The Harriet Beecher Stowe Center

For my project, I took a look at the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, and while I did do an overview of how the Center works and how they manage their collections, I tried to focus on how the Center uses information, how they make it available to the public, and how they encourage use and access in the community.

The Harriet Beecher Stowe Center is a historic house museum and National Historic Landmark located in Hartford, CT. During her lifetime, Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote and published over 30 books, her publications varying in topics from domestic advice books, to children’s text books, to biographies and religious studies. She is most famous for the anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which became incredibly popular worldwide and made Stowe a household name. Since its publication, however, the way that the novel has been perceived has changed; And so, the mission of the Stowe Center is to “preserve and interpret Stowe’s Hartford home and the Center’s historic collections, promote vibrant discussion of her life and work, and inspire commitment to social justice and positive change” (https://www.harrietbeecherstowecenter.org/about/index.shtml#mission). Essentially, the Center’s mission takes Stowe’s work and uses it as a jumping off point to discuss social justice and modern issues that our society faces.

The site consists of three buildings: The Harriet Beecher Stowe House, the Katharine Seymour Day House, and the Visitor’s Center, which occupies an 1873 carriage house located on the property. The Stowe House was the second Hartford home that Stowe occupied, and it was where she spent the last 20 years of her life. The Stowe House is also where Stowe passed away in 1896. Following Stowe’s death, the house and the surrounding property, including the future visitor’s center and the Day house, were sold out by the family. It did not remain out of family hands for long, however, as in 1924, Katharine Seymour Day, Stowe’s grandnice purchased the house and property. Day is the founder of the Stowe Center, as while it did not open in her lifetime, she bequeathed the house and property to a foundation dedicated to Stowe’s legacy. The Day House, which houses administrative offices, bears Katharine Seymour Day’s name in her honor. The Center opened to the public in 1968.

When I visited the Stowe Center, the Harriet Beecher Stowe House was closed to the public, as it is undergoing its first major renovations since 1968. This is to correct major problems in the preservation and disaster planning systems in the House; namely, the lack of a fire suppression system and temperature controls. The House is also undergoing its first major cleaning since it opened to the public. In the meantime, objects that are typically show in the house have been moved into storage, and the tours that traditionally go through the House have been rerouted to go through the Day House, which has been opened to the public during renovations.

The objects that are on display in the Stowe House and the Day house make up a small fraction of the collection of the objects that are housed by the Stowe Center. There are about 225,000 LAM materials held in the Stow Center, including books, manuscripts, photographs, letters, documents, and materials related to the Nook Farm area that the Stowe House (and the Mark Twain House) are located in. The Center offers free research appointments to those who call ahead, and many of their materials are primary sources housed on-sight on what is referred to as ‘The Vault’. These days, the Center does a lot less collecting of materials, and instead is focused mainly on preserving what they have and creating an interactive experience for guests to the Center. About 10% of visitors are international, and 50% are from in state. Most of the spring visitors are student groups, and visitation tends to peak in the spring and summer. Tours of the Center are not simply a walkthrough of Stowe’s life and work, but instead involve discussion groups at the beginning and end of the tours, and focus on continuing dialogs about social justice and change. The tours were changed to meet the guidelines set by the Center’s mission statement. The tours do not shy away from the more negative legacy of Uncle Tom’s Cabin or the stereotypes it helped to create and popularize; it instead uses this to discuss author intent versus the intent of stage and minstrel shows that came about following the book’s popularity (shows that were not made with the input of Stowe herself), and how Jim Crowe and the Reconstruction South also changed how the book was viewed. Uncle Tom’s place in race culture is discussed, and tour guides are given intense training on how to lead discussions on race, not just in the context of Stowe’s work, but in today’s society.

As mentioned previously, the Stowe Center does a great deal to make their information available to the community. The Center hosts salon discussions in the visitors center that are free and open to the public. These salons discuss various topics that relate to the mission statement of the Stowe Center, usually modern social justice issues. For example, when I was visiting the Center, the salon topic of the day was race and portrayals of race in Hollywood. The Center also hosts other events, such as guest speakers; for example, the Center sponsored a discussion with MSNBC political analyst Steve Kornacki which, while hosted offsight, was organized through the Center. A marathon reading of Uncle Tom’s Cabin was hosted at the Center in March of this year, guest authors are hosted at the Center for events, and free days and open houses throughout the year. The Stowe Prize is, an award given to a US author “who’s written work makes a demonstrable impact on a critical social justice issue in the tradition of Stowe’s Uncle Tom’ Cabin” (https://www.harrietbeecherstowecenter.org/worxcms_published/programs.items_page867.shtml), and at the awarding of the Stowe Prize (which also has a student Prize, awarded every alternating year), there is a jubilee held at the Center for the public, which supports Stowe Center education programs and raises awareness of the Center in the eyes of the public. The Center also collaborates on a regular basis with the Mark Twain House, which is located on the same property, and is involved in school programs and after school classes.

