Tag Archive for: lowell national historical park

Coming Up in Affiliateland in March 2020

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Spring is in full swing with so many great events nationwide. Happy Women’s History Month!

TEXAS
The John P. McGovern Museum of Health & Medical Science will feature a daily screening of the Smithsonian Channel film The Rise of the Killer Virus film as part of the Outbreak: Epidemics in a Connected World exhibition from the National Museum of Natural History, in Houston, 3.1-31.2020.

NORTH CAROLINA
The North Carolina Museum of History will screen the Smithsonian Channel film The Green Book: Guide to Freedom in Raleigh, 3.12.

National Museum of American History curator Barbara Clark Smith will give a talk on Reflections on American Democracy – in a Time of Political Uncertainty at the Greensboro History Museum, 3.18.

NEW MEXICO
The Hubbard Museum of the American West will screen the Smithsonian Channel film AERIAL AMERICA – The Wild West in Ruisdoso Downs, 3.14.

NATIONWIDE 
Twelve Affiliates will host Earth Optimism Teen Events in collaboration with the National Museum of Natural History on March 14. Participating Affiliates include the Anchorage Museum (Anchorage, AK); Buffalo Bill Center of the West (Cody, WY); Cape Fear Museum (Wilmington, NC); Frost Science Museum (Miami, FL); High Desert Museum (Bend, OR); Lowell National Historical Park (Lowell, MA); Mid-America Science Museum (Hot Springs, AR); New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science (Albuquerque, NM); Pinhead Institute (Telluride, CO); Science Museum Oklahoma (Oklahoma City, OK); U.S. Space and Rocket Center (Huntsville, AL); Western Science Center (Hemet, CA).

RHODE ISLAND
The Rhode Island Historical Society in partnership with the Community College of Rhode Island will host Dr. Ariana Curtis, curator at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, to give a lecture on Deliberate and Afraid of Nothing: Diversifying Women’s Representation, in Providence, 3.19.

ARIZONA
The Desert Caballeros Western Museum will host Art and Advertising in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, a public lecture by Smithsonian scholar Dr. Michelle Delaney, in Wickenburg, 3.21.

Famous Pittsburgher Andy Warhol, one of the portraits soon to be on view at the Heinz History Center. By Hans Namuth, 1981. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution: this acquisition was made possible by a generous contribution from the James Smithson Society

PENNSYLVANIA
The Heinz History Center will open Smithsonian’s Portraits of Pittsburgh: Works from the National Portrait Gallery, an exhibition of nearly 60 works of art on loan from the Smithsonian, in Pittsburgh, 3.21.

NEW YORK
Dr. Dwan Reece, curator at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, will speak on What it Means to be Free: The Woman’s Revolution in American Entertainment as part of the Rockwell Museum’s Advancing Women lecture series, in Corning, 3.17.

Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Garden will screen the Smithsonian Channel film Blondie’s New York in Staten Island, 3.28.

Jennifer Brundage, National Outreach Manager will join the director and staff of the Rockwell Museum in the Silo Breakdown: Internal Collaboration and Activating A Smithsonian Affiliation session at the Museum Association of New York conference in Albany, 3.29-31.

Part 1: Using Collections to Think About Immigration with the Smithsonian Learning Lab

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In 2017-2018 a collaboration among Smithsonian Affiliations, the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, and the Smithsonian Center for Learning and Digital Access brought the Teacher Creativity Studios: Fostering Global Competence in the Classroom project to 3 Affiliate communities. The nationwide professional development project for educators is designed to develop new instructional materials and content highlighting Asian Pacific American experiences within K-12 humanities subject areas.

Teacher creating Learning Lab collection

Learning Lab workshop at the Tsongas Industrial History Center. Photo by Smithsonian Center for Learning and Digital Access

Smithsonian Affiliates worked with local teachers to create multimedia lessons on the Smithsonian’s Learning Lab portal that integrated resources from the Smithsonian and other participating museums into teaching materials and lesson plans. The goal was to increase digital access to museum collections and inspire students to investigate the world around them using objects, documents, videos and more, all available for free online.

A teacher in Lowell, MA, did just that. Laura Lamarre Anderson, Grade 4 Teacher at STEM Academy at the Rogers School, participated in a workshop at the Tsongas Industrial History Center at the Lowell National Historical Park, a Smithsonian Affiliate, to explore the question of “Who Belongs?” with her students. Below is an excerpt from a blog she wrote for the Smithsonian Learning Lab. You can read the whole blog here.

