Intimate lives on display: Monticello and Mount Vernon

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Jennifer Tyburczy’s brilliant observation that all museums “have played an important but often overlooked role in the institutionalization of categories of sexual ‘normalcy’ and ‘perversity’” can also be applied to house museums and historic sites. House museums, as sites for interpreting private lives, are engaged in complex ways with presentations of sex and sexuality. Read More

My dark secret, or How I learned to stop hating American history and start loving it

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Several years back, I was a new public history practitioner working for the National Park Service (NPS).  A series of fortuitous events led me to the NPS: a stint at a historical society, a freelance job for the Smithsonian, an informational interview with the NPS Office of Diversity and Special Projects, and a quick gig with a partner organization. Read More

Project Showcase: Gateway to U.S. Federal Reserve System centennial commemoration

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screenshotDec. 23, 2013, marked the 100th anniversary of the passage of the Federal Reserve Act, which established the Federal Reserve as the central bank for the United States. Financial panics and bank runs plagued the nation during the 19th and early 20th centuries, and the Panic of 1907 prompted many Americans to call for a central bank. Read More

Consulting Alliances Working Group: An introduction

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The working group that we have organized for the upcoming annual meeting in Monterey explores both the extent to which consulting historians have formed joint ventures to bid for and execute projects and the retention of independent consultants on the part of consulting firms (historical and otherwise) on a project-by-project basis. Read More

An experiment for generation Y: "aMUSE: Exhibits Unleashed"

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Like many community museums, we’ve had a difficult time encouraging and maintaining a young adult audience. We know that members of generation Y love information, history, museums, and artifacts. We also know that members of generation Y sometimes like to focus more on presentation style, technology, and media than on content. Read More