Looking Back, Moving Forward in Museum Education!

Virtual Museum Impressions: Salvador Dali’s Dali Theatre Museum

June 10, 2021

Over the past year, I made a number of virtual visits to museums and because I enjoyed seeing how museums outside of the United States set up their virtual spaces, I wanted to make more trips to them. I chose to visit the Salvador Dali Museums in Spain not only because I found out one of my followers works there but I also appreciate visiting art museums and wanted to learn more about Salvador Dali. Dali, who was born on May 11, 1904, in Figueres, is a Surrealist artist whose repertoire included painting, graphic arts, film, sculpture, design and photography. He created the Dali Foundation which is responsible for managing the Theatre-Museum in Figueres, the Gala-Dalí Castle in Púbol, and the Salvador Dalí House in Portlligat. I decided to visit the Theatre-Museum first and in this post, I will share some highlights from my virtual experience. I know that I would not be able to see everything all at once so I will be revisiting this museum a number of times after my initial trip.

I virtually visited the Dali Theatre Museum (Teatre-Museu Dali/Teatro-Museo Dali) located in Figueres, Spain towards the end of May. According to their website, the Dali Theatre Museum was inaugurated in 1974. In the beginning of the 1960s, the mayor of Figueres at the time, Ramon Guardiola, asked Dali to donate a work for the Museu de l l’Empordà; in response, Dali not only donated a work, but he donated an entire museum. Dali wished to have this project located at the former Municipal Theatre of Figures that was destroyed in a fire at the end of the Spanish Civil War. Today, the museum has approximately 1,500 pieces on display which allow visitors to see Dali’s artistic journey through the broad spectrum of his works from his first artistic experiences, surrealism, nuclear mysticism, his passion for science, to the works of the last part of his life. I shared some highlights from my virtual visit to the Dali Theatre-Museum.

One of the interesting things I learned in my visit is the museum not only holds Salvador Dali’s works but also another artist’s works, his friend Antoni Pitxot (1934-2015). Salvador Dali himself appointed Pitxot to be the director of the Dali Theatre-Museum which he held until his death. Dali set aside space for Pitxot’s works on the second floor of the museum as a permanent exhibition. In addition to the Pitxot exhibit, it also holds one piece that was not created by Salvador Dali. When I entered the museum, there was a collage fan that according to the caption was designed by French model and actress Amanda Lear under Dali’s guidance. I liked that the museum encourages visitors to design their own collages. The caption read: Why not try making your own collage at home. It doesn’t have to be on a fan!

As I continued to walk through the museum, I noticed a car in the middle of the courtyard, so I decided to take a closer look of the space and the car. It was a Cadillac, known as the Rainy Taxi, that was placed inside of the museum by a crane before the building was completed. The museum included a challenge I enjoyed participating in within the virtual space for visitors to go inside the car. According to the captions, in order to get inside the car to discover what is in it one would have to click onto the spot next to the door and see if it opens then once it does try to go inside; once the challenge is completed, one is encouraged to share pictures, tag the museum, and use the hashtag #CadillacDaliChallenge on Instagram. I did the challenge and my Instagram post with more pictures from the challenge can be found in the list below.

Then I continued to the Cupola to see more of the impressive architecture and the large painting that is the first piece that drew my eye within the space. Salvador Dali painted this oil painting called “Labyrinth” which was created for the ballet of the same name based on the Greek myth of Theseus and Ariadne. The ballet was first performed in 1941 at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. I was not only impressed with the size of the painting, but I was also impressed with the imagery Dali captured. Within the painting, there is a giant person that has a tree on its chest with an entryway underneath it seems to lead to the labyrinth which is not seen completely but tall trees and cliffs are seen; surrounding all of it is a body of water. The imagery made me wonder what could be beyond the entrance, and what is there that I could not see. I thought the painting really represented the surrealism he was known for, and when I think of settings for ballet, I do not immediately think of surrealist art which is why I was surprised it was a part of a ballet. Dali also designed the sets and costumes for the ballet in addition to creating this painting.

What I also learned and caught me by surprise was not only Dali created this museum, but he is also buried inside of his museum. I noticed a white slab in the middle of the floor, and it was until I revisited the Cupola that I learned underneath it lies Salvador Dali’s tomb. In his last wishes, he wanted to be buried inside of his museum and his wishes were met after he died on January 23, 1989. As far as I can remember, I do not believe I have visited a museum before in which an artist or even a museum founder is buried within the museum. It seems to me that Dali’s last wishes show his dedication to his museum, his art, and the community he was born into by becoming a physical part of a place visitors can view his works. I decided to find more information about the tomb. While I was looking, I came across a post from a few years ago when his remains were exhumed as part of a request by Pilar Abel Martínez to take a DNA sample as part of the legal proceedings to prove she is Dali’s daughter; I included a link to this post in the list below.

Salvador Dali’s *Labyrinth* and his tomb

The next room I went into is called the Mae West Room, which is a three-dimensional representation of American actress Mae West’s face converted into a living room space. I did not realize when I first went into the room that it was a face until the further I was in the room the more I recognized the living room furniture as parts of the face; then I saw the whole face when I was looking down from a small set of stairs in the room. According to the museum, this representation was based on a work he made in 1934 which was a gouache on newspaper collage called “Mae West’s Faced Used as an Apartment”; the gouache on newspaper collage is on display at the Art Institute of Chicago.