In addition to the many programs run by the Center, the Center has an active online presence, with a Facebook page, a Twitter, a Blogger focused exclusively on the salons, and a WordPress site.  The Facebook page updates regularly, with posts discussing activities at the Center and various news related to the Center and its mission statement. Most of their online materials are geared to be more relevant to public interests and the mission.

In addition to being active in the community and doing a great deal to make sure information is accessible to the public through outreach and programs, the Stowe Center does a lot of collaboration with other LAMs. As previously mentioned, the Mark Twain House is located on the same property, and the two sites regularly team up for events and programs. It is a member of the Connecticut Historic Gardens Group, and is a partner with the University of Virginia, which hosts its own Stowe multimedia archive, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin and American Culture” (http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/). Some of the manuscripts hosted by the Stowe Center are unique and cannot be found anywhere else, and this is a possible collaborative project that could be explored in the future. The materials I found particularly interesting during my tour were related to Uncle Tom and contemporary popular culture. They had fanart (including beautifully done paintings of two characters), toys, games, assorted merchandise, and has a section specially dedicated to various adaptations, which were used to show how the work changed when it was out of Stowe's control. There was a display of many of the international editions throughout the years, giving visitors an idea of how widespread the popularity of this book was. I also liked that the Center had made copies of various primary sources, including the initial serialized version of Uncle Tom's Cabin that appeared in newspapers, so that visitors could interact with various primary sources without damaging any actual materials. The houses themselves are beautiful, and also house some still life paintings done by Stowe, who I did not know painted until my tour there.

Overall, the Stowe Center faces most of the same problems any old house museum does. They’ve been fortunate so far to not have any major disasters yet, and with the renovations happening to Stowe’s house, they are taking major steps to up their disaster readiness. The Vault is in better shape than the house itself, having been created and updated via a grant in 2011, so it has modern climate control and fire suppressants installed, as well as compact shelving. I was told by Beth Burgess, the collection manager at the Center, that all of the materials are kept a safe level above the ground, so there are considerations being taken in case of floods. Because they are not focusing on collecting at the moment, due to having the materials they need to tell the story they want, they are more concerned with keeping these materials in good conditions. Their focus is not so much in collecting, but in taking what they have and making an entertaining, educational experience that stays with their visitors and sparks conversations relevant in today’s world. They’ve taken the necessary steps to keep their materials and houses safe, and have an active online presence, in addition to being active in reaching out to the community.  I would love it if their website showed off more of the materials that they have in storage, and if they had public finding aids, but overall, given the size of the museum, they’re doing a great job. I genuinely enjoyed my visit there, and look forward to going back in the future.

Resources:

Interview with Elizabeth Burgess, Collections Manager of the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center

http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/ - University of Virginia, Uncle Tom's Cabin and American Culture

https://www.harrietbeecherstowecenter.org/about/faqs.shtml - Stowe Center FAQs

https://www.harrietbeecherstowecenter.org/about/index.shtml#mission - Stowe Center Mission Statement

https://www.harrietbeecherstowecenter.org/ - Harriet Beecher Stowe Center Website

https://www.facebook.com/HarrietBeecherStowe/ - Stowe Center on Facebook

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Beecher_Stowe - Harriet Beecher Stowe, Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Beecher_Stowe_House_(Hartford,_Connecticut) - Harriet Beecher Stowe House, Wikipedia

http://harrietbeecherstowe.org/worxcms_published/programs.items_page867.shtml - The Stowe Prize

...and personal experience through two tours of the museum, albeit during its limited renovation period. Special thanks to the dosents and tour guides who answered my initial questions, as well as all the staff of the Stowe Center for doing a wonderful job running this amazing place. 

Church and State: The Old North Foundation and the Congregation of Christ Church

Christ Church, better known as Old North Church, was originally built in 1723 as a colonial member of the Church of England. In accordance with Church of England protocol, the congregation’s first rector, Timothy Cutler (also president of Yale), traveled to and from London for his ordination. It is the oldest standing church in Boston. The church, a Georgian mimic of Sir Christopher Wren, is best known as the site of 1775 Paul Revere’s night ride, when Christ Church sexton Robert Newman hung two lanterns in the church steeple to signal that British forces were arriving by sea. Following the revolution, the church has become a national symbol. 

