Despite a rich history, very little is known about the African-American experience from the state’s founding to the Civil War era. With the exception of a handful of monographs, graduate papers and journal articles, few publications have been written that focus on this history. Over the past 30 years, various research projects related to early […]
Anyone who knows me well, knows that I really struggle with writing. I freeze when I?m faced with a blank sheet of paper or an empty white box that appears on my computer screen. I have friends who are talented writers. I envy them the way words seem to fly from their fingertips, land on […]
Not every place in Indiana has an easily defined connection to Indiana’s Bicentennial. Yes, we are all defined by the state boundaries, but many towns and counties didn’t exist 200 hundred years ago.So where to begin? In Hamilton County, the Convention and Visitors Bureau decided to bring its local history organizations together to take stock […]
I guess that was my first adult meeting. You know, we filled up all the big sheets of paper.? That was the disheartening statement that I overheard after I helped to facilitate a meeting with teens about developing a youth leadership academy. My fellow adult volunteers and I realized that we shouldn?t create something for […]
Our world has changed drastically in recent years. Today?s younger generation (aka digital natives) have never lived in a world without high-speed internet, smartphones, tablets or social media. Even most adults who do remember the time before technology changed the world cannot now imagine life without it. And these changes have, for better or worse, […]
When I?m on site visits, the question about how to get younger people interested in history almost always comes up. There?s no magic bullet. But, there is an answer for each museum. I recently visited a museum that had found it. I took a group of nine teenage Girl Scouts on an overnight trip to […]
I love being able to connect people with new ideas or new ways of thinking about things. And that is just what I got to do today during a visit from Alexis Caudell, director of the Mitchell Community Public Library. The Library is planning a major renovation, and Alexis wants to create an interactive exhibit […]
Often when I visit museums, I overhear bits and pieces of conversations and random comments. Frequently I hear people complaining about kids walking around museums, holding their phones and texting. Those kids are not paying any attention.? They?re being disrespectful and not listening.? How can they be in a museum and not be completely absorbed […]
At a recent In Your Neighborhood meeting, Erin Kelley (our director of Education and Community Engagement) noticed an interesting collection of costumes and props from a secret society on display at the Dearborn County Historical Society. She compared the way people would dress up and take on a role in those secret societies to what […]
Lately I?ve been fascinated by stories of people and communities who have worked together to save our cultural heritage when it has been at risk. During World War II, people all over the world sandbagged, packed, transported and hid works of art and artifacts. There was a group of men and women museum directors, curators, […]