One of the last places I visited within the museum was within Loggia where I saw the dark room with a display of Babaouo, a film project Dali worked on in the early 1930s. He wrote a screenplay for the film in 1932 and he built in the museum a wooden box with seven panes of glass he painted in the interior, placed one behind the other and was lit from the back. I thought it was interesting that the characters in Babaouo were also in another film project called Destino which was a collaboration between Salvador Dali and Walt Disney. They began the short film project in 1946 after Dali signed a contract with Disney on January 14^th; Dali installed himself in the Disney Studios in Burbank, California, where he set about drafting the screenplay and creating a series of drawings and oil paintings. While it was a 6-to-8-minute short film, only 15 seconds was completed at the time. Destino was completed in 2003 on the basis of Dali’s original sketches.

I hope to visit this museum in person one day and learn more about Salvador Dali and his works. If you have visited this museum before, virtually and/or in-person, please share your experiences in the comments. I will be visiting this museum again and I will also be planning my visits to the other museums the Dali Foundation manages. To see more pictures from the visit, check out the website’s Instagram: lbmfmuseumeducation.

I’m on Buy Me a Coffee. If you like my work, you can buy me a coffee and share your thoughts. More information about additional benefits for supporting my work can be found here: https://lookingbackmovingforwardinmuseumeducation.com/buy-me-a-coffee-page/

Links:

Dali Museums

Virtual Dali Theatre-Museum

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by LBMF Museum Education (@lbmfmuseumeducation)

Rainy Taxi Installation Story

The exhumation of Salvador Dali’s remains

Dali Theatre Museum: Destino

NYCMER 2021 Virtual Conference Reaction: The Second Virtual Experience with NYCMER

May 27, 2021

I decided to attend this year’s New York City Museum Educators Roundtable (NYCMER) virtual conference which took place on Monday, May 17^th. This was their second conference on the virtual platform, and not only did I want to engage with colleagues in the field and learn from sessions on the museum education field, but I also wanted to see how the second virtual conference compares to the first virtual conference. The theme this year was Reflect, Reinterpret, Represent: What’s your Re__? and the sessions encouraged participants to reflect on the lessons we learned and reinterpret the fundamentals of both museum and informal education while we move forward towards a renewed and more representative museum field. Once again, the NYCMER conference was held on the Hopin app, and like I said in last year’s post: participants would be able to do what we usually did during the conference, including attending the keynote session, sessions, poster sessions, Peer Group meetings, and networking, but from home. Instead of releasing my thoughts last week, I wanted to focus on gathering them and my notes to give a concise account of my experiences during the conference.

As usual, I found it hard to decide which sessions to attend during the virtual conference, but I will be getting recordings and resources from the conference as a NYCMER member. Throughout the day, I tweeted my thoughts on Twitter while engaging in the sessions I attended. I gathered some of the tweets I wrote during the day and background information on the sessions to share with all of you. I collected the rest of my tweets and placed them in an Excel spreadsheet, and it is found within the resource section. In addition to tweeting my experience, I made note of the interactions I had with colleagues online in comparison to last year.

Networking with colleagues was a challenge last year since the time was short and it was hard to have conversations when they suddenly cut off; the networking feature was continuously updated throughout the conference so more time was added conversations. This year the networking feature has a maximum of five minutes to interact with one another, and we are able to extend the time spent in five-minute increments as long as both parties click on the extend button. I like what they did this year in the networking experience because I got to have longer conversations if time permitted; in one conversation I was able to help answer an emerging museum professional’s many great questions about the museum field.

The opening session is about to begin! #NYCMER2021 pic.twitter.com/7ho2OrGXH7
— Lindsey Steward-Goldberg (@Steward2Lindsey) May 17, 2021

While waiting for the keynote session to begin, participants were encouraged to visit the mentimeter site to answer the conference’s theme question: What’s your Re__? We were encouraged to add our words to the word cloud that will be shared at the end of the conference. My “Re__” words I added to the word cloud were: Refresh, Renew, Reflect, and Remember. I chose these words since they apply to both the museum field overall and my career in the field. It is good to refresh and renew our practices in the museum field, reflect on the progress we have made and what we still need to do, and remember the lessons we learned especially during the past year.

Thank you Dr. Porchia Moore for speaking at this year's keynote! #NYCMER2021 @NYCMER pic.twitter.com/vNefXXd6qj
— Lindsey Steward-Goldberg (@Steward2Lindsey) May 17, 2021

The keynote speaker this year was Dr. Porchia Moore, who is the Assistant Professor of Museum Studies at the University of Florida, champion of the Critical Race Theory, co-director of the Incluseum, and co-creator of the Visitors of Color project. Dr. Moore emphasized during the keynote that we need to use the time we are in now to create new educational practices. Within her presentation, Dr. Moore shared what her “Re__” words were in museum education. She chose recall, reimagine, and also remember then explained her reasons behind the words:

Recall: Why am I doing this work?
Reimagine: think critically about what the new space should look like
Remember: inspired by the term Rememory and the book Beloved by Toni Morrison. Dr. Moore spoke about the collective memory and how even if something you remember does not physically exist it still exists within the mind. As a field, we need to re-write our values to form a collective body

I attended the session Redesigning in-person programs, and the speakers were Raymond Rogers, Ciara Scully, and Tiffany Yeung from the New York State Parks. Rogers, Scully, and Yeung shared information on what they needed to consider when redesigning in-person programs and what we should apply to our own programs. The following sections are what we need to consider in our program redesigns:

Safety

-know what your agency’s guidelines are

-know what to expect from participants beforehand

Accessibility

-what needs can we meet?