The revolution also brought a change in church leadership. Although Christ Church still remains a member of the Anglican Communion, it became a member of the Protest Episcopal Church of the United States following the war.

Today, the site leads two lives – one as a secular historic site along the Freedom Trail, and one as an active congregation and mission church. The nonprofit Old North Foundation governs the historic site. Recently, the Old North Foundation has updated its mission statement. Rather than the previous mission, which read, “The Old North Foundation promotes values of freedom, liberty, and civic engagement through the interpretation and preservation of the Old North Church, an enduring symbol of American independence,” the new statement, updated this past April, now lays out more specific bullet points.[1] The statement now reads, 

"The Old North Foundation is the secular, nonprofit organization responsible for the operation of the Old North historic site that welcomes approximately 500,000 people each year. The Old North Foundation works daily to execute the following mission: 

·      Guide and support the utilization and preservation of the Old North, its buildings and campuses. 

·      Foster educational and interpretive programs for students and visitors. 

·      Engage the public in the Old North's history and its role in inspiring liberty and freedom." [2]

By tailoring its mission, the Old North Foundation clearly separates itself from religious affiliation with the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, and sets itself up as a secular and independent historic site. The mission also indicates the site's institutional priorities, which are historic and architectural preservation, education and interpretation, and public engagement. There is no mention of collections or collections development beyond those of the Old North structure itself, and the surrounding buildings and grounds. Rather, the Old North Foundation aims to provide and maintain a dynamic, educational, and public historical site as a space for continued learning and engagement. The Foundation serves a wide audience through educational outreach, site-specific programming, and public programming.

Visitors to the site may also visit the adjacent columbarium (still actively accepting remains), historic gardens, Eden & Gill colonial printing office, Captain Jackson’s Historic Chocolate Shop, and the Old North gift shop. The gift shop is located in a former chapel built for the city’s Italian community, now a secular retail space governed by the Old North Foundation. [3]

The Episcopal congregation of Christ Church maintains a separate identity from the Old North Foundation. The church’s historic status, however, continues its status as a mission church despite its growing, young congregation, and its rector is formally the bishop of the Diocese of Massachusetts.

COLLECTIONS

The Old North historic site is a collection of buildings and grounds. At the heart of the site is the Old North Church itself, a historic 1723 Georgian structure. It is the oldest standing church in Boston. The church includes a Columbarium. This crypt space is still in use and accepting new applicants who wish to have their cremated remains housed below the chancel of the Old North Church. The Columbarium is operated by the Old North Church Administrator, and affiliated with the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts.[4] That being said, the space is open to all faiths. In addition to the historic church and crypt, the site also features additional historic buildings and grounds. The Old North Foundation operates the 1713 Clough House, which is one of Boston's oldest brick residential buildings. The Clough House is home to the Edes & Gill Print Shop and Captain Jackson's Historic Chocolate Shop.[5] Neither the chocolate shop nor the print shop are surviving, historic sites. Instead, the shops seek to provide visitors with historic experiences based on historic businesses, and feature live demonstrations of historic printing and chocolate making processes and technologies with in-person interpretation about printing and its role in colonial America. In addition to teaching visitors about historical printing and chocolate making techniques, interpreters share information about the Clough House with visitors.

The Old North campus also includes a 1918 chapel originally build for Italian immigrants. Today, this chapel is the Old North Gift Shop. The Foundation also uses two adjoining townhouses for administrative, educational, and interpretive spaces for public and school programming. Finally, the buildings are arranged around three courtyards and two formal and historical gardens.[6]

As is reflected in its mission statement, the Old North Foundation is primarily a collection of buildings and grounds. The Old North Church, however, does have an archival collection. This collection is housed and preserved at the Massachusetts Historical Society. The archival collection includes information about the congregation, pew records, meeting minutes for the Congregation of Christ Church's Vestry, Proprietors' meetings, and Wardens' meetings, Vital records of Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, construction documents, and papers relating to the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem and the Paul Revere legend.[7] Researchers wishing to conduct research within this collection must contact the Massachusetts Historical Society for an appointment. By housing the collections in this space, the papers are provided with adequate storage, and scholars and interested parties are provided with archival and reference staff trained and skilled to aid researchers. This frees the Foundation from erecting, maintaining, and staffing an archival storage facility of its own, and allows it to concentrate its primary efforts on architectural building preservation and educational interpretation and experiences.

