Tag Archive for: Smithsonian Affiliations

September 25 is Smithsonian Magazine Museum Day

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Smithsonian Magazine Museum Day

On Saturday, September 25, 2010, Smithsonian Affiliates across the country will participate in the sixth annual Museum Day, presented by Toyota on behalf of the redesigned 2011 Avalon.  More than 90 Smithsonian Affiliates will open their doors free of charge to all visitors who download the Museum Day Ticket from Smithsonian.com. Find a participating Affiliate in your neighborhood! 

And check out the Around the Mall blog to learn where you can find Smithsonian artifacts at an Affiliate near you during Museum Day.

Here’s a sample of what a few Affiliates are doing to bring the Smithsonian to their neighborhoods on Museum Day: 

Greensboro Historical Museum (Greensboro, North Carolina) will host The Smithsonian Associates Discovery Theater’s traveling show, African Roots, Latino Soul, a vibrant play that explores what it means to grow up in the American melting pot. Filled with laughs and surprises, and written with the Young Playwrights’ Theater, the play is a look into the triumphs of today’s multicultural kids. There will be two performances at the museum on Museum Day. The performance will highlight their new permanent exhibition, Voices of a City, which emphasizes the expression of voice and their multicultural local story.  

Rayna Green, curator at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History (NMAH), will give a series of talks at two Affiliates over the weekend. At The Silo at Hunt Hill Farm Trust (New Milford, Connecticut) on Friday, September 24, she’ll discuss her experiences as co-curator of the Julia Child exhibition at NMAH, followed by a reception featuring some of Child’s favorite desserts, prepared by The Silo Cooking School. Next, Rayna travels to The Long Island Museum of American Art, History & Carriages (Stony Brook, New York) for an evening “Dinner with Julia” event on Saturday, September 25. She’ll speak about Julia Child’s Kitchen at the Smithsonian and its acquisition.  On Sunday, September 26, to complement their exhibition of America’s Kitchens, organized by the New England Historical Association, she’ll discuss her experience with the Smithsonian’s Julia’s Kitchen exhibition during a public lecture on the social history of kitchens. 

Virginia Museum of Natural History (Martinsville, Virginia) will be presenting a series of special Smithsonian films in the Walker Lecture Hall on Museum Day. The programs to be shown are part of the Stories from the Vaults series presented by Smithsonian Networks. In the series, host Tom Cavanagh (“Ed”) takes you on an entertaining insider’s tour of the private rooms, high-tech vaults, and cutting edge labs of the Smithsonian Institution, revealing some of the amazing artifacts and rarely seen treasures that visitors can’t see. 

Spacecraft Model

Challenger Space Center (Peoria, Arizona) opens their new exhibition, An Astronaut’s Life: Articles Flown In Space, including 23 items on loan from the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Nineteen of the artifacts have flown in space on Gemini 8, Skylab 2, and several STS (Shuttle) missions. The artifacts tell the story of how astronauts live in space. Included are personal hygiene items such as a Gemini Survival Kit, a washcloth from the first Space Shuttle, STS-1 Columbia, clothing and bio-belt worn on Skylab 2 by astronaut Paul Weitz, space food from STS-27 Atlantis, and an actual heat shield fragment from Gemini 8 which carried astronauts Neil Armstrong and David Scott into orbit on March 16, 1966.  Photo: Spacecraft Model, Gemini. Courtesy National Air & Space Museum. Transferred from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Museum Day 2010 is poised to be the largest to date, outdoing last year’s record-breaking event.  Over 300,000 museum-goers and 1,300 venues in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico participated in Museum Day 2009. Last year, two million visitors logged on to Museum Day’s website to learn more about the program.

affiliates in the news: week of August 30

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Congratulations to these Affiliates making headlines this week!

Center for the History of Psychology (Akron, Ohio) 

Image courtesy Smithsonian Affiliations.

UA’s high-minded gallery opens: Home movie starring Freud, doll used in aggression study are among items on display in psychology history center. READ MORE 

The new Center for the History of Psychology opens Monday at the University of Akron. READ MORE 

VIDEO- UA opens its Center for the History of Psychology. READ MORE 

  

Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (Birmingham, Alabama)

“Let Your Motto Be Resistance” Opens August 28, 2010 at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
 

VIDEOS- “Let Your Motto Be Resistance: African American Portraits” exhibition opens at Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. READ MORE. and MORE 

BLOG- Birmingham Civil Rights Institute prepares for Smithsonian exhibit (with video). READ MORE 

International Museum of the Horse (Lexington, Kentucky)  

 
 
 
 

Image courtesy International Museum of the Horse.