-language clear and descriptive?

-seating available?

-ADA compliant?

-How is it advertised?

Inclusion

-who is it designed for?

-anyone excluded from program? Why?

-what language are we using? Gender neutral? Inclusive?

-does it include multiple perspectives?

Dialogue

-main goal of this program?

-how are we engaging people with the content?

They encouraged us to brainstorm things to keep in mind when we redesign our in-person programs.

The next session I attended was Reimagining Equity and Inclusion within Docent Programs, and the speakers were Christina Marinelli (Senior Museum Instructor/Adult Learning Coordinator at the Brooklyn Museum) and Maria C. Pio (Co-Director; Director of Education and Administration at the Godwin-Ternbach Museum at Queens College, CUNY). In this session, all participants were encouraged to start discussions in separate sections to discuss policies, shared commitments, & values and training strategies. During the first section on policies, some points that were discussed included concerns on being too political and the need to make them feel safe, how to navigate DEAI (Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, Inclusion), and docents that are also donors. When we went back from our groups, we learned about what the second group discussed. In the second section, we brainstormed answers for types of trainings that were particularly helpful or problematic including setting clear roles and responsibilities.

For my third session, I decided to attend New York Responds: Creating a Crowd-Sourced Exhibition and Responsive Programming for a City in Crisis. The speakers were Maeve Montalvo (Director, Frederick A.O. Schwarz Education Center, Museum of the City of New York), Hannah Diamond (Education Manager for Professional Learning, Museum of the City of New York), Jelissa Caldwell (Museum Educator, Museum of the City of New York), Joanna Steinberg (Curator of Education Programs, Museum of the City of New York), and Amanda Johnson (Artist, Museum of the City of New York). All of the speakers discussed how this exhibit came to fruition, and a link to information about the exhibit New York Responds: The First Six Months is included in the list below. The exhibit is now available online.

Then there was the Expo in which there are shorter sessions that introduced various topics and speakers introduce the research or projects they were working on to conference attendees. For this year’s conference, NYCMER shared a YouTube playlist as an introduction to this year’s Expo (I included a link of the playlist in the list below). When I attended the Expo, I attended the one called Squash the Museum. Danaleah Schoenfuss and Sonya Ochshorn discussed the current workplace structure that are still in place in many museums, and presented a range of alternative structures such as flat management, worker co-ops, and delayering processes both as a thought experiment but also as steps for creating lasting change.

The fourth and final session I attended was called Making Institutional Change. Braden Paynter (Director, Methodology and Practice at the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience) and Tramia Jackson (Senior Coordinator, Science Research Mentoring Consortium at the American Museum of Natural History). This session shared two frameworks to help participants, the first to analyze challenges and the second to create strategic processes for change. Drawing on the experience of the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience and the Science Research Mentoring Consortium participants won’t have all of the answers, but they will have better questions to begin revealing them. The goal of the session was to provide basic tools for our own institutional change. When working on making institutional change, it is important to remember to:

Gather knowledge

-What is your why?

-Where are your concerns in your institution?

Identify people

-find allies and build partnerships

Grow collective and individual knowledge

-continue to build your knowledge about the issue

Small acts of change

-within your purview and your allies, begin applying knowledge and making small changes

Paynter and Jackson also pointed out that it is important to take breaks and celebrate your accomplishments. I really enjoyed this year’s NYCMER virtual conference, and stay tuned for more resources as I continue to participate in NYCMER events.

I’m on Buy Me a Coffee. If you like my work, you can buy me a coffee and share your thoughts. https://lookingbackmovingforwardinmuseumeducation.com/buy-me-a-coffee-page/

Links:

NYCMER 2021 Virtual Conference Page

NYCMER 2021 Virtual Expo Playlist

Blog Post on NYCMER 2020

Beloved by Toni Morrison

Museum of the City of New York’s New York Responds: The First Six Months

NYCMER 2021 Tweets Spreadsheet

Book Review: Invisible Ink by John A. Nagy

May 20, 2021

I came across John A. Nagy’s Invisible Ink: Spycraft of the American Revolution in recent years, and I decided to take a closer look at this book. I especially wanted to read this book since my work at the Three Village Historical Society also focuses on engaging visitors on the history of the Culper Spy Ring which utilized the invisible ink method during the American Revolution. The book discussed various spy methods that were implemented during that time period. It also provided some history of spying to provide context for what spying during the American Revolution was like for both the British and the Patriots (colonists who opposed British rule over the colonies). As a historian and as an Education Committee member for the Three Village Historical Society, I thought it would be important to also take a closer look at the information Nagy utilized and described in his book.