The buildings at the Old North historic site are not accessible to all visitors. Tour sites such as the bell tower are located up narrow stairs, and, as a historic building, modifications have not been made in order to accommodate visitors with varying physical and spatial needs. The website is up front about its limitations, and informs potential visitors of this drawback. Intellectually, however, the Old North Foundation takes great pains in order to provide visitors with information about the site history. Through written on-site information, regular tours on the half hour, architectural tours by appointment, and a detailed school tour and lesson plan, the Old North Foundation strives to make information about the buildings and grounds freely accessible.

GOVERNANCE

Perhaps the most striking aspect of the site is its governance structure, as the Old North building maintains a duel role as secular historic site and religious, Episcopal mission church. The site functioned as the parish of Christ Church in the City of Boston, part of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts up through 1991. In that year, the Old North Foundation of Boston, Inc. was established as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. The Foundation was established independently of the parish of Christ Church in the City of Boston, and created in order to operate the space as a historic site of American history, rather than a religious place of worship. In January of 2004, Christ Church of the City of Boston and the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts transferred all responsibility for the preservation of the church structure, and operational responsibilities for interpretive and educational programs to the Old North Foundation.[8] This transfer was lead by the Old North Foundation's board of directors and executive director.

Despite this dramatic shift in governance for the physical site from religious to secular, the congregation of Christ Church in the City of Boston continues to maintain its presence as a religious parish. The parish is classified as a mission church of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts. This means that the parish rector is formally the bishop of the Diocese of Massachusetts, and is technically governed by the diocese, as the physical church building is maintained by the secular Foundation. Despite this, the vicars Rev. Stephen T. Ayers and Rev. Eleanor A. Terry, conduct the parish’s day-to-day parish operations.

But although the historic site and Episcopal parish are clearly governed by separate entities on paper, the reality of the situation features significant overlap. Perhaps understandably, both the Old North Foundation and the parish community, each with its own tab and menu system, share the Old North web address, oldnorth.com. Less expected are the overlaps in leadership. The vicar of Christ Church in the City of Boston, the Rev. Stephen T. Ayers, is also the current director of the Old North Foundation. He is featured twice on the website - once each on the historic site staff and board page, and once on the congregational leadership page. The Rev. Stephen T. Ayers has acted as vicar to the parish since 1997, and only recently has he assumed the directorship of the Old North Foundation, in 2012. Additionally, the sexton Tim Wenrich appears on both the staff page for the Old North Foundation and the parish leadership page.[9] Traditionally, a sexton is a parish position responsible for facility maintenance. In fact, it was the sexton, Robert Newman, who famously hung the lanterns for Paul Revere's ride. Since 2004, however, the physical maintenance of all buildings and grounds have been governed by the Foundation rather than the parish.

While this overlap in leadership may initially pose something of a red flag in organizations so carefully split along religious and secular lines, it is in practice a practical and successful collaboration. As both institutions share the space, a balance between parish functions and the success of the historic site is essential. Beyond the sharing of physical space, both organizations also share an interest in the success of their partner organization. The congregation prides itself on its role as a parish and a church in American history, and describes itself as a, "national shrine and place of pilgrimage." While the parish is not responsible for the preservation or historic operations of the physical space, it is clearly invested in this element of the parish identity. Similarly, the Old North Foundation features the church and its history in its educational and interpretive programs. The Foundation regularly features a series called "This Old Pew" on the website's blog, which profiles prominent members of the parish community, identified by the family pew they used to occupy. As a historic church building, the Old North Foundation naturally draws a great deal of its historic attention from the history of the church and its parish. Conversely, as a historic parish continuing to inhabit its historic church building, Christ Church of the City of Boston is naturally linked to the site's role as historic site.

Such similarities may call to mind the silo effect within the cultural heritage community, where the interests of museums, libraries, and archives frequently converge, yet the means of achieving these common ends are separated by institutional method and prevented from ever reaching the light of day. Diane Zorich, Gunter Waibel, and Ricky Erway, in “Beyond the Silos of the LAMs,” outline that, in ideal world, common physical spaces, clear and regular communication, and joint efforts between organizations become regular elements of collaborative work between cultural institutions.[10] While the parish of Christ Church in the City of Boston and the Old North Foundation might not be a traditional pairing of cultural heritage institutions, the nonetheless serve as an example of successful and integrated collaborative governance. Considering each institution’s interest in the success of the other and similarities in motivation, it is understandable and pragmatic that the director and vicar should be one and the same, that the web address is shared, and that the sexton serves the facility needs of both institutions. While the secular and religious aspects of the site may be governed and operated separately, they do share the same hub - and operate simultaneously alongside and with one another.