The skeleton of famous race horse “Lexington” was returned to his birthplace Tuesday

. READ MORE 

Lexington has returned to Lexington. READ MORE 

More than one hundred years after his death, a legendary horse is back in Lexington, Kentucky. READ MORE 

Buffalo Bill Historical Center (Cody, Wyoming) 

While survivors of the January earthquakes in Haiti were still searching the rubble for the bodies of loved ones, Buffalo Bill Historical Center conservator Beverly Perkins was picking through the ruins for the treasures of Haitian culture. READ MORE

Photo courtesy Beverly Perkins, Buffalo Bill Historical Center.

Smithsonian Affiliate staff member helps in Haiti recovery project

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Special thanks to Beverly N. Perkins, conservator at Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming, for this guest post. 

AIC-CERT members, Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough and Under Secretary for History, Art and Culture, Richard Kurin, the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities, and CRCH members meeting to discuss recovery projects. Photo by Beverly Perkins.

Three American Institute for Conservation-Collections Emergency Response Team (AIC-CERT) members were asked to join the Smithsonian Haiti Cultural Recovery Project on July 4th, 2010.  Beverly Perkins, Karen Pavelka, and David Goist spent some time with the staff of the Centre de Sauvetage de Biens Culturels(CRCH) helping to set up the CRCH labs so that they can be used for conservation treatments and to train Haitians in the recovery of cultural collections.  Under the supervision of Project Manager, Stephanie Hornbeck, the visiting conservators also carried out conservation projects and helped to guide tours of the labs.  

Conservation projects at work in the lab. Photo by Beverly Perkins.

A project I worked on involved conserving ceramics and building elements as they began to come in to the lab from various sites in Haiti.  Some of the ceramics had been clumsily reassembled at some point in their past, prior to being brought to the conservation center.  One group ceramics from a nativity scene were considered to be more decorative than historical, and so the losses were filled and shaped to replicate the pieces that had been lost.  These new elements were then toned with paints to make the ceramic appear to be whole again.  All of the treatments are documented with written notes and photographs so that in the future our work may be easily distinguished from the original ceramic.

Richard Kurin and guests at a reception at the President and Mrs. Preval's home. Photo by Beverly Perkins.

Also during our stay, the United States President’s Committee for the Arts and Humanities visited Haiti, along with dignitaries from the Smithsonian and The Broadway League. The meetings held with Haitian cultural leaders helped to strengthen the determination to salvage cultural collections and train Haitians in that salvage effort.  The visiting dignitaries, AIC-CERT volunteers, and the staff of the CRCH were treated to an evening of Haitian song and dance at President and Mrs. Preval’s lovely home. 

The ten days I spent away from the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, a Smithsonian Affiliate, were donated in the spirit of good will from the Museum’s board and staff and the people of Cody, Wyoming to the people of Haiti.  Upon my return from Haiti, the Museum’s director, Bruce Eldredge asked how we could further be of assistance to the people of Haiti.  He developed a plan to offer training for one or two Haitians in the conservation laboratory of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center. He further offered to provide support following those months of training.

This project is in the process of being formed, and so the story continues…

Devastation to a cathedral in Haiti. Photo by Beverly Perkins.

affiliates in the news: week of august 23

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Congratulations to these Affiliates making headlines this week!

Georgia Aquarium (Atlanta, GA)

 

The Georgia Aquarium is officially the world’s largest fish tank. READ MORE

The Georgia Aquarium is officially the world’s largest, after a certificate presentation by Guinness World Records Sunday. READ MORE

National Jazz Museum in Harlem (New York, NY)

For jazz fans, nothing could be more tantalizing than the excerpts made available by the National Jazz Museum in Harlem of newly discovered recordings from the 1930s and ’40s. READ MORE

Q&A: National Jazz Museum Director on the Newly Discovered Trove of Jazz Greats- The director of the National Jazz Museum in Harlem discusses new music by Count Basie, Lester Young, and others. READ MORE

Audio Exclusive: Eight Never-Before-Heard Clips from America’s Jazz Greats- The National Jazz Museum shares part of its new treasure trove with NEWSWEEK. READ MORE

Kona Historical Society (Kona, HI)

Several nonprofit organizations, a state agency and three local counties have been awarded $3.3 million from a state land preservation fund to protect 753 acres on the Big Island, Kauai, Molokai and Oahu. READ MORE. and MORE

Buffalo Bill Historical Center (Cody, WY)

 

 

Annie Oakley has been portrayed in popular culture as everything from a rough tomboy to a preening princess, but 150 years after her birth, one historian says a more nuanced look at the famed sharpshooter shows her to be a complex woman who defies categorization. READ MORE

Center for the History of Psychology (Akron, OH)

Students, researchers and the general public soon will be able to experience the history of psychology in a museum setting at The University of Akron’s (UA) new Center for the History of Psychology (CHP), which opens to the public Aug. 30. READ MORE

National World War II Museum (New Orleans, LA)

Construction of the $35 million U.S. Freedom Pavilion: Land, Sea and Air will be formally announced Friday as part of the museum’s overall $300 million expansion. READ MORE

annette shumway: summer at the smithsonian

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We invited our recent Smithsonian Affiliate interns and visiting professionals to blog about their experiences in our “Summer at the Smithsonian” series. Below, Annette Shumway, intern partner from the Frost Art Museum (Miami, FL) shares the story of her summer internship at the National Postal Museum.  Special thanks to Annette for this post!