There were a couple of things I kept in mind when examining how Nagy discussed the Culper Spy Ring in his book. For instance, while there was some information he shared throughout the book, he did focus one chapter on the Culper Spy Ring (specifically in 15 pages) as part of the overall history of spycraft in the American Revolution. The Culper Spy Ring was not the main focus of the overall book.

I noticed within the Appendix section that Nagy labeled the code in Appendix B as “Culper Spy Ring Code”. The issue I have with this description is that the code is actually known as Tallmadge’s Code; it is named for Benjamin Tallmadge, a dragoon officer during the American Revolution, who General Washington appointed as intelligence officer and Tallmadge would serve in this role between 1778 and 1783. Tallmadge recruited his childhood friends in Setauket, New York as the main spies in the Culper Spy Ring. At first, I thought Nagy may have called it “Culper Spy Ring Code” because I saw it on Mount Vernon’s website; the title of the webpage for the collections on Mount Vernon’s website was titled “Culper Spy Ring Code”. However, I did not see any reference to Mount Vernon in his bibliography section nor does he make a reference to the Appendix B within the text itself. Therefore, it cannot be confirmed where he got the Code from. To take a look at the Code Tallmadge developed, I included a link to the code book in Mount Vernon’s collection in the list below.

Nagy’s bibliography section is split into two subsections: manuscript collections and printed materials. With the exception of Morton Pennypacker’s book General Washington’s Spies on Long Island and in New York (published by the Long Island Historical Society in Brooklyn, 1939), there were no resources about the Culper Spy Ring that came from Long Island in his book. The bibliography section included collections that came from New York City (Columbia University Libraries, New York Historical Society, and the New York Public Library) but from what I saw in the book there are no resources that were gathered and utilized in the book from Long Island. Pennypacker’s book was a significant one because until his book was released no one knew about the Culper Spy Ring and who were a part of the Culper Spy Ring. I recommend checking out resources provided by the Three Village Historical Society in East Setauket, Stony Brook University Libraries and Archives in Stony Brook, and the Emma Clark Library’s Culper Spy Ring page called It Happened in Setauket. The links for these resources are available in the list below.

An important thing to keep in mind when reading history books is to take a look at the resources section and how those resources are utilized throughout the books.

I’m on Buy Me a Coffee. If you like my work, you can buy me a coffee and share your thoughts. https://lookingbackmovingforwardinmuseumeducation.com/buy-me-a-coffee-page/

Links:

Three Village Historical Society

Emma Clark Library: It Happened in Setauket

It Happened in Setauket Map

Stony Brook University Libraries and Archives: Culper Spy Ring

Mount Vernon: Culper Code Book

https://www.westholmepublishing.com/book/invisible-ink-john-a-nagy/

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6560959-invisible-ink

A Public Historian Explores History Camp

May 6, 2021

I recently came across History Camp while exploring museums virtually, and I thought it would be interesting to take a closer look. According to their website, History Camp is a casual conference generally for adults especially including but not limited to students, teachers, professors, authors, bloggers, reenactors, interpreters, museum and historical society directors, board members, genealogists, et. cetera regardless of profession or degree who is interested in and wants to learn more about history. The first History Camp was held on March 8, 2014 which presented 23 sessions and two panels, and welcomed 109 people to an IBM facility in Cambridge, Massachusetts. There are some local volunteer committees that manage History Camps while others are managed by non-profit organizations. In 2019, the non-profit organization The Pursuit of History was started to foster the development of more History Camps across the country.

Other conferences in the past have been in person at various places including Boston, Colorado, Virginia, and Philadelphia. This year, however, their conference History Camp America will be a fully virtual History Camp participants can enjoy from anywhere in the world.

Since I have not experienced History Camp America yet, I am not able to, at the time I am writing this blog post, to state what the experience is like. History Camp America will take place this year on Saturday, July 10^th. I have signed up for their newsletter so I will know when tickets will become available. If you would like to check it out for yourselves, I have included a link below where you can sign up for their newsletter. Based on the information provided so far, the biggest differences between conferences I have attended in the past and History Camp America is there are no places where services are being shared and sale pitches. Another difference that I noticed is in each conference I have attended there are themes, and the sessions are in general based on those themes; History Camp America put emphasis on making the conferences as broad as possible to attract many people to attend, and they believe that ultimately, it is the speakers and attendees that define the scope discussions are focused on. On their website, they stated that:

Since our first History Camp in 2014, history enthusiasts of all stripes have been enthralled by our casual conference format. This format encourages a wide variety of topics and participants learn about history and new research, engage with history in unique ways, share what they love about history, and challenge everyone to think about history in new ways.

Once the conference occurs, I will be able to share more about the experience of attending History Camp America.

During the pandemic, they launched two new History Camp events called History Camp Discussions and America’s Summer Roadtrip. History Camp Discussions are free online weekly discussions that are live every Thursday at 8pm Eastern, and are also available as recordings in their archives section for replays. One of the History Camp Discussions that caught my attention was the discussion with Emerson W. Baker on his book A Storm of Witchcraft: Salem Trials and the American Experience. Baker is a Professor of History and Interim Dean of Graduate and Professional Studies at Salem State University in Salem, Massachusetts. The hour-long program discussed Baker’s book by focusing the discussion on his investigation of the key players in the Salem witchcraft crisis and explains why this tragedy unfolded the way it did according to the research he did for his book.