SERVICES

The Old North Foundation's mission statement outlines three primary goals: to support the use and preservation of the historic space, to educate visitors about the site's history, and to engage with and share the historic site with the public. In order to fulfill this mission, the Old North Foundation offers a variety of educational services, preservation projects, and matters of public engagement.

One of the Foundation's primary functions is that of preservation and maintenance. The church site has undergone several waves of redecoration, and has been restored to reflect the church's physical appearance at several points in its history. Right now, the Boston Preservation Alliance has allied with the Old North Foundation in order to conduct a paint study, which chronicles the different layers of paint within the church's interior throughout the years. Visitors to the church may currently view shaded diagrams of the sanctuary throughout the years, and swatches of uncovered paint may be viewed on select portions of the otherwise white walls. Ultimately, this preservation project will result in the church interior being restored to its original 1723 paint pattern. A public lecture on this project will be lead by Brian Powell this coming May.[11]

The Foundation is also committed to providing educational resources to visitors and area students. This is primarily achieved through a robust menu of tours. Guided tours are offered on the half hour during regular business hours, and self-guided tour materials are available at all times. Additionally, a behind-the-scenes tour, which takes visitors up into the bell tower in order to learn about the process of bell ringing and view the oldest set of ringing bells in North America, and down into the Columbarium, which is technically run by the parish community, is available for $6. Art and architecture tours are also available for groups, but must be per-arranged by appointment.[12]

The Foundation also offers a variety of educational programming specifically designed for school groups. Educational school tour themes include behind the scenes tours, art and architecture tours, "A History Mystery: Who Hung the Lanterns?" and "Sacred Seats: Social Implications of Colonial Church Seating." These programs are address a wide range of grade levels, and are offered to visiting groups on site. In addition to on-site programs, the Old North Foundation also offers lessons plans for classroom use before visiting the site. These include a revolutionary "Mix and Match Timeline", "Boston Then and Now", lessons in the use of historic documents, and a lesson plan entitled, "Tories, Timid, or True Blue," which addresses the issue of multiple perspectives of the same historic event through primary source materials.[13]

The Old North Foundation also seeks to engage the public through seasonally offered speakers series and special events.[14] The site's largest public event is a lantern ceremony that occurs annually on April 17th, commemorating Paul Revere's ride and Robert Newman's hanging of the lanterns. Ceremonies typically feature speeches given by area politicians, drum and fife performances, representatives from the local militia, color guard, and USS Constitution, dramatic readings of Longfellow’s poem, Paul Revere’s Ride, first-person Paul Revere reenactors, and a ceremonial lantern hanging.

The Old North website provides links to an impressive list of social media sites, including Pinterest, Youtube, Google Plus, Yelp, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, TripAdvisor, and Instagram. Despite the breadth of intent, only one of these accounts is active. The Google Plus and LinkedIn accounts are inactive, and the Instagram and Twitter accounts do not exist, despite the icon links provided on the homepage. The Youtube account may just be starting out, and features three videos, uploaded in early April. The Yelp and TripAdvisor pages are active, being updated primarily through visitor reviews. The Facebook page is active and followed by just over 3,800 people. It is used most days in order to promote post photos of the space, provide links to blog posts, and make event announcements. This ambitious campaign is largely unsuccessful, and the Old North Foundation would do well to undertake fewer platforms and do them well. However, perhaps their ambition in this area stems from a desire to create a robust and interactive narrative of the site, as outlined in “The End of History Museums: What’s Plan B?” by Cary Carson.[15]

But while the majority of Old North’s social media presence leaves something to be desired, the Foundation’s blog is extremely well done. The blog features regular articles on site preservation, "History Tidbits" about site features such as the Thomas Grundy angels, the steeple. The most prolific blog category, however, is "This Old Pew," which visits the church's pews by number and offers biographical profiles on historic parishioners or architectural points of interest within the pew.[16] This blog series is well written and thoughtful, and provides a wonderful resource for interested members of the public who may or may not be able to visit the physical site. 

