The estate also includes extensive gardens, a tropical plant conservatory, and deer and peacock pens.

Onondaga Historical Association Museum and Research Center [NY]

Description

The Onondaga Historical Association Museum and Research Center presents the history of Syracuse and Onondaga County, New York. Museum permanent exhibits cover the Franklin Automobile; historic brewing; pottery manufacturing; the Underground Railroad; and county trades, transportation, architecture, settlement, and immigration. Collections include textiles, artwork, decorative arts, Native American artifacts, toys, and locally made commercial products.

The museum offers exhibits, research center access, research assistance, outreach presentations, and educational programs. Note that both research center usage and research assistance require payment. The website offers featured artifact information, a research library catalog, videos on topics of historical interest, children's activities, and an image database. The society also offers educator workshops.

Historic Stagville State Historic Site [NC]

Description

This site comprises the remains of North Carolina's largest pre-Civil War plantation and one of the South's largest. It once belonged to the Bennehan-Cameron family, whose combined holdings totaled approximately 900 slaves and almost 30,000 acres by 1860. Today, Stagville consists of 71 acres, on three tracts. On this land stand the late 18th-century Bennehan House, four rare slave houses, a pre-Revolutionary War farmer's house, a huge timber framed barn built by skilled slave craftsmen, and the Bennehan Family cemetery.

The site offers tours and occasional recreational and educational events.

Slater Mill Historic Site [RI]

Description

Slater Mill is a museum complex dedicated to bringing one of the most exciting and significant periods of American history to life. Visitors to the site experience a time when an America of small farmers and craftsmen was poised to become the industrial leader of the world. In the Slater Mill itself, visitors are surrounded by vintage textile machinery bathed in the light of large windows. With expert commentary from costumed interpreters they can imagine the lives of the people—many of them children—who made the early mills come alive.

In the nearby Wilkinson Mill they can feel the throb of the great 16,000-pound mill wheel, a replica of the original wheel that harnessed the power of the Blackstone River to make the era's finest tools. Children get up close and personal with early production processes as they provide the power and operate miniature machinery in the Apprentice Alcove. In the Sylvanus Brown House they can look back to a time when spinning, weaving, cooking, and quilting were the stuff of everyday life.

The site offers a short film, exhibits, tours, demonstrations, workshops, educational programs, and occasional recreational and educational events (including living history events).

Neligh Mill State Historic Site [NE]

Description

Visitors to this site can sift through the story of milling in Nebraska and tour a mill with its original 1880s equipment still intact. The Neligh Mill is a surviving reminder of the grist mills that once dotted Nebraska's landscape. Visitors can explore the mill, restored mill office, reconstructed flume and penstock, and the remains of the mill dam. Museum displays explain the history of the Neligh Mill and provide information about other water-powered mills once located throughout Nebraska and the Midwest.

The site offers exhibits and tours.

Minnesota Historical Society

Description

The Minnesota Historical Society seeks to preserve and share the history of Minnesota. To this end, the society operates a history center and 26 historical sites located throughout the state. The Minnesota History Center collections include more than 230,000 artifacts, including a collection of Ojibwa pieces; 6,000 works of art; and 53,000 cubic feet of government records, among other items.

The Minnesota History Center offers a 30-minute introductory film, exhibits, interactive field trip programs, library access, and two lunch sites—one indoor and one outdoor. Reservations must be made at least two weeks in advance for field trip programs and/or use of the indoor dining area. Lunches can be ordered ahead from the museum restaurant. The center can arrange for sign language interpreters and wheelchair availability. The society also offers outreach presentations given by costumed interpreters and continuing education workshops for teachers.

The website offers blogs on selected artifacts, local historical organizations, and the archives; a forum for historical researchers; video podcasts; historical images; lesson plans on Minnesota and the Holocaust; and a Minnesota history curriculum available for purchase.

Bulow Plantation Ruins Historic State Park [FL]

Description

In 1836, the Second Seminole War swept away the prosperous Bulow Plantation where the Bulow family grew sugar cane, cotton, rice, and indigo. Ruins of the former plantation—a sugar mill, a unique spring house, several wells, and the crumbling foundations of the plantation house and slave cabins—show how volatile the Florida frontier was in the early 19th century. Today, a scenic walking trail leads visitors to the sugar mill ruins, listed on the National Register of Historic Sites. The park has picnic facilities and an interpretive center that tells the plantation's history.

The park offers exhibits

Allaire State Park and Village [NJ]

Description

Allaire State Park houses Allaire Village, a well-preserved early 19th-century ironmaking town with a general store, blacksmith shop, carpenter's shop, owner's house, foreman's house, church, and museum.

A second website, specifically for the Village, can be found here.

The site offers exhibits, tours, demonstrations, and recreational and educational events (including living history events).