Tennessee State Library and Archives

Description

The Tennessee State Library and Archives collects publications and archival materials relevant to the history of Tennessee. Collections include manuscript materials, birth and death records, census records, county records, governors' papers, military records, Native-American and African-American records, newspapers, maps, photographs, postcards, state records, and Tennessee legislative records.

The website offers research library and archives access as well as virtual exhibits, lesson plans, primary sources, and an archive of digitized primary sources.

Landmark Center [MN]

Description

The Landmark Center was erected in 1902 as a Federal court house and a post office. Today, it houses a variety of community, art, and culture organizations. The center hosts five galleries—the American Association of Woodturners Galleries, which displays contemporary wooden artworks and historical lathes; the Landmark Gallery, depicting St. Paul, Minnesota's postal history; Uncle Sam Worked Here, covering Landmark Center history; the Ramsey County Historical Society's exhibits of local history; and the Museum of Musical Instruments and Gilman Ordway Manuscript Collection, the latter of which specializes in musical correspondence and writing.

The center offers exhibits, guided tours, self-guided tours, guided tours for students, group tours, and living history gangster tours. Student tours can be customized for areas of interest, and meet state educational standards. Reservations for student, group, and gangster tours must be made at least two weeks in advance, and the student and group tours must include 10 or more individuals. The website offers a virtual tour and activities for use by teachers.

Colonial Williamsburg [VA]

Description

Colonial Williamsburg is the world's single largest living history museum. It consists of the reconstructed 18th-century British outpost of Williamsburg, VA. Through costumed interpreters and structures furnished to period, the museum shares the story of America and its people—Native American, African American, Caucasian, enslaved, indentured, and free—circa 1699 through 1780. The historic area includes political and residential sites, trade skill settings, a plantation, gardens, and animal breeds of circa 200 years ago. Museums on site include the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum and the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum.

The site offers exhibits, period rooms, living history interpreters, demonstrations, walking tours, dramatic performances, military exercises, fife and drum parades, ghost walks, mock witch trials, films, lectures, music programs, reenactments, a teacher institute in early American history, children's activities, curriculum-based tours for students, museum tours, conferences, forums, workshops, concession stands, and several dining locations with period-inspired food. The website offers audio tours, a virtual tour, virtual exhibits, information on historical structures and people, information on aspects of daily life, recipes, electronic field trips, lesson plans, teaching resources for purchase, slide shows, videos, audio clips, a daily vocabulary feature, podcasts, blogs, activities and games, and journal excerpts

Peerless Rockville [MD]

Description

Peerless Rockville seeks to preserve and share the history of Rockville, MD.

The organization offers lectures, guided walking tours, customizable guided walking tours, self-guided walking tours, research library access, and research assistance. Guided tour topics include a historical overview of Rockville, the Civil War, 19th-century landmarks, a family scavenger hunt, African American history, the Underground Railroad, public architecture, F. Scott Fitzgerald, downtown, the Rockville cemetery, the 1891 courthouse, and early settlement. Appointments are recommended for research library use.

New Castle Court House Museum [DE]

Description

The New Castle Court House, erected in 1732, was Delaware's first court and state capitol building. Topics addressed on site include colonial and state history, early Delaware law and government, and the Underground Railroad.

The museum offers site tours, exhibits, educational programs for students, and an hour long walking tour for adults. Reservations are required for large groups. The first floor of the structure is wheelchair accessible.

Oakland County Pioneer & Historical Society [MI]

Description

The Oakland County Pioneer & Historical Society's Pine Grove Historical Museum consists of the 1845 Greek revival mansion of the 12th Michigan governor, Moses Wisner. The site also contains a summer kitchen, outhouse, smokehouse, root cellar, and the Drayton Plains One-Room Schoolhouse. A Carriage House is also home to the Research Library, office and the Pioneer Museum.

School tours led by costumed docents are offered on site. Teachers may also rent the one-room school house for half the day to teach their own lessons in an authentic Victorian school. Teacher guides are available on site to assist teachers in designing a field trip that meets their needs.

John Jay Homestead State Historic Site [NY]

Description

The John Jay Homestead State Historic Site maintains the 1801 home of Founding Father John Jay who served as the first Chief Justice of the Supreme court and co-authored the Treaty of Paris, among his many other accomplishments. The home is interpreted as an 1820's country home with 12 or its 24 rooms decorated and open to the public for tours.

Specialized tours and education programs are available by appointment. School groups may also tour the 1820's schoolhouse and the 1830s barn as wells as the formal gardens on the property.

Metamora Courthouse State Historic Site

Description

The Metamora Courthouse was built in 1845 and served as the center of county government until the county seat was moved to Eureka in 1896. It is one of two surviving courthouses on the historic Eighth Judicial Circuit traveled by Abraham Lincoln. The first floor of the two-story brick structure contains a central hall flanked by two exhibit rooms, one displaying artifacts of early local history, the other with exhibits describing the 1850s court system and Lincoln's life on the Eighth Judicial Circuit. On the second floor, the former courtroom and two small chambers are furnished to represent the era during which Lincoln practiced law.

The site offers exhibits, tours, and a short film.