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

As a whole, the Old North site appears to successfully balance its dual roles as historic site and religious community. The Old North Foundation clearly separates its collection of historic buildings and grounds from the Christ Church of the City of Boston parish in its mission. In reality, however, this separation is less clearly defined, as both parish and historic site are tied to one another. The Foundation's missions to preserve, educate, and engage the public clearly outlines the institutional priorities of the site. These are achieved through a robust and regular agenda of educational programs, public events, and an ongoing preservation project. Its archival collections have been housed at the Massachusetts Historical Society, which provides adequate storage and support staff for the archival materials, and allows the Foundation to concentrate on its primary institutional goals of providing quality educational programming to the public, and the maintenance and preservation of the historic buildings and grounds.

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[1] “Old North Foundation of Boston, Inc., Mission Statement” Old North Foundation, accessed March 19, 2016, http://oldnorth.com/historic-site/foundation/.

[2] “Old North Foundation of Boston, Inc., Mission Statement” Old North Foundation, accessed April 27, 2016, http://oldnorth.com/historic-site/foundation/.

[3] “Plan A Visit” Old North Foundation, accessed April 27, 2016, http://oldnorth.com/historic-site/plan-a-visit/.

[4] “The Columbarium” Old North Foundation, accessed April 27, 2016, http://oldnorth.com/historic-site/the-columbarium/.

[5] “Our Campus” Old North Foundation, accessed April 27, 2016, http://oldnorth.com/historic-site/our-campus/.

[6] Ibid., http://oldnorth.com/historic-site/our-campus/.

[7] “Archives” Old North Foundation, accessed April 27, 2016, http://oldnorth.com/historic-site/the-columbarium/.

[8] “Old North Foundation of Boston, Inc., Mission Statement” Old North Foundation, accessed April 27, 2016, http://oldnorth.com/oldnorthchurcharchives.

[9] “Staff & Board” Old North Foundation, accessed April 27, 2016, http://oldnorth.com/historic-site/staff-board/. And “Clergy & Leadership” Old North Foundation, accessed April 27, 2016, http://oldnorth.com/congregation/our-leadership/.

[10] Diane M. Zorich, Gunter Waibel, and Ricky Erway, “Beyond the Silos of the LAMs: Collaboration Among Libraries, Archives and Museums,”(Dublin, Ohio: OCLC Research, 2008), 14.

[11] “Upcoming Events,” Old North Foundation, accessed April 27, 2016, http://oldnorth.com /upcoming-events/.

[12] “Group Tours,” Old North Foundation, accessed April 27, 2016, http://oldnorth.com /group-tours/.

[13] “School Groups,” Old North Foundation, accessed April 27, 2016, http://oldnorth.com /school-groups /.

[14] “Upcoming Events,” Old North Foundation, accessed April 27, 2016, http://oldnorth.com /upcoming-events/.

[15] Cary Carson, “The End of History Museums: What’s Plan B?” The Public Historian 30, no. 4 (Fall 2008), 26.

[16] “Old North Foundation of Boston, Inc., Blog” Old North Foundation, accessed April 27, 2016, http://oldnorth.com/historic-site/shubael-bell/.

Billings Farm and Museum (Kyle Huck Final Project)

    Billings Farm, located in Woodstock, Vermont, has a long history, starting in 1871, when it was first established by Frederick Billings, noted lawyer, financier, and conservationist. He acquired the former estate of George Perkins Marsh, the author of the book Man and Nature, and considered by some to be America’s first environmentalist and conservationist. A native Vermonter, Billings was concerned with the failing state of Vermont farming, and he purchased the Marsh estate and founded the farm with the intent of putting his conservationist ideas into practice. His efforts led to the reforestation of many parts of the state of Vermont, especially in the Woodstock region, as well as a rejuvenation of farming in the state. The farm has operated consistently since its founding, and has won numerous awards for its Jersey cattle at various exhibitions nationwide.

    The farm eventually passed to Mary French Rockefeller, a descendant of Frederick Billings, and she and her husband Laurance took a great interest in the town of Woodstock. The home of Marsh and Billings and now Rockefeller, simply called “the mansion,” was dedicated as a National Historic Landmark in 1967 by Lady Bird Johnson, and the following year the Rockefellers created Woodstock Foundation, Inc., a philanthropic organization dedicated to the preservation and betterment of the town of Woodstock. Now a part of the Woodstock Foundation, exhibits using artifacts from Billings Farm’s history were developed and the historic farmhouse was renovated and restored to how it may have looked when it was built in the 1890s. The farm reopened as a farm and museum in 1983, and the forest across the street, along with the mansion, were turned into Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park in the 1990s.