As a graduate student in the Museum Studies Certificate program at Florida International University I’ve focused much of my research efforts on digitization projects being undertaken by museums and archives.  I am particularly interested in the effective administration and proper usage of current technologies for digital projects and believe that without organization much time and resources could be wasted. I was looking for an internship that would provide a meaningful, sensory experience that would enhance all of the learning that I had acquired, but couldn’t quite find one. When my Museum Studies Coordinator suggested I look into Smithsonian Affiliations Internship Program (our campus museum –The Frost Art Museum- is a Smithsonian Affiliate), I was excited because I would actually be able to execute my own project at the Frost, after I acquired hands-on skills at the Smithsonian.

I was placed with Kate Diggle, Database Administrator at the National Postal Museum (NPM). At NPM digitization of the collection is a high priority.  While at the museum I had the opportunity to work on two different projects involving digitization. 

We worked on one collection consisting of modern philatelic and postal history artifacts which are being transferred from the USPS to the National Postal Museum’s care.  We re-housed, marked, and cataloged all of the objects during the first phase. Next, we created digital records for more than 4000 records down to the item level.   Hard work, but we accomplished our task a month ahead of schedule!  With the help of curators and conservation staff, we identified the items that would be the best candidates for imaging. Some of the artifacts in the collection were larger than the imaging equipment we had in-house, so we couriered these objects to a facility that would be able to handle our imaging needs. It was fascinating to courier the objects and to have access to some of the most state-of-the-art equipment in the field of image capture.  

The second project involved the actual image capture of artifacts for an upcoming exhibit.  These images were added to the museum’s database and will be available online when the exhibit opens. This helps to preserve artifacts like letters from revolutionary war, civil war, and both world wars for future generations of researchers.  Thanks to instruction from the preservations, collections, and web team at NPM, I was able to hone the handling, technical and editing skills necessary for completing projects in digitization field.

Taking part in both of these projects has helped me understand the logistics behind coordinating loans and standards involved in collections’ imaging projects. I feel that much of the experience that I gained through this period will aid in the second portion of my internship at the Frost Art Museum. I look forward to contributing valuable knowledge to the digitization plan and efforts at the Frost.

affiliates in the news: week of July 12

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Congratulations to these Affiliates making headlines this week! 

The John E. Kushner Restoration Pavilion will consist of a build-out of the existing 940 Magazine St. warehouse.

National World War II Museum (New Orleans, LA)
For the past 10 years, visitors to the National World War II Museum have gazed upon such carefully restored artifacts as tanks, Jeeps and Higgins landing craft.By next spring, they should be able to watch restorers preparing those treasures for prime time…READ MORE

Frazier International History Museum (Louisville, KY)
WKU graduate student selected for prestigious Smithsonian internship…READ MORE 

MSU paleontologist Jack Horner and team arrive in August 2007 at a site on the Hell Creek Ranch to excavate a Triceratops (Photo by Lon Bolick)

Museum of the Rockies(Bozeman, MT)
MSU finds Triceratops, Torosaurus were different stages of one dinosaur… READ MORE

North Carolina Museum of Natural Science (Raleigh, NC)
The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences on Tuesday introduced the director of its new Nature Research Center and accepted a $1.5 million gift to support the center…READ MORE  

Conner Prairie (Fishers, IN)
Kids often hear “Look, don’t touch.” At Conner Prairie, families are encouraged to explore with all their senses…READ MORE

New York State Museum (Albany, NY)
A New York State Museum paleontologist has become the only scientist in the U.S. selected to participate in an all-expense paid research program in Spain that will enable him to investigate the effects of climate change on mammals over the last 2 million years… READ MORE 

 

Francis Koenig, founder of AnnMarie Garden, lived long enough to see the first permanent sculpture installed as he requested, a sculpture fountain dedicated to the oyster tongers. (Annmarie Garden, Baltimore Sun / July 14, 2010)

Annmarie Garden(Solomons, MD)
…Today, Annmarie Garden is a Southern Maryland gem – a woodland preserve dotted with art ranging from world-class sculptures to whimsical fairy houses created by staff…READ MORE