The 1835 Federal and Georgian Wylie House was home to Andrew Wylie, the first president of Indiana University. The site has been restored to its appearance prior to 1860. Topics addressed include Bloomington, IN; Indiana University; and domestic life.
The museum offers exhibits, period rooms, guided tours, and educational programs for students. The museum is open March through November. The website offers virtual exhibits.
The Vermont State Historical Society presents the history of the state of Vermont from the days of Abenaki dominance to circa 2000. To this end, the society operates a museum and a history and genealogy research library. The Vermont History Museum's permanent exhibit depicts change over time through a series of full-size period settings, interpreting the state motto, "Freedom and Unity." Collection highlights include the document which officially admitted Vermont to the Union and shoe buckles once worn by Ethan Allen (1738-1789), who helped capture Fort Ticonderoga in 1775.
The society offers exhibits, curriculum-based guided student tours with hands-on activities, curriculum-based student educational programs, traveling trunk rentals, a lending library for educators, in-service educator training, family workshops, and research library access. Students and members may use the library free of charge. The website offers virtual exhibits, transcriptions of select manuscripts and Civil War diaries and letters, historical photographs, and lesson plans.
The 1858 Greek Revival Earle-Harrison House is furnished in the style of the Victorian era (1837-1901). Several of the furnishings belonged to the Earle and Harrison families, who once resided in the home. The home is surrounded by nearly 6 acres of gardens, which suggest the possible grandiosity of the original gardens.
The house offers period rooms and tours. Appointments are required for visitation.
The Compass Inn Museum presents daily life, transportation, and the evolution of common linguistic phrases through the 19th century. The museum consists of a restored 1799 inn, furnished in period style; barn; blacksmith shop; and reconstructed cook house. Highlights include a Conestoga wagon; farrier tools, used to shoe horses; and a 1700s open hearth and beehive oven.
The museum offers period rooms, 90-minute guided living history tours, student tours, and picnic benches. The museum is open May through October. Reservations are required for groups of 20 or more, and requested for groups of 10 or more. Student tours include a pre-visit package, a scavenger hunt, and optional hands-on activities.
The 281-acre Garfield Farm and Inn Museum consists of a farmstead and teamster inn, both of which date to the 1840s. The museum presents information on historic farming practices, the prairie environment, daily life, innkeeping, and transportation.
The museum offers tours, 90-minute student building tours, 90-minute student prairie tours, seminars, monthly prairie walks, outreach slide lectures, high school internships, and a summer camp. Appointments are required October through May.
The Faulkner County Historical Society seeks to preserve and share the history of Faulkner County, AR. To this end, the society operates the Faulkner County Museum. Exhibits within the museum address how the people of Faulkner County, beginning with local Native Americans, have adapted their daily lives to the surrounding environment.
The society offers exhibits and guided group tours of the museum.
Indian Grinding Rock State Historic Park nestles in a little valley 2,400 feet above sea level with open meadows and large valley oaks that once provided the native Americans of this area with an ample supply of acorns. The park was created in 1968 and preserves a great outcropping of marbleized limestone with some 1,185 mortar holes—the largest collection of bedrock mortars in North America. The Museum has been designed to reflect the architecture of the traditional roundhouse. Exhibited in this two-story museum are outstanding examples of the technology and crafts of the Miwok and other Sierra Nevada native American groups.
The park offers exhibits, tours, educational programs, and occasional recreational and educational events.
The Vicksburg Historical Society seeks to preserve and share the history of the greater Vicksburg area, MI. To this end, the society operates a historic village museum, consisting of a caboose, print shop, 1904 depot, express office, farmhouse, barn, gazebo, schoolhouse, and township hall.
The society offers exhibits, period rooms, and demonstrations. The village is closed January through April. Visitation is by appointment only.
Originally known as the Palmer House, this 10-room, turn-of-the-century bungalow home was built in 1919 by Will E. Palmer, the maternal grandfather of Alex Haley (19211992). From 1921 to 1929, and during some subsequent summers, Haley lived here with his grandparents. The front porch was often the place where young Haley heard the oral accounts of family history, including stories of Kunta Kinte, the young Mandingo man captured near his West African home. These stories inspired Haley to write about his ancestry in a book called Roots. This 1976 Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel has been translated into over 30 languages and has had great influence in stimulating the study of genealogy. Roots was adapted for an eight-part television series, which became one of the most popular programs in television history. On December 14, 1978, the Alex Haley House was listed in the National Register of Historic Places. It has attracted scholars and other visitors from around the world. Haley is buried on the grounds.
The house offers exhibits and tours.
The Green County Historical Society operates the Bronck Museum and Vedder Research Library. The Bronck Museum consists of a complex of historic structures which previously functioned as a working farm. The complex holds a 1663 stone house, the oldest remaining residence in Upstate New York; a 1738 Hudson Valley Dutch and Federal brick house; a detached kitchen; a Victorian horse barn with exhibits of historical daily life in Green County, NY; a Dutch barn; and a thirteen-sided barn. The homes and kitchen are furnished with period pieces; china; glass; silver; and artworks by Ezra Ames, John Frederick Kensett, Ammi Philips, Richard Hubbard, Benjamin Stone, and Nehemiah Partridge. The museum also presents regional textiles, and information on both spinning and weaving. The Vedder Research Library offers primary and secondary sources for researching the history of Green County.
The museum offers exhibits, period rooms, guided tours, guided student tours, and research library access. School tours are available May 30 through October 31st by appointment only. Memorial Day weekend through mid-October tours are available to the general public. The website offers a suggested reading list.