February 2009
"Cutting Edge Strategies for Small Museums" Conference
Friday-Saturday, April 24-25 on the campus of Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau
Do you want to create powerful memories for your visitors? Do you want to engage children and adults in ways that will bring them back time after time? Do you want to be vital partners with teachers building experiences in and out of the classroom that teach curriculum standards?
Then spend two exciting days with staff from the Conner Prairie Living History Museum and the Virginia Association of Museums as they reveal their IMLS granted programs on “creating great visitor experiences” and “how museums can meet teachers’ needs.” You will learn practical, hands-on strategies that you can easily, effectively, and immediately implement at your museum.
Download Conference Description and Registration Form PDF
National History Parents, Hooray!
This is a big month for all the parents of students who will compete in National History Day. It's a month of finishing touches, rehearsal, second thoughts, extra encouragement, and no end of pride,with no wish for an end. We're fortunate to have two first-person accounts of National History Day in this month's edition. One is written by Chris Ghan, who took a Third Prize medal in the National Finals last year for his first-person monologue as "Benjamin Franklin." We've also got an insider piece from Chris's parents, Brent and Cheri Ghan. These stories explain why the Missouri Humanities Council is thankful for the State Historical Society's work to expand National History Day in Missouri.
A Tale of 37 Rural Towns
When if rains, it pours. A year ago, demand for the touring New Harmonies exhibit was HUGE. Missouri had the largest demand for the program in the U.S. To help meet the demand, we were granted an extra year to tour that exhibit to six more communities. During the same time, we will also tour Journey Stories. The applications came last week in a deluge -- 40 Missouri organizations from 37 towns want to participate. In next month's edition of Missouri Passages, we will announce the twelve communities that were selected.
Parents In Museums
Earlier this week I sat in on a seminar on changing demographics for an alliance of history organizations in Ste. Genevieve. Carey Tisdal, a visitor studies expert who consults nationally from her home office in St. Louis, led this fascinating program. Right after we got back to St. Louis, Carey forwarded me a very thought-provoking email on the shifting demographics involving women and museum visits. The email is by Susie Wilkening, Senior Consultant and Curator of Museum Audiences at "Reach Advisors" in Connecticut. I think you'll remember much of what you read in Susie's post!
Public Comment Invited for "Freedom's Frontier"
You are encouraged to comment on the draft Executive Summary of the Freedom's Frontier National Heritage Area (FFNHA) Management Plan. Freedom's Frontier National Heritage Area, consisting of 41 counties in western-Missouri and eastern-Kansas, is a grassroots effort to steward the cultural landscape and nationally significant stories about the struggle over freedom on the frontier. The Executive Summary, the first of several sections in the plan, will be posted online at www.ffnha-hosting.com.The public will have 30 days to comment.
Click this link for more background information.
Making "Sense" of a Book
Julie Douglas, my colleague, told us all about a magic evening she spent in a circle of parents who were being read to. They were attending one of the dozens of READ from the START classes we offer throughout Missouri, and on that particular evening they were all transported back into the feelings of their own childhoods. It's much better story in Julie's own telling.
A Thousand Acres for Read MOre
Why have the publishers of Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres resorted to so many book-cover designs? That is the first interesting question in the new Reader's Guide by scholar Kathleen Butterly Nigro for the 2009 ReadMOre project. People in many Missouri towns will read and discuss Smiley's book about...about what? About keeping up appearances? About the culture of agriculture? About family life and its tensions?
Why does one cover show a lone woman "at sea" in an ocean of grain? Why does another focus on two women whose positions create an "X?" Why a quilt? Why a neat hayfield with one round bale?
Jane Smiley grew up in Webster Groves, Missouri but spent most of her writing career on the faculty of Iowa State University. A Thousand Acres won the 1992 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. This spring, Jane Smiley will appear in four participating libraries in the week of April 6. You can find program times and places on the "Calendar" link at the ReadMOre web site. You can also download Kathleen Nigro's wonderful discussion guide.
Sac & Fox "Homeland" Exhibit Available
Last year to meet demand, we created a second copy of the touring exhibit on Sac and Fox heritage. The exhibit is available for touring to venues inside and outside of Missouri -- libraries, museums, schools. The exhibit is ten feet long and eight feet high, with lighting attached. Set-up and take-down are very easy. The exhibit ships in two cases. Contact MHC Office Manager, Clarice Britton to schedule dates at your site in 2009.
PBS Series on Native American Cultural Persistence Coming in April
"We Shall Remain" is a five-part television series that shows how Native peoples resisted eviction from their lands and fought the extinction of their cultures. The series is the result of an unprecedented collaboration between Native and non-Native filmmakers and involves Native advisors and scholars at all levels. It's part of the larger "American Experience" series and will include a web site and resources for teachers.
New Directory of Chautauqua Performers
We're into the third year of the National Directory of Chautauqua Performers, and the latest edition just went into our Document Library. Wow, what a range of new characters! There's Ira Cooper, the first Black member of the St. Louis Police Department and one of its leading detectives. There's Silas Goodrich of Massachusetts, a handy man with a fishing line on the Lewis & Clark Expedition. There's Jenny Lind, the "Swedish Nightingale" who gave a stupendous American concert tour - 93 large venues - organized by P.T. Barnum. Naturally, Barnum himself is in our list!