In a city like Lowell, rich with a constant flow of immigrants moving in from all over the world, the question of “who belongs” comes up frequently. After facing discrimination themselves, some second- and third-generation Irish immigrants railed against the newcomers who came after. And the cycle continues with each new group of immigrants facing challenges to their rights to be here. Several students in my classroom have come up against challenges to their right to be in Massachusetts, their right to be called American, because of where they or their parents were born. With this in mind, I tried to choose images that reflect the challenges of immigration, that would help generate conversations about how people were welcomed at different points in our history, and that help us to begin thinking about what it means to be an American.

Teacher Creativity Studios workshops are funded by the Asian Pacific American Initiatives Pool at the Smithsonian.

If you are interested in learning more about the Smithsonian Learning Lab and how it could help your museum support teachers and students in your community, contact your National Outreach Manager.

Coming Up in Affiliateland in May 2018

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Look at all the activity blooming in Affiliateland this spring!

PENNSYLVANIA
The Heinz History Center hosts a talk and tasting with National Museum of American History curator Paula Johnson on Making Wine at Home as a complement to their current exhibition on Prohibition, in Pittsburgh, 5.6.18.

The Mercer Museum will open Racing: A Need for Speed exhibition featuring 7 artifact loans from the National Museum of American History, in Doylestown, 5.12.18.

A new exhibition at the Center for Jewish History in New York City.

NEW YORK
The Center for Jewish History hosts National Air and Space Museum curator Dr. Valerie Neal for a talk on the history of Jewish astronauts and their achievements as part of their Jews in Orbit: Meet an Astronaut program in Manhattan, 5.7.18

MASSACHUSETTS
The Tsongas Industrial History Center will host Teacher Creativity Studios: Asian Pacific American Cultural Presence in the Classroom workshops in collaboration with the Smithsonian Center for Learning and Digital Access on the Lowell National Historical Park site in Lowell, 5.12.18.

FLORIDA
The Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science will host ¡Descubra! Meet the Science Expert family day in collaboration with the Smithsonian Latino Center in Miami, 5.12.18.

¡Descubra! Meet the Science Expert family program will be coming to Miami with the Smithsonian Latino Center

Things Come Apart an exhibition organized by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service opens at the South Florida Museum in Bradenton, 5.26.18.

MAINE
The Abbe Museum will host its inaugural Indian Market, with a film series curated by Elizabeth Weatherford, Founder and Emeritus Director of the Film and Video Center at the National Museum of the American Indian, in Bar Harbor, 5.18-20.18.

MARYLAND
Annmarie Sculpture Garden and Arts Center will open the exhibition Of a Feather: Birds in Art juried by Jennifer Daniels, landscape architect at the Smithsonian National Zoo, in Solomons, 5.25.18.

Coming up in Affiliateland in April 2018

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Spring activity is blooming across the country!

MASSACHUSETTS
The Tsongas Industrial History Center at the Lowell National Historical Park will offer a Teacher Creativity Studios: Asian Pacific American Cultural Presence in the Classroom workshop for teachers with the Smithsonian Center for Learning and Digital Access in Lowell, 4.7.

Dr. John Grant, geologist with the Museum’s Center for Earth and Planetary Studies (CEPS), in front of a full-scale model of the Mars Rover Curiosity, will be a featured speaker at Framingham State University in Massachusetts.

Framingham State University will feature a talk by National Air and Space Museum scientist John Grant on moving the Mars rovers as part of the Science on State Street Festival in Framingham,  4.21.

PENNSYLVANIA
Attendees to the National Association of Automobile Museums conference will spend a day at the Smithsonian for talks and tours, thanks to conference organizer the Antique Automobile Club of America Museum in Hershey, 4.10.

ACROSS THE COUNTRY
Teen teams from the Upcountry History Museum (SC), Fort Worth Museum of Science and History (TX), Arab American National Museum(MI), Rockwell Museum (NY), and the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center (OH) will digitally connect to the Smithsonian Secretary’s Youth Advisory Council meeting in Washington, 4.11.

NEW YORK
The Art + Science lecture series continues with a talk on Native responses to the environment by National Museum of the American Indian educator Ed Schupman at the Rockwell Museum in Corning, 4.12.

MISSOURI
The St. Louis Science Center opens SITES’ Destination Moon exhibition in St. Louis, 4.14.

CONNECTICUT
Mystic Seaport hosts a talk by National Museum of Natural History geologist Liz Cottrell on Expeditions to Arctic Volcanoes as part of its Adventure Series in Mystic, 4.19.

Mountain Climber by Rockwell Kent, 1933, is headed to Oregon thanks to the High Desert Museum. (woodcut on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Peter E. Blau and Andrew J. Blau in memory of their father, Alan J. Blau)

OREGON
The High Desert Museum will open Ascent: Climbing Explored exhibition featuring artifact loans including two paintings, brushes and palettes from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, in Bend, 4.28.