Another History Camp Discussions that caught my attention was the discussion with Linda Jeffers Coombs on the topic of The Wampanoag and the Arrival of the Pilgrims. Coombs is an author and historian from the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) and program director of the Aquinnah Cultural Center. In the near hour-long program, she discussed the Wampanoag’s experience with the pilgrims’ arrival, and the effects of an epidemic that swept through and devastated the region just before the pilgrims arrived.

America’s Summer Roadtrip is a free online event that brought participants to 12 historic sites across the United States without leaving home and where many of their guides offer special access to areas other tours usually do not go. The twelve historic sites across the United States are located in Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming, North Carolina, and California.

To learn more, I have included links below on their website and the programs they offer.

I’m on Buy Me a Coffee. If you like my work, you can buy me a coffee and share your thoughts. https://lookingbackmovingforwardinmuseumeducation.com/buy-me-a-coffee-page/

Links:

History Camp

About History Camp

Upcoming Events

History Camp America 2021

America’s Summer Roadtrip

History Camp Discussions: Emerson W. Baker’s A Storm of Witchcraft: Salem Trials and the American Experience

History Camp Discussions: Linda Jeffers Coombs on The Wampanoag and the Arrival of the Pilgrims

History Camp Newsletter Sign Up

Announcement: Upcoming Book Project I Am Working On

April 23, 2021

When I started my Buy Me A Coffee page, my plan was to use the support for the blog and website to publish a book that would be relevant for the museum field.

Today, I am announcing the book project that I have been researching and beginning the process of writing for. The book I am writing is on the coronavirus and the museum field. My goals for writing this book are to

preserve the history of the coronavirus pandemic from the perspective of the museum field,
describe the history of the previous pandemic over 100 years before this pandemic and how the actions taken in the past are relevant to what we have experienced starting at least since March 2020, and
discover how we all will move forward with the lessons we have learned.

It is a relevant book because the pandemic has made a significant impact on all around the world especially museum workers who engage with the public both within the community and inside the museum walls. A book like this one is beneficial for museum professionals, museum lovers, and individuals interested in history especially history of modern medicine.

To write a book like this one, it is important to compile numerous resources such as relevant books, articles, and posts that will support the goals the writer set for their book. I have compiled a lengthy list of resources I am reviewing, and I will continue to compile and review resources before I finalize the official list of resources to be utilized for writing the book.

To help support this project and learn the benefits of supporting it, check out the Buy Me a Coffee Page I created here: https://lookingbackmovingforwardinmuseumeducation.com/buy-me-a-coffee-page/

Sneak Peak of Member Post: Women’s History Lesson Plan, A Closer Look at My Capstone Project

April 22, 2021

In 2013, I was getting ready to prepare for graduation from Central Connecticut State University’s Public History graduate program. In order to graduate from the program, I had to work on a capstone project which took the entire last semester to complete; I completed all of my required courses so I could dedicate my time to this capstone project. Since I was working at the Stanley-Whitman House, a National Historic Landmark, as a museum educator while I was attending classes, I decided to develop a lesson plan designed to educate students about women’s history by focusing on the women who lived in the house. I also knew that I wanted to be a museum educator after I earned my masters degree, and designing a lesson plan would be the appropriate capstone project to complete. In case you are not familiar with the National Historic Landmark, the following information is background history of the museum and the families that lived there.

Stanley-Whitman House is a museum and living history center that collects, preserves, and interprets the history and culture of 17th to 19th-Century Farmington, Connecticut. It has operated under the auspices of the Farmington Village Green and Library Association, which is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) educational organization, since 1935. This house is a Post Medieval-style house with a center chimney flanked by a parlor and a hall with two chambers (bedrooms) above which provided both living and storage space. The colonists built their homes from wood, and used post and beam construction for the frame. The second floor extends beyond the first on the front façade, creating an overhang. While the original purpose of the overhang is unknown, it did provide more space in the upper chambers. The lean-to addition that extends across the width of the back of the house was added some time in the mid-18th-century, giving the house its distinctive saltbox shape. According to their website, the records indicate that the house was constructed sometime between 1709 and 1720.

The above sample is from the membership post in which I discuss previous projects I worked on, the thought process behind them, and my thoughts on them years later. I discuss my the capstone project I worked on for the Stanley-Whitman House in Farmington, Connecticut. I included a link below to learn more about this museum.

I developed a lesson plan that not only focuses on educating students about the women who lived in the house but also encourages students to learn more about the women in their communities. Also, I shared the process I went through to develop the lesson plan and what I would do if I were developing the lesson plan now.

If you are interested in reading this post, consider becoming a member of this website. More information on membership benefits and how to join is available on the website’s Buy Me a Coffee Page.

Link:

https://www.stanleywhitman.org/

Virtual Museum Impressions: Charles Dickens Museum

April 15, 2021

Most recently I decided to take another virtual trip outside of the United States to visit the Charles Dickens Museum in London, England. Charles Dickens, who was the author of books such as Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, and the novella A Christmas Carol, moved into this house at 48 Doughty Street with his wife Catherine a few months before Queen Victoria began her reign in 1837. They raised the first three of their ten children within this house, and hosted many of the period’s leading figures with dinners and parties. Dickens wrote Oliver Twist, Pickwick Papers and Nicholas Nickleby inside this house, and where he first achieved international fame as one of the world’s greatest storytellers.