    Since its opening, Billings Farm and Museum has acted as the “gateway to Vermont’s rural heritage,” and developed programming, events, and exhibits that explore farming in Vermont, both in the 1890s and presently, as well as the history of the conservation movement as spearheaded by Marsh, Billings, and Rockefeller. The main permanent exhibit, “The Vermont Farm Year in 1890,” is housed in four historic connected barns, and takes the visitor through farm life in Vermont in 1890. Historic hand tools, farm machines, oral histories, historic photographs, and oral histories tell the story of Vermont farmers’ connection to the land and their day-to-day activities through four seasons of work and home life. The exhibit is self-guided, with information provided through wall text and recordings as well as the visual representation of the artifacts and life-size recreations.

    The secondary permanent exhibit is a small introductory exhibit titled “Upon This Land,” and chronicles the history of the farm from the days of the Marsh family to the present-day farm and museum. Information is provided in wall text and recordings, with additional photographs and artifacts provided for illustration.

    The farmhouse, called the “1890 Farm House,” was originally built to be the home of the farm manager’s family. It was lived in and renovated consistently, and was at one point split into separate apartments for farm hands. In the 1980s, the house was renovated and restored to its original 1890 layout, and filled with period artifacts to resemble an 1890s home. There are two floors that can be toured. The basement floor, where the visitors’ entrance is located, houses the restored dairy, laundry room, and cistern. The first floor has a sitting room, a living room, a guest bedroom, a bathroom, a dining room, a pantry, a kitchen, and an office. There is a second floor, which was not restored and is not open to the public. Six days of the week the house can only be viewed on a tour presented by Interpretive staff, but on Tuesdays the museum opens the house for exploration for a weekly event they call “Time Travel Tuesdays.” Costumed interpreters are stationed throughout the house and guide visitors in activities and answer questions. Food is cooked in the kitchen, but because of state sanitary guidelines, it can’t be sampled by guests. In an effort to maintain the atmosphere of an 1890 farmhouse, there is no wall text in any part of the house, but Interpretive staff is trained to answer questions and provide information.

    There are a couple other small exhibits, including a display of historic wagons and an ice house, both of which include wall text to explain artifacts and history. The rest of the museum is a working farm, and visitors are invited to explore the cow barn, the horse barn, and see the sheep and the other animals in pasture. The barns contain brief wall text explanations, but farm staff and Interpretive staff are also available to answer questions. Programs are held throughout the day, and visitors can attend them to learn more about animals and various farm activities both historical and present-day.

    In addition, the museum has two videos they show in a theater, one, the Academy Award nominated A Place in the Land, directed by Charles Guggenheim, is a half-hour documentary shown daily, and follows the history of the conservationist movement in America from the perspective of the Billings Farm property and its three most significant owners: George Perkins Marsh, Frederick Billings, and Laurance Rockefeller. There is also an 8-minute video called A Thing Worth Doing, which plays in the “Vermont Farm Year” exhibit and describes the evolution of Billings Farm and responsible land use using historic photographs and voiceovers.

    The museum holds frequent events, from the weekly events such as “Time Travel Tuesdays,” “Wagon Ride Wednesdays,” “Foodways Fridays,” and “Ice Cream Sundays,” to special event days like “Sheep Shearing Day” and their most popular annual event, “Old Vermont Fourth.” These days have special programming and activities. There is also an annual “Quilt Exhibition,” where quiltmakers from the area send in recent homemade quilts to be shown in a special exhibit hall. The quilts are judged by a panel of quiltmakers, who choose the best in show and their personal favorites. The curator of the museum also chooses a favorite, and the visitors get to vote on their favorite. The winners receive ribbons, and the exhibit is displayed for a month.

    For the most part, there is not very much technology that goes into the museum and its exhibits and programming. The museum website is well-maintained and up to date, and provides a history of the farm and museum as well as visitor information and a link to their Facebook page. The Facebook page is also well maintained, and is updated daily with photos, videos, and news and events, but there is not a lot of interaction with visitors to the page. The museum itself is meant to give visitors something of a sense of stepping back in time to see a farm in 1890, and as such interaction with Interpretive staff is emphasized.