Coming up in Affiliateland in November 2017

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We’re thankful for all the activity in Affiliateland this month. Happy Thanksgiving Affiliates!

D.C.
Two Affiliates are loaning objects to The Sweat of their Face: Portraying American Workers exhibition at the Smithsonian. The Lowell National Historical Park has lent a wood engraving by Winslow Homer and the High Museum has lent a photograph by Peter Sekaer and an oil painting by Francis Hyman Criss. Opening at the National Portrait Gallery, 11.3.

CALIFORNIA
The San Diego History Center opens the Mail Call exhibition (SITES) which explores the history of America’s military postal system, in San Diego, 11.4.

MASSACHUSETTS
Richard Kurin, Distinguished Scholar and Ambassador-at-Large, will lecture on his book, Hope Diamond: The Legendary History of a Cursed Gem at the Springfield Museums, 11.5.

NATIONWIDE
Teens at five Affiliates continue to advise the Smithsonian through the Secretary’s Youth Advisory Council, meeting again via videoconference from Fort Worth, Corning, Cincinnati, Dearborn and Greenville, 11.8.

GEORGIA

From the Ocean Optimism initiative website, oceanoptimism.org

Dr. Nancy Knowlton, senior scientist emerita from the Smithsonian’s Tropical Research Institute in Panama, will give a Science on Tap lecture to discuss the Ocean Optimism Initiative, at the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta, 11.14.

ALABAMA
A new Smithsonian Spark!Lab, an immersive, interactive place for exploring invention, will open at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, 11.24.

Kudos Affiliates! March 2017 edition

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Congrats to these Affiliates on their recent accomplishments.

FUNDING

The Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania (Strasburg, PA) has met a $50,000 matching grant challenge by the Pennsylvania Railroad Technical & Historical Society, with funds designated for the preservation of five historic Pennsylvania Railroad steam locomotives. 

The National Park Service (NPS) announced funding for 39 projects in over 20 states that will preserve and highlight the sites and stories associated with the Civil Rights Movement and the African American experience, including the following Affiliate organizations:

  • Ohio History Connection (Columbus, OH) $50,000                              
    20th Century African American Civil Rights Movement in Ohio: Evaluating and Nominating Historic Properties
  • Rhode Island Historical Society (Providence, RI)  $49,557        
    African-American Struggle for Civil Rights in Rhode Island: The 20th Century
  • Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (Birmingham, AL)  $47,000              
    Preserving History, Building Community” project.  This project will focus on the A.G. Gaston Motel as a case study for preservationists and the community to work in partnership to preserve and revitalize a historic civil rights site.

Lowell National Historical Park (Lowell, MA) in partnership with Lowell Community Health Center, Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association, City of Lowell Senior Center, Lowell Middlesex Academy Charter School, and YWCA of Lowell has been selected to receive a 2017 Active Trails grant from the National Park Foundation, the official charity of America’s national parks. The Discover Lowell’s Urban Trails initiative will offer new outdoor recreational programming to Lowell’s canalway trails and will be targeted toward non-users in adjacent neighborhoods.

The Kenosha Community Foundation has awarded 26 grants totaling over $51,000 to 22 non-profit organizations and projects serving Kenosha County residents including funding to the Kenosha Public Museum Foundation (Kenosha, WI) to support its upcoming “Re-Riding History:  From the Southern Plains to Matanzas Bay” exhibit, which features how contemporary art retraces the historical experiences of American Indian communities.

Former cable TV mogul John Sie and his wife Anna have donated $12 million for the construction of a new welcome center at the Denver Art Museum (Denver, CO). The new welcome center is part of the museum’s plans to renovate the North Building. When it’s completed, the new welcome center will include a restaurant, café, ticketing and orientation space, event space, underground art storage and the museum’s conservation lab. 

 

16th Street Baptist Church near the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, part of a new Civil Rights National Monument in Alabama

AWARDS AND RECOGNITION

The Durham Museum (Omaha, NE) housed in Omaha’s Union Station was designated as one of 24 new National Historic Landmarks by the Department of Interior.

Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (Birmingham, AL) was recently designated by Former President Barack Obama as part of a new Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument.  Along with BCRI, other sites designated as the monument include the A. G. Gaston Motel, 16th Street Baptist Church, Kelly Ingram Park, and Bethel Baptist Church.

The Hawaii State House of Representatives presented Kona Historical Society (Kona, HI) with a certificate of honor on its 40th anniversary for efforts to preserve local history and share Kona’s culture with residents and visitors.

California African American Museum (Los Angeles, CA) deputy director Naima J. Keith has been named the winner of the High Museum of Art’s David C. Driskell Prize, which is awarded annually to a scholar or artist who has made a major contribution to African American art history. 

 

Congratulations all!