The Dickens’ home became a museum in which hosts events and exhibitions, a garden café and shop, an international center for research on Charles Dickens, and a MA program on Charles Dickens research through the University of Buckingham. Inside the house itself, there are five floors with objects that were owned by the Dickens family. Off of the entryway there is a gift shop where it leads to the café, the Water Closet (bathroom), and the special exhibition room.

As I went through the virtual tour, I was surprised by the layout of the house since it was different from other historic house museums I previously visited both virtually and in person. For instance, the servants quarters where they cook the meals were below the first floor where the dining room was, and the servants’ sleeping quarters were on the top floor. The Charles Dickens Museum considered the main floor with the dining room and parlor to be the second floor while where the servants cooked and stored food and wine is the first floor, at least according to the virtual experience.

Also, at the time of writing this post I noticed that in almost each room there were only two links to explain the room and one object (sometimes there is a link to learn more about the object). One object in the Entrance Hall is the large, 8-day chiming clock that is still in good working order once was displayed in the hallway of Charles Dickens’ home Gad Hill Place in the 1860s. The link led to the collections page for the clock that includes a picture of the clock with information such as its object number, when it is created, and an object note that shared a letter Dickens wrote to the clockmaker who made the clock, Sir John Bennett of Cheapside, London, regarding problems with the clock following a cleaning. I would have loved to learn more about other objects in the Entrance Hall such as the objects in the glass case and the letters in the frames displayed on the walls.

In the study, the highlighted object in the room is the desk and chair that was originally used in his study at Gad’s Hill Place. According to the information provided by the Dickens Museum’s collections, the desk and chair were acquired by Charles Dickens in 1859, and they remained in the Dickens family after he died in 1870. Both of them were on loan to various heritage institutions, including the Charles Dickens Museum, from 1967 to 1987. They were eventually purchased by the Charles Dickens Museum in 2015 with support from the National Monuments Trust and the Dickens Fellowship after years of being on loan at various places over the years. Dickens would have written portions of his novels, such as Great Expectations, Our Mutual Friend, Hard Times, A Tale of Two Cities, and the unfinished Mystery of Edwin Drood, on this desk.

Not only in the interactive tour I was able to explore the house but I was also able to visit inside the gift shop and café, the small garden outside of the café, the exhibition room, and a couple of additional floors that included a meeting room where it seemed like one could do research in.

I really appreciate that this interactive tour is available online, and I hope to visit there in person someday. I especially would like to see it in person so I could learn more about other items that the interactive tour did not share their history and their relevance to Charles Dickens’ life and/or works. To check out the Charles Dickens Museum, I posted links, including the interactive tour, below.

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Links:

Desk and Chair

Mahogany Clock and Shelf

Interactive Tour

About the Charles Dickens Museum

Charles Dickens Museum Online Collection

Charles Dickens Museum Collections Database

Services Examination: Cisco

April 1, 2021

During this past year, there were a lot of webinars produced for professional development programs especially in the museum field. This is not the first time webinars have been developed and utilized but participation in them increased during this global health crisis. Since I write about the services museums could learn about and see how they could help them, I thought I would write about another one called Cisco. Also known as Cisco Systems, Inc., Cisco is an American multinational technology conglomerate headquartered in San Jose, California that develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, software, telecommunications equipment and other high-technology services and products.

I chose to focus more on one of their services not only because they are so many, but I thought I should focus on ones that can be helpful for education programs in museums and classrooms since one of my focuses for this blog is on education. One of the services they offer include webinar set ups called Webex.

Webex has the following features: calling, messaging, meetings, and connecting in Webex. With the Calling in Webex feature, users can enable it to get enterprise-calling features on features on desktop and mobile devices. In the Messaging in Webex feature, individuals are able to use text messaging with built-in enhanced features, such as custom presence status and custom filters, for one-on-one and group messaging. In the Meetings in Webex feature, users are able to meet securely with integrated video, audio, and content sharing on any device; it also has features such as noise removal and speech enhancement, live transcripts, and translations with Webex Assistant, to automate meeting tasks and enhance relationships. Then in the Connecting with Webex feature, users that utilize Webex realize they are able integrate with third-party apps right your existing workflows to streamline the workday. The benefits of using Webex are:

Built-in security: Strong encryption, compliance, and control inside and outside of your organization.
Easily deploy and manage: Intuitive, with easy provisioning, control, and management of your Webex services.
Made to fit: From classroom to boardroom, to the front line, Webex is customized for your environment and workstyles.
Powered by Webex: Built on the industry-trusted global Webex platform.

Cisco also promotes services that would help educators provide hybrid learning opportunities for their students.

They provide a number of hybrid learning solutions they offer to help increase student and faculty engagement, educate anywhere at any time, and provide flexible learning experiences. The hybrid learning solutions they offer are hybrid learning spaces, secure distance learning, and faculty professional development. According to the site, Cisco’s hybrid learning spaces offers to expand teaching and learning and across physical and virtual environments; they went into detail on pages for hybrid learning solutions, Cisco Webex, Webex Education Connector, and Cisco Webex Board.

