Jack House and Gardens [CA]

Description

The 1880 Jack House and Gardens presents the home of San Luis Obispo, California's Jack family. The Jacks—ranchers, politicians, land developers, and bankers—lived in the home for more than 90 years, and the site is furnished with many of their personal belongings. The home is decorated to interpret Victorian daily life, and the gardens include period varieties of roses.

The house offers period rooms, guided tours, and self-guided gardens tours.

Buffalo Bill Historical Center [WY]

Description

The Buffalo Bill Historical Center contains several museums devoted to Buffalo Bill, Western art, the Plains peoples, and Greater Yellowstone. The Buffalo Bill Museum presents the life of W.F. Cody, better known as Buffalo Bill, and his historical context in the American West. Cody (1846-1917) operated a Wild West show between 1883 and 1913, which helped to shape popular understandings of the Western frontier. The Whitney Gallery of Western Art displays major works of Western art. Artists represented in the collection include William Ranney, T.D. Kelsey (born 1946), Edgar S. Paxson (1852-1919), and Fritz Scholder (1937-2005). The Plains Indian Museum presents the history and culture of the people of the Plains. Collection strengths include the early reservation period (circa 1880-1930), the Lakota, Crow, Arapaho, Shoshone, and Cheyenne. The Cody Firearms Museum presents the world's most comprehensive collection of U.S. firearms. The Draper Museum of Natural History presents the natural history of the Greater Yellowstone area.

All sites offer exhibits. The Draper Museum of Natural History offers interactive exhibits, audio-visual elements, monthly lectures, and an interactive elementary school educational program. The center also offers research library access and research assistance. Center educational opportunities include themed guided tours for students, traveling trunks, resource kits, videos, and teacher workshops. The website offers a Plains Indian Museum virtual exhibit and Cody Firearms Museum firearms glossary and idiom listing.

The Whitney Gallery of Western Art is closed, as the site adds interpretation, situating artworks in context.

Kansas Oil Museum

Description

The 10-acre Kansas Oil Museum presents the history of the discovery of oil and the growth of the oil industry within the state of Kansas, as well as the history of Butler County. The site includes historical oil field equipment and a "boom town" of historic buildings. Topics addressed include G.W. Brown’s 1860s oil well, John Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company, the connection between geology and oil, farming, ranching, and Native American ways of life.

The museum offers exhibits, camps, tours, Scout programs, oil rig demonstrations, educational outreach programs, and research library access. Advance notice is needed for oil rig demonstrations and school tours. The website offers definitions of drilling terminology and a writing competition.

Goleta Valley Historical Society and Rancho La Patera [CA]

Description

The Society manages and preserves the five-acre Rancho La Patera, including the 1873 Stow House gardens. Today, the society presents the Ranch as a historic house museum and living history site where visitors can experience rural ranch and California life in the late 1800s.

The museum offers a variety of events, visitor tours, educational programs, and tours tailored for schoolchildren. The website offers a brief history of the ranch, information about upcoming events, an events calendar, visitor information, and a section for teachers which includes a field trip guide.

Jerome County Historical Society and Museum and Idaho Farm and Ranch Agricultural Museum [ID]

Description

The Society operates a local history museum, the Jerome County Historical Museum, as well as the Idaho Farm and Ranch Agricultural Museum. The latter displays many specimens of old farm equipment and original buildings from the surrounding area, including an exhibit from the World War II Minidoka Japanese Relocation Camp that was located at Hunt, ID in Jerome County.

The society and Jerome County Historical Museum offer exhibits, tours, and research library access; the Agricultural Museum offers exhibits, tours, and occasional recreational and educational events (including living history events).

Cottonwood Ranch State Historic Site

Description

John Fenton Pratt had no idea when he started building his ranch that it would someday tell the story of his family and his native Yorkshire, England. Visitors can tour the grounds and house of this relatively unchanged rural ranch set in the South Solomon River Valley of the High Plains. Through Pratt’s photo collection, stained glass windows, and examples of Yorkshire architecture, visitors will learn about businessman and sheep rancher Pratt, other early Kansas ranchers, and their stories.

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

New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum

Description

The Museum brings to life the 3,000-year history of farming and ranching in New Mexico. The main building contains more than 24,000-square-feet of exhibit space, along with catering space for meetings and events, a mercantile, and theater. Visitors can watch a cow being milked, stroll along corrals filled with livestock, enjoy several gardens, or watch one of a growing number of demonstrations.

The museum offers exhibits, tours, demonstrations, classes, lectures, and other educational and recreational events and programs.

The Great Plains: America's Crossroads

Description

"To many, the Great Plains are part of the Great Flyover, whose landscape and history alike are flat and featureless. But in this region in the middle of the nation, cultures have mingled and clashed for thousands of years. This seminar will focus on the 19th century, though also examining the first peoples and the continuing cultural exchanges of the 20th century. It will begin with the physical setting, plants, and animals, and consider early humans in both Native American traditions and anthropological/archeological studies. Europeans arriving in the 16th century accelerated the long history of change and evolution, initiating more than three centuries of converging peoples and cultures, new centers of power, flourishing trade, calamitous epidemics, and cultural and material intrusions from across the planet. Participants will visit Bent’s Fort to see a cultural crossroads illustrated through one family. The seminar will also examine cattle ranching, homesteading, scientific explorations, and the depiction of the plains in art."

Registration Deadline
Sponsoring Organization
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
Phone number
1 646-366-9666
Target Audience
Secondary
Start Date
Cost
None ($400 stipend)
Course Credit
"Participants who complete the seminar in a satisfactory manner will receive a certificate. Teachers may use this certificate to receive in-service credit, subject to the policy of their district. No university credit is offered for the course."
Duration
One week
End Date

The Great Plains: America's Crossroads

Description

To many, the Great Plains are part of the Great Flyover, whose landscape and history alike are flat and featureless. However, in this region in the middle of the nation, cultures have mingled and clashed for thousands of years. This seminar will focus on the 19th century, though also examining the first peoples and the continuing cultural exchanges of the 20th century. The seminar will begin with the physical setting, plants, and animals, and consider early humans in both Native American traditions and anthropological/archaeological studies. Europeans arriving in the 16th century accelerated the long history of change and evolution, initiating more than three centuries of converging peoples and cultures, new centers of power, flourishing trade, calamitous epidemics, and cultural and material intrusions from across the planet. Participants will visit Bent's Fort to see a cultural crossroads illustrated through one family. They will also examine cattle ranching, homesteading, scientific explorations, and the depiction of the plains in art.

Registration Deadline
Sponsoring Organization
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
Phone number
646-366-9666
Target Audience
Middle and high school
Start Date
Cost
Free; $400 stipend granted
Course Credit
Pittsburg State University (PSU) is pleased to offer graduate credit to workshop participants at a tuition fee of $199 per credit hour. Participants can receive three graduate credit hours for the duration of the week.
Duration
One week
End Date