Thomas Jefferson Foundation [VA]

Description

The Thomas Jefferson Foundation is dedicated to the preservation of Thomas Jefferson's home, Monticello. The foundation puts on a variety of events in the mansion, and also holds an extensive collection of materials available for researchers.

The home offers guided tours, field trip plans, traveling exhibits, summer camps, and resource packets for teachers. The website offers a brief history of the home, visitor information, and a calendar of events. In order to contact the website via email, use the "contact us" link located at the top of the webpage.

William Allen White House State Historic Site

Description

Visitors can tour the showplace home of William Allen White, nationally known newspaperman and author. From the 1890s through World War II, White influenced state and national politics through his writings from the heartland town of Emporia. White looms particularly large in the politics of his home state, debating the Populists of the 1890s and battling against the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s.

The site offers tours, exhibits, and educational and recreational events.

Daniel Webster Birthplace State Historic Site [NH]

Description

The Daniel Webster Birthplace State Historic Site is associated with the birth and early childhood years of Daniel Webster, one of the country's most respected orators and statesmen. While the site affords a view of the early years of Daniel Webster, it also provides a glimpse of 1700s farm life in the infant years of the United States.

The site offers tours, educational programs, and living history programs and events.

Bayside Historical Society, Lawrence Cemetery, and Museum [NY]

Description

The Bayside Historical Society seeks to preserve and share the history of Bayside and Queens, New York, as well as neighboring communities. To this end, the society operates a number of exhibits within the 1887 Gothic Revival Army Officer's Club. The society also maintains the Lawrence Cemetery, a family plot with burials dating between 1832 and 1939. Individuals of note interred on site include Cornelius Van Wyck Lawrence, Mayor of the New York City between 1834 and 1837; County Judge Effingham Lawrence and his Native American servant Lawrence Moccasin; and Colonel Frederick Newbold Lawrence, president of the New York Stock Exchange between 1882 and 1883.

The society offers exhibits, tours of the Officer's Club, educational programs, and archival access. Lawrence Cemetery is open by appointment only. The second floor of the Officer's Club is not wheelchair accessible. The website offers virtual exhibits.

Liberty Hall Historic Site [KY]

Description

The Liberty Hall Historic Site presents the life of Senator John Brown (1757-1837) and his descendants. Margaretta Mason Brown, John's wife, promoted abolitionism and women's education. The site consists of the 1796 Federal-style Liberty Hall, home of Brown; the 1835 Greek Revival Orlando Brown House, home of one of Brown's sons; and the surrounding grounds and gardens.

The site offers period rooms; 75-minute tours of both residences; a living history outreach presentation with hands-on activities; and an educational program for students, which includes a 17-minute film. Advance notice is required for groups of 10 or more. The site is only partially wheelchair accessible. The website offers descriptions and images of select artifacts.

River Road African American Museum [LA]

Description

The River Road African American Museum presents the history of the African American population along the Mississippi River. Exhibits discuss cuisine, jazz, African American doctors and inventors, Louisiana's Underground Railroad, education, and other topics.

The museum offers exhibits; tours; a guided museum and neighborhood tour; a school tour drawing heavily upon art, music, and history with an optional scavenger hunt and/or storyteller; and educational programs on the Underground Railroad and plants which men and women seeking their freedom may have used for nourishment and medicine.

Farmington Historic Plantation [KY]

Description

The Farmington Historic Plantation, built between 1815 and 1816 as a working hemp plantation, was home to John (1772-1840) and Lucy Fry (1788-1874) Speed. Today, the Federal-style home is furnished to an 1830s appearance, the period of time when the plantation was at its peak prosperity; and the furnishing of the home was largely guided by Speed's 1940 home inventory. The number of slaves on site varied between 45 and 64 during the plantation's operation, while the average state slaveholder owned only 5 individuals. Reconstructed structures on the grounds include the summer kitchen and cook's quarters and a springhouse. The grounds also hold a blacksmith shop, never originally on the plantation. The plantation is relevant to slavery, the Civil War, period politics, gender roles, and John Speed's close friendship with Abraham Lincoln.

The plantation offers period rooms, periodic re-enactments offering living history interactions, educational programming in compliance with state educational standards, quill pen writing, a scavenger hunt, 19th-century games, and cornhusk doll making. The website offers pre-visit information packages for teachers. Educational programs are available to all students, including home school students.

Zebulon B. Vance Birthplace [NC]

Description

This pioneer farmstead features the birthplace of Zebulon Baird Vance, North Carolina's Civil War governor. Before becoming governor, Vance served as a Confederate Army officer and later became a U.S. Senator. Rugged and controversial, Vance had a dynamic political career, which is traced at the homestead. The five-room log house—reconstructed around original chimneys—and its outbuildings are furnished to evoke the period from 1795 to 1840 when three successive generations of the famed mountain family lived here.

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

Hickory Hill [GA]

Description

Hickory Hill served as the home for Tom Watson, the divisive US Senator from Georgia. Watson, although elected as a democrat, soon was one of the senate's biggest advocates for southern black farmers. Today, Hickory Hill serves as a historic house museum which chronicles the life and times of Thomas Watson.

The home offers field trip programs, guided tours, summer camps, and exhibits on Thomas Watson. The website offers a biography of Watson, visitor information, a calendar of events, and resources for teachers including curriculum guides and worksheets.

Berkeley Plantation [VA]

Description

Berkeley Plantation is the birthplace of Benjamin Harrison V (1726-1791), Governor of Virginia and signer of the Declaration of Independence, and William Henry Harrison (1773-1841) or "Old Tippecanoe", ninth President of the United States. The plantation lands were also the site of the first official Thanksgiving in 1619 and of the composition of "Taps" in 1862. The structure itself is Georgian in style and dates to 1726. Collections include 18th-century decorative arts, Civil War artifacts, and paintings by Sydney King.

The plantation offers house tours led by guides in period dress, period rooms, exhibits, an audio-visual program, self-guided tours of the grounds, and guided student tours. Student tour topic options include the life of children in the 18th century, William Henry Harrison, and Civil War Major General George McClellan (1826-1885) and Harrison's Landing circa 1862.