Cisco shares detailed information about what they offer on their virtual platforms. I recommend taking a closer look for yourselves to see what may be appropriate for your educational interactive experiences in virtual and hybrid classrooms as well as museums. To find out more about Cisco, check out the links below.

I’m on Buy Me a Coffee. If you like my work, you can buy me a coffee and share your thoughts. https://lookingbackmovingforwardinmuseumeducation.com/buy-me-a-coffee-page/

Links:

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/index.html

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collaboration/webex-call-message-meet.html

Create Hybrid Learning Environments

Cisco portfolio for education: What can we help you solve today?

Webex for Education

Cisco Webex Education Connector

Cisco Webex Board

Sneak Peak of Member Post: Let’s Revisit Butler-McCook House Genealogical Research: Then and Now

March 30, 2021

When I was working at Connecticut Landmarks’ Butler-McCook House in Hartford, Connecticut, I contributed to an online literary journal, Poor Yorick: A Journal of Rediscovery. Founded in the spring of 2013, its mission is to publish creative works inspired by objects and images of material culture contained in museums and elsewhere. One of my former co-workers at the time was a creator on the Journal at the time, and she asked me if I could write about the research I was doing about the Butler family and McCook family genealogy. As part of my responsibilities as an educator and an interpreter at the Butler-McCook House, I needed to review the information each staff member was given to learn and incorporate more into our educating experience. I remember that what inspired me to start this project was looking at the poster board of the Butler-McCook family tree Frances McCook (the last member of the family who lived in the house) worked on and was not completed. I decided to take a look and learn about the ancestors.

It has been a while since I wrote the original post, and I decided to revisit the project and post after all this time because it is one of my earliest projects that also focuses on women’s history. I thought it would be appropriate since this month, as I am writing this post, is Women’s History Month. Another reason I wanted to revisit this project is to share how I previously approached this the research and what I learned.

While I was working at the Butler-McCook House, one of the things I really appreciated was the women’s involvement in preserving not only their family history, but Hartford history as well. Frances McCook, who was part of the fourth generation of the family who lived in the house, had a passion for history and her efforts to preserving Hartford history is admirable.

Here are the links to learn more about the Butler-McCook House, Connecticut Landmarks, and the original post I wrote for Poor Yorick Journal back in 2016:

Butler-McCook House Genealogical Research: Then and Now on Poor Yorick

Connecticut Landmarks

Butler-McCook House

…

If you are interested in reading more about this experience, please consider becoming a member of this website through my Buy Me a Coffee page. As a member of this website, for only $4 a month, you will be able to:

Access new blog posts before they are posted on my website
Be one of the first to find out updates on ongoing projects for the blog and website
Participate in group discussions on my Discord server, Looking Back Moving Forward in Museum Education‘s server
Access members only content where I revisit past projects I have created in my museum career, and share what I would do differently if I were creating them today
Send in requests on what you would like to see on the blog
- Is there a question about the museum education field, public history, blogging, et. cetera you would like me to answer? I will create a post to answer your questions.
- Do you want my thoughts on a book or film based or not based in history? Let me know.
- Anything else on your mind? You can send me your requests.

You can check out my Buy Me a Coffee page here: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/lbmfmusedblog

A Public Historian’s Perspective on Women’s History Month

March 25, 2021

This past month we all have dedicated our time and efforts to honor women’s history. Women’s history month is especially significant for me since I am a cis woman who appreciates the focus on women’s significant contributions throughout history. However, we all need to not only acknowledge women’s history does not occur one month out of the year, but we should be honoring all women-women of color, transwomen, indigenous women-who have made an impact and are often ignored when discussing women’s history. Over the years, we celebrate women’s history month by sharing achievements women have accomplished from the past to more recent years.

Museums also take part in celebrating women’s history month by developing, promoting, and implementing exhibits and programs focused on women’s history. For instance, the Museum of the American Revolution hosted a virtual Zoom presentation called “Remember the Ladies”: The World Premiere of a New Choral Work by Dr. Melissa Dunphy that is presented with their exhibit When Women Lost the Vote: A Revolutionary Story, 1776-1807. The experience is a live broadcast from the Museum for the choral world premiere of Dunphy’s “Remember the Ladies,” which sets excerpts from the letter for a cappella mixed chorus, performed by the 40-voice community choir, PhilHarmonia. The Wisconsin Historical Society has a free online panel discussion on exploring how women’s stories and experiences can be told in new ways.

Wisconsin Historical Society’s online panel discussion Sharing Women’s History: Exploring New Stories and Formats for Engaging Audiences discussed examples of innovative programming and best practices for interpreting complex stories that will aim to engage new audiences. A couple examples include DyckmanDISCOVERED at the Dyckman Farmhouse Museum, which investigates the stories of enslaved people belonging to the Dyckman family and the community that is now called Inwood in New York City, as well as virtual programs and poetry festivals at The Emily Dickinson Museum. Some of the panelists include Mary van Balgooy, Vice President of Engaging Places, LLC, and Director at the Society of Woman Geographers; Meredith S. Horsford, Executive Director at the Dyckman Farmhouse Museum; and Brooke Steinhauser, Program Director at the Emily Dickinson Museum. Their discussion also included the added challenges of and possibilities for engaging new audiences through virtual engagement.