    The museum also holds library and archival collections, both of which are only accessible by request. The library is a collection of over 9,000 bound volumes relating, as the website says, “in a very general sense to 19th and early 20th century agricultural practices and farm life in Vermont and New England.” The catalog for the library is digitized in Past Perfect, and only accessible on site. Also considered a part of the library’s collections is the audio and video holdings, including an extensive collection of oral histories as well as video recordings relating to farm life in the area in the mid-to-late 20th century.

    I was able to contact Marianne Zephir, the Archive and Collections Specialist at Billings Farm and Museum to ask about the archival collections. The archival holdings are managed separately from the library collection and consist of two main collections, the Billings Family Archives and the Billings Farm Records. The Billings Family Archives are completely processed and cataloged in Past Perfect, with a PDF finding aid available to researchers upon request. The Family Archives is, in Marianne’s words, “a collection of household, personal, and business related documents, letters, diaries, and photographs, that record the history of the Billings family and provide a rich source of information about family relationships and activities.” The collection spans 128 years, from 1869 to 1997, is 244 linear feet, and was created by the Billings, French, and Rockefeller families who owned and operated the property during those years. The Billings Farm Records are currently being processed by Marianne, and consist of business records pertaining to Billings Farm from its establishment in 1871 through the present day, and have been collected from the Billings Farm offices and from outside sources. It’s estimated at 170 linear feet, and Marianne is attempting to process it to folder level and thinks it will take anywhere from 6 months to a year working two days a week. Once it’s complete, she will catalog it in Past Perfect and make the finding aid available in PDF format. Also, there are additional papers relating to Vermont farm agriculture and history, in particular agricultural practices, farm equipment, and capital improvement to farm lands and buildings. These papers were assembled by farm managers, farm employees, and family members.

    One notable aspect of the collections that I found interesting is the inclusion of 57 Carleton Watkins mammoth photographs of Yosemite and California in the 1860s. This collection was originally owned by Frederick Billings, who knew Watkins. According to Marianne, Billings once commissioned Watkins to take pictures of the New Almaden Mine as part of a Supreme Court case concerning a land dispute for which Billings was one of the lawyers. An admirer of the work, Billings then acquired 30 prints of Watkins’ Yosemite photographs. The prints were a part of the collection donated by Laurance and Mary Rockefeller.

    Overall, there doesn’t seem to be any immediate preservation issues, and Marianne says that it’s always a concern. A newly built facility, completed in July of last year, houses the collections, and is outfitted with state of the art fire suppression and environmental controls. Disaster planning is only in a draft stage and needs to be updated, but Marianne is aware of the need. The collections are only accessible by appointment and during Marianne’s working hours. The collection catalog is only available on site. Available services are basic: research, digital images, scans, and photographs. Many of the photographs in the collection are digitized, but Marianne admits it’s organized poorly, and proper organization is on her “to do” list. Other digitization is not a high priority. Outreach is also limited, as staffing doesn’t permit anything beyond the Facebook page. Most researchers find out about the collections through the website, word of mouth, and other research, but in 2015 there were 57 researchers and so far in 2016 there have been 22.

    Preservation concerns don’t allow for exhibition of the collections, and in the exhibits only reproductions are used, but occasionally photographs will go on display. One of the Watkins photographs is being loaned to the New Bedford Art Museum for their exhibit Bierstadt, Nature & National Identity. Interpretive staff also use some primary source materials as research for programs and exhibits, and reproductions and facsimiles are used for educational programs and exhibits as well. The archives also provide digitized photographs for promotional use on Facebook and through other sources.

    Billings Farm and Museum has significant collections in their area of interest, and their lack of technology and outreach is mainly due to a staffing shortage. Marianne works jointly for the museum and the neighboring National Historical Park, so her time is split between collections. Nonetheless, they make an effort to care for their collections appropriately and make them available to researchers and staff when needed. I would say that ideally their catalog and finding aids should be accessible from the website, so that researchers can have a better idea of what is available and potentially attract more researchers to the collections, but given the staffing concerns I believe they’ve done a good job.

Resources: 
Interview with Marianne Zephir, Archive and Collections Specialist
The Billings Farm and Museum website: http://www.billingsfarm.org

The Billings Farm and Museum Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/BillingsFarmMuseum

The Vermont Standard article “Mary and Laurance Rockefeller’s Billings Farm and the Farm & Museum”: http://www.thevermontstandard.com/2010/05/mary-and-laurance-rockefellers%E2%80%99/

Frederick Billings on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_H._Billings

George Perkins Marsh on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Perkins_Marsh

...And personal experience and research done while working for the Farm and Museum.