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

Dorsey Chapel Historic Site [MD]

Description

This small frame meetinghouse-style church is distinguished by its steeply pitched gable roof and late Victorian ornamental treatment of its principal gable front. The upper gable has alternating courses of sawtooth and rectangular shingles, a quatrefoil bulls-eye ornament, and a turned wooden finial at the ridge. Each of the chapel's side walls is lighted by three gothic-arch windows that have delicate tracery in the upper sashes.

The church offers tours.

Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill [KY]

Description

The 3,000-acre Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill is the largest restored shaker community within the U.S. The site serves as both a nature park and outdoor living history museum. Interpretation topics include Shaker theology, farming techniques, and mid 19th-century life in Kentucky. Highlights include 14 original Shaker buildings, heritage animal breeds, and heirloom crops. The Shakers were a religious community who believed in racial, ethnic, and gender quality; and practiced celibacy. This Kentucky community was active between circa 1805 and the 1860s.

The site offers exhibits, self-guided tours, guided tours of the Centre Family Dwelling, craft demonstrations, costumed interpreters, talks, music performances, seasonal narrated riverboat rides, hands-on activities, naturalist programs, guided hikes, self-guided hikes, outdoor activities, restaurants, and a snack shop. Music performances, talks, and guided tours are available in April through October. Wheelchair access is limited.

Bale Grist Mill State Historic Park [CA]

Description

The Park is the site of a water-powered grist mill that was built in 1846. It was once the center of social activity as Napa Valley settlers gathered to have their corn and wheat ground into meal or flour. The owner of the mill was Dr. Edward Turner Bale. He received the property in a land grant from the Mexican government and lived near the site until his death in 1849. The mill remained in use until the early 1900s. The mill and its 36-foot water wheel are protected as a state historic landmark and have been partially restored. A trail connects the historic park to Bothe-Napa Valley State Park. Additionally, the park includes the site of the first church in the Napa Valley as well as the Pioneer Cemetery.

The park offers exhibits, tours, and demonstrations.

Strawberry Banke Museum [NH]

Description

The Strawberry Banke Museum is a living history museum of one of New Hampshire’s oldest neighborhoods and its history that dates back to the 1600's. The outdoor museum contains 42 historic buildings, the earliest build in 1695, and many contain live demonstrations of craftsmanship, cooking, and other forms of daily life at work.

School groups can tour the neighborhood on their own and partake in a Time Travel Workshop that includes hands-on activities lasting about 90 minutes on a specific, curriculum-based topic. Other programs on architecture, archeology, cooking, Early America, Trade and Maritime history, and the Industrial revolution meet New Hampshire education standards for many grade levels. The site also offers programs for home-schoolers and holiday programs.

Historic Bethlehem [PA]

Description

Historic Bethlehem presents and interprets three centuries of life within Bethlehem, PA. The site consists of a visitor center, the Kemerer Museum of Decorative Arts, Moravian Museum of Bethlehem, Burnside Plantation, Colonial Industrial Quarter, and Goundie House. The Kemerer Museum of Decorative Arts discusses the history of the Lehigh Valley in the 18th through 20th centuries via a collection of decorative arts. The museum also hosts toys from the 1830s to 1930s. The Moravian Museum of Bethlehem, housed within a 1741 structure, presents the lives of Bethlehem, PA's Moravian founders. The Burnside Plantation consists of a barn and farmhouse dating to the 18th and 19th centuries. The site was once home to a Moravian missionary active in local politics. The Colonial Industrial Quarter consists of the 1869 Luckenbach Mill; Miller's House; 1762 Tannery; 1762 Waterworks, the first pumped town water system in the U.S.; and the restored working Blacksmith's Shop. The 1810 Federal Goundie House presents exhibits of local history.

The site offers exhibits, period rooms, group site tours, educational programs for students, a student outreach presentation, a traveling trunk, walking tours, Segway tours, lectures, and step on guides. Note that participants must weigh between 100 and 250 pounds for the Segway tours.

Salem Witch Museum [MA]

Description

The Salem Witch Museum commemorates the men and women who were put on trial and executed during the Salem Witch hunts of 1692. These witch hunts were the product of unexplained sickness and hysterics of some of the village girls and resulted in the death of at least 19 townspeople and a period of terror in Puritan Massachusetts.

Group tours of the museum are offered for school groups.

Junipero Serra Museum [CA]

Description

The Junípero Serra Museum is one of the most familiar landmarks in San Diego. As a major symbol of the city, it stands atop the hill recognized as the site where California began. It was here in 1769 that a Spanish Franciscan missionary, Father Junípero Serra, with a group of soldiers led by Gaspar de Portolá, established Alta California's first mission and presidio (fort). On July 16, 1769, near the site where the museum now stands, Serra founded the Mission San Diego de Alcalá. Often confused for the Mission, the Serra Museum was built between 1928–1929 for the purpose of housing and showcasing the collection of the San Diego Historical Society, which was founded in 1928. The structure was designed by architect, William Templeton Johnson, using Spanish Revival architecture, to resemble the early missions that once dominated the landscape of Southern California.

The museum offers exhibits, tours, and educational programs.

Highlands Historical Society and Historic Village [NC]

Description

The Highlands Historical Society seeks to preserve and share the history of Highlands, North Carolina, founded in 1875. To this end, the society operates the Historic Village, which consists of the 1877 House-Trapier-Wright Home, 1908 Bug Hill Cottage, and the Highlands Historical Museum and Archives. The House-Trapier-Wright Home serves as a living history museum. The Bug Hill Cottage is an open-air cubicle once used to house and treat tuberculosis patients. 60 such cubicles once existed at the sanatorium on site. The historical museums exhibits address women's lives, moonshine, historic structures, genealogy, education, religion, and the area tuberculosis sanatorium, among other topics.

The society offers exhibits, period rooms, and living history interpretation.