The Old North Church has a Digital Speaker Series, and it is called Revolutionary Women, Live! Presented by Old North Church Historic Site and the Freedom Trail Foundation, it was an hour-long program with two historians engaging participants in learning about the unique ways women of Boston influenced and shaped the world around them throughout the centuries. They focused on some women including Anne Hutchinson, Phillis Wheatley, and Melnea Cass. Anne Hutchinson was a spiritual preacher in Massachusetts Bay Colony in the seventeenth century and Melnea Cass was one of Boston’s most beloved and effective advocates for African Americans in Boston. At the end of the program, there was an interactive question and answer session to help participants delve deeper into women’s history.

Three Village Historical Society has a lecture series that has been on the Zoom virtual platform over the past year, and this month the virtual lecture was The Founding Mothers of the United States. Guest lecturer author Selene Castrovilla discussed her book she wrote about founding mothers, both well-known and others that were previously not part of the narrative in our history. From the program’s description, the lecture will address that:

Many women helped shape a free and independent United States of America. These smart, brave women were ambassadors, fostering peace between Native Americans and Europeans. They risked their lives by writing, printing, and distributing information about the fight for independence. They supported their husbands during battle and even donned disguises to join the army.

Throughout the presentation, Castrovilla shared content from her book about the founding mothers in the United States. In addition to discussing the well-known founding mothers, she shared information about founding mothers whose stories are not told as much as founding mothers such as Martha Washington. For instance, there were a group of women in North Carolina who had their own protests against the unfair taxes on tea and clothing.

On October 25, 1774, about a year after the Boston Tea Party, 51 women in Edenton, North Carolina drafted and signed a declaration that they will boycott British tea and clothing until the products were no longer taxed by England. The protest became known as the Edenton Tea Party. Another example of women Castrovilla discussed about was Phillis Wheatley who was an enslaved poet.

Wheatley was born in West Africa around 1753 and was abducted by slave traders and was forced onto a ship to America when she was seven years old. She was enslaved in Boston, Massachusetts, her owner noticed how smart she was and decided to educate her which was rare since most slaves suffered under harsh conditions and were not allowed to learn to read and write. Wheatley began to write poems when she was thirteen, and her first published poem appeared in a Boston newspaper on December 21, 1767. In 1773, she sailed with her owner’s son to England where a book of her poetry was published. She was given her freedom shortly after her book was published and her return to Boston. While she wrote a poem celebrating George Washington’s selection as army commander, she also believed the issue of slavery prevented the colonists from the true heroism they could have achieved during the American Revolution. Castrovilla also shared the story of Nanyehi/Nancy Ward who was an Indigenous woman born in Chota, the Cherokee capital, which is now part of Tennessee, in 1738.

Nanyehi fought alongside her husband in a battle between the Cherokee and another Native Nation, the Muscogee Creeks. When her husband was killed during the battle, Nanyehi picked up his rifle and led the battle where she earned the title Ghigau, or “Beloved Woman”, for her bravery. She later became a leader of the Women’s Council of Clan Representatives where she excelled as negotiator and ambassador. While they were in war, Nanyehi tried to achieve peace between Indigenous people in North America and the settlers. When the Revolutionary War began, the Cherokee fought alongside the British to prevent losing more Cherokee land to the settlers, and Nanyehi warned the settlers of Cherokee attacks since she did not want increased hostilities between her nation and the settlers.

If interested in learning more about Castrovilla and her works, she has a website that promotes most of her books. To learn more about the TVHS lecture series and purchase her book, I included links in the list below.

Castrovilla’s book reminded me of Cokie Roberts’ book Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation, except the major difference between these two books is her book is geared towards young adult audiences while Roberts’ book focuses on addressing women’s history on academia audiences. I appreciate, as a public historian with an interest in Early American history, that there are programs that discuss women’s contribution and involvement in before and during the American Revolution. Also, I appreciate indigenous women’s stories are being more included in these programming options since I not only enjoy learning more history, but it is also a lot more that I am learning now about indigenous people than what was being taught when I was attending school as a child. We need to continue to do more to acknowledge and understand indigenous history as well as remember that we are on land first occupied by indigenous people.

The previously listed examples of how museums honor and celebrate women’s history month are only a small sample of what I noticed and does not represent what all museums are doing. I have included more links to examples museums have honored and celebrated women’s history month and resources they have available on women’s history. If there are any that I have not listed, please tell me about them and if possible, share a link.

I’m on Buy Me a Coffee. If you like my work, you can buy me a coffee and share your thoughts. ☕ https://buymeacoffee.com/lbmfmusedblog

Additional Resources:

Women’s History in the National Women’s History Museum

Boston Women’s Heritage Trail

Facing History and Ourselves: 6 Virtual Exhibitions and Teacher Resources for Women’s History Month

Women’s History Month website

Why March is National Women’s History Month

National Women’s History Alliance

Links:

Museum of the American Revolution’s When Women Lost the Vote: A Revolutionary Story

Museum of the American Revolution’s When Women Lost the Vote: A Revolutionary Story, Virtual Exhibit

Wisconsin Historical Society