Rhode Island Historical Society, John Brown House Museum, and Museum of Work and Culture

Description

The Society operates the John Brown House Museum and the Museum of Work and Culture. The John Brown House museum was one of America's grandest mansions when completed in 1788, for John Brown, a businessman, patriot, politician, China Trade pioneer, and slave trader who participated in the debates and practices that shaped the new nation and the world. Today this building serves as a place in which the public can learn about the men and women who lived here from the late 18th through early 20th centuries. The Museum of Work and Culture presents the story of immigrants who came to find a better life in the mill towns along the Blackstone River. The exhibits recreate immigrant life at home, at church, and at school, and present the unique Woonsocket labor story of the rise of the Independent Textile Union, which grew to dominate every aspect of city life.

The society offers tours, research library access, educational programs, and recreational and educational events; the House offers tours and educational programs; the Museum offers exhibits, tours, and educational programs.

Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site

Description

The Site preserves the central section of the largest prehistoric Native American city north of Mexico. Occupied from 700 to 1400, the city grew to cover 4,000 acres, with a population of between ten and twenty thousand at its peak around 1100. The site is dominated by the 100-foot-tall Monks Mound, the largest prehistoric earthen mound in the Americas. In 1966 Cahokia Mounds was placed on the National Register of Historic Places and in 1983 was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Cahokia Mounds preserves 68 of the original 120 earthen mounds built by prehistoric Native Americans. Visitors may climb a stairway to the top of Monks Mound, where interpretive signs provide an explanation of the impressive view. Other physical features include a reconstructed stockade wall and "Woodhenge," a circle of posts around a large central post from which the sunrise can be aligned to determine the season and time of year. The Interpretive Center houses museum exhibit galleries, an orientation show theater, a public programming auditorium, staff offices, and a courtyard for educational programs. Exhibit galleries and an award-winning orientation show, "City of the Sun," describe the Native Americans who lived there as well as the site's historic and archaeological significance.

The site offers exhibits, tours, a short film, lectures, and educational and recreational events and programs.

Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, Jamestown Settlement, and Yorktown Victory Center [VA]

Description

The Foundation operates the Jamestown Settlement and the Yorktown Victory Center, two living-history museums that explore America’s beginnings. Through film, artifact-filled galleries, and outdoor living history, these museums engage visitors in nearly two centuries of the nation's history—from the founding of America's first permanent English settlement in 1607 to the decisive Revolutionary War victory in 1781 and implementation of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Today at Jamestown Settlement, the story of the people who founded Jamestown and of the Virginia Indians they encountered is told through film, gallery exhibits, and living history. New gallery exhibits and a new introductory film trace Jamestown's beginnings in England and the first century of the Virginia colony and describe the cultures of the Powhatan Indians, Europeans, and Africans who converged in 1600s Virginia. Outdoors, visitors can board replicas of the three ships that sailed from England to Virginia in 1607, explore life-size recreations of the colonists' fort and a Powhatan village, and tour a riverfront discovery area to learn about European, Powhatan, and African economic activities associated with water. In the outdoor areas, costumed historical interpreters describe and demonstrate daily life in the early 17th century. Today at the Yorktown Victory Center, America's evolution from colonial status to nationhood is chronicled through a unique blend of timeline, film, thematic exhibits and outdoor living history. An outdoor exhibit walkway details events that led American colonies to declare independence from Britain.

A second website for the organization can be found here.

The sites offer short films, exhibits, tours, demonstrations, lectures, educational programs, and recreational and educational programs.

New Providence Historical Society and Museum [NJ]

Description

The Society operates its Museum out of a 19th-century saltbox know as the Garrison-Dickinson-Genung house. Two rooms are furnished to indicate a simple home of the late 1700s. The bedroom has a rope bed and our collection of children's clothes. Changing displays are on view in another room.

The society offers research library access; the museum offers exhibits and tours.

Alamance Battleground State Historic Site and Allen House [NC]

Description

On this site in 1771, an armed rebellion of backcountry farmers—called Regulators—battled against royal governor William Tryon's militia. Visitors can tour the 18th-century Allen House and battlefield monuments. These features, together with the visitor center's new DVD orientation program, offer a vivid account of this colonial battle, as well as the oppressive British colonial policies that sparked the revolt.

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

Hempsted Houses [CT]

Description

The 1678 Joshua Hempsted House is one of New England's oldest and best documented dwellings. Joshua Hempsted lived here his whole life, filling many roles, including farmer, judge, gravestone carver, shipwright, and father of nine children left motherless by his wife's death in 1716. The Hempsted House survived the 1781 burning of New London by the British, commanded by traitor Benedict Arnold. Later, it may have been a safe house on the secret Underground Railroad which aided fugitive slaves seeking freedom. Adjacent to the Joshua Hempsted House is a rare stone dwelling built in 1759 by his grandson Nathaniel. Both houses' furnishings include original Hempsted family objects.

The houses offer exhibits and tours.

Museum of African American History and Historical Sites [MA]

Description

The Museum of African American History is dedicated to preserving, conserving, and accurately interpreting the contributions of African Americans in New England from the colonial period through the 19th century. The Museum maintains several individual historical sites, including the Boston African Meeting House, the Abiel Smith School, the Nantucket African Meeting House, and the Higginbotham House. The African Meeting House on Beacon Hill was built in 1806 in what once was the heart of Boston's 19th-century African-American community. It is today a showcase of black community organization in the formative years of the new republic. The 1834 Abiel Smith School is the first building in the nation built for the sole purpose of serving as a public school for black children. This historic site has been transformed into exhibit galleries. The African Meeting House on Nantucket is the island's most vivid reminder of a thriving 19th-century African-American community. Erected in the 1820s by the African Baptist Society (of which Captain Absalom Boston was a trustee), it is the only public building still in existence that was constructed and occupied by the island's African Americans during the 19th century.

The museum offers exhibits, tours, educational programs, lectures, and recreational and educational events; the Boston African Meeting House offers tours; the School offers exhibits; the Nantucket African Meeting House offers exhibits.

Frank House [NE]

Description

Construction of this house began in 1886 and was completed in 1889. George William Frank, also called George, Jr. was the architect. The Franks lived in the house from 1890 to 1900. After the Franks, the house was owned by Dr. Grothan who ran a private sanitarium in the house. The house sold to the state in 1907 when it was accessioned to be part of the Nebraska Tuberculosis hospital. The house was used as quarters for the TB hospital staff until the hospital closed in 1971.

The house offers exhibits, tours, and occasional recreational and educational events.