International Motorsports Hall of Fame Museum [AL]

Description

The International Motorsports Hall of Fame is located in Talladega, Alabama, and serves both as a Hall of Fame and as a museum of motorsports. The Hall of Fame has been open since 1990 and currently has well over 100 inductees. The museum chronicles the history and technology of motorsports, and features an impressive collection of vintage and modern racing cars, including Richard Petty's Dodge Charger and the first vehicle to break the speed of sound on land.

The museum offers self-guided tours, exhibits, a research library, and tours of the adjacent Talladega Superspeedway. The website offers a photo gallery of the museum, brief biographies of all inductees, a virtual tour, a history of the Hall of Fame, and general visitor information.

Mystic Seaport: The Museum of America and the Sea [CT]

Description

Mystic Seaport: The Museum of America and the Sea, located in Mystic, CT, takes visitors back to an era when seaports were the hub of the New England economy. Today, the site presents a representation of the trades and businesses typical of a mid-to-late 19th-century seaport, including those which would have been located on the water's edge and others which would have operated further inland. Trades and skills represented within the village include medicine, general sales, chandlery sales, navigation, life saving, cooperage, blacksmithing, sail making, rigging suppliers, whaling, commercial fishery, oystering, and rope making.

The village also contains a church, seamen's friends site, residences of several periods, and other structures, the vast majority of which are period. Vessel highlights include the last wooden whaleship in the world, a Newfoundland commercial fishing schooner, and a lighthouse tender used to smuggle Jews out of Nazi-occupied Denmark.

The seaport is also home to exhibits of maritime history and art, a planetarium, carefully restored tall ships and historic vessels, and a working preservation shipyard. Demonstrations depict whale boat stations and rowing, period domestic life, life saving techniques, rope making, sail hauling and furling, and sea chanteys.

The seaport offers a planetarium, traditional and interactive exhibits, presentations, field trip programs, interpretive activities aboard the seaport's fleet of ships, outreach programs, summer camps, a playground, children's games and activities, living history demonstrations and reenactors, opportunities to sail or row, steamship and catboat rides, a water taxi, adult and college classes, guided and self-guided tours, and overnight activities.

The museum is designed to engage, educate, and entertain visitors of all ages; and also offers collections and research library access at a location near the main museum complex. The website offers visitor information, online research resources, a calendar of events, and information regarding all of the programs offered by the seaport. In order to contact the website via email, use the "contact us" link located on the left side of the webpage.

The Charles W. Morgan, the whaling barque, is currently under restoration in the Preservation Shipyard. This is an excellent opportunity to see master craftsmen at work on an outstanding vessel, and to get a sense of vessel construction.

Fireman's Hall Museum [PA]

Description

The Fireman's Hall Museum, located within 1902 firehouse, presents the history of firefighting in Philadelphia; and promotes fire prevention techniques. Collections include historic firefighting apparatus and photographs.

The museum offers traditional and interactive exhibits. The website offers trivia questions, safety suggestions, games, and activities.

Nevada County Historical Society and Museums [CA]

Description

The Nevada County Historical Society seeks to preserve and share the history of Nevada County, California. To this end, the society operates the Nevada County Narrow Gauge Railroad Museum, North Star Mine Powerhouse and Pelton Wheel Museum, Firehouse Museum, and Searls Library. The railroad museum presents local transportation history. Collection highlights include seven historic railroad cars, dating from 1889 to circa 1940. The mining museum's collection highlights include a working Cornish pump; working stamp mill; and the largest Pelton wheel, a mechanism for supplying air to power the mines, ever made. The Firehouse Museum, housed in an 1861 structure, presents exhibits on the Maidu people, the Donner Party, Chinese-American daily life and religion between 1877 and 1938, and vernacular items dating from circa 1850 to present.

The society offers monthly speakers and both library and archive access. Research assistance is available for a fee. The railroad museum and firehouse museum offer exhibits. The mining museum offers self-guided tours, period dioramas, and exhibits. The website offers digital historical and genealogical databases.

Hammond Castle Museum [MA]

Description

The Hammond Castle Museum serves as both a historic home museum and a museum to the life and inventions of John Hays Hammond, Junior (1888-1965), inventor of radio wave remote control and possessor of 400 patents. The structure, completed in 1929, was designed to emulate Medieval castles, as Hammond was an avid collector of Roman, Medieval, and Renaissance artifacts and felt that architecture, above all else, gives one the sense of the existence of history and lives past.

The museum offers exhibits, period rooms, self-guided tours, guided tours, and educational programs. As the structure is historic, it was built prior to the creation of the Americans with Disabilities Act; and, unfortunately, is not handicapped accessible. Reservations with at least two weeks advance notice are required for all school groups. Food is not permitted on the grounds.

LaGrange Plantation [MD]

Description

LaGrange Plantation is home to the Dorchester County Historical Society, which seeks to preserve and share the history of Dorchester County, Maryland. To this end, the society operates several museums and an archive. The circa 1760 Georgian Meredith House displays decorative arts pieces and artifacts pertaining to the seven Maryland governors from Dorchester County. The Nelid Museum presents local agricultural life from colonial times onward. The Goldsborough Stable presents transportation and trade artifacts. The workshop of Ron Rue, noted huntng decoy maker; a historic food storage structure and smokehouse; and a colonial-style herb garden are also on site.

The plantation offers exhibits, period rooms, and a historically styled garden. The website offers a video tour of the Nelid Museum.

Heritage Museum [MT]

Description

The Heritage Museum presents the history of Lincoln County, Montana. Exhibit topics include transportation, explorers, fur trappers, the Kootenai people, mining, logging, and the natural environment. Period rooms display 19th-century life.

The museum offers exhibits and period rooms. Tours can be arranged by appointment. The museum is only open during June, July, and August.

Palace of the Governors [NM]

Description

The Palace of the Governors, an early 17th-structure built to house Spain's colonial government in the American Southwest, today chronicles the history of Santa Fe and New Mexico. Exhibits explore all of the periods of New Mexico's history, from Spanish colonial to Mexican to its time as a U.S. territory and, finally, a state. Museum-goers may also visit the Palace Print Shop and Bindery, a living exhibit which recreates 19th-century printing techniques.

The museum offers exhibits, self-guided and guided tours for school groups, research library access, and recreational and educational events.

Connecticut Valley Historical Museum

Description

The Connecticut Valley Historical Museum presents the history and traditions of Springfield, Connecticut and the Connecticut Valley through locally made objects. These objects include furniture, silver goods, motorcycles, antique automobiles, industrial artifacts, and historical firearms. The museum also celebrates famous people from the region, with Theodor "Dr. Seuss" Geisel perhaps being most widely known. The library includes a collection of French Canadian church records.

The museum offers exhibits and a genealogy and local history library.

Paper House [MA]

Description

Construction of the Paper House began in 1922 as the hobby of Mr. Elis F. Steinman, inventor of the machines used to create paper clips. The house is remarkable in that the walls and a number of its intricate furnishings are made solely of varnished newspaper and glue—an experiment in insulation. Steinman summered in the building between 1924 and 1930.

The papers remain readable through the varnish. The Paper House furnishes an opportunity to access period news in an unconventional manner.