The mention of Louisa May Alcott and Orchard House often
evokes an emotional reaction: People of all ages have fond memories of reading Little Women in elementary or middle
school, of seeing the movie version with Susan Sarandon and Winona Ryder, or an
older production, or some combination thereof. For those people, a trip to the
house where Alcott wrote the book is a venture that completes their experience
of Little Women. For others, who may
be tourists visiting revolutionary Concord, or residents of neighboring towns
who are playing tourist, Orchard House is another historic landmark, another
house museum on the list of sites that Concord has to offer, a place to finally
visit on a free afternoon.
For this project I looked at the condition of the Orchard
House collection and the intellectual accessibility of the collection (the
collection is defined as the house and its furnishings). I used my own
observations and reviews online to gauge the effectiveness of the methods used
by Orchard House to provide access. I reviewed the social media sites of
Orchard House to determine whether or not they are used to provide additional
access to the collection, to entice greater numbers of visitors, or for some
other purpose. Finally, I looked at the financial statements available online
to assess the success of their policies and methods. I conclude that the Alcott
collection at Orchard House is not readily accessible: There is very limited
access through a specific method, with little to no room for additional
investigation. Social media is not used to full advantage, and the presence of
the house on those sites is receding. Finally, the financial statements reveal dwindling
revenues from visitors, and that the House is sustained mainly by donations,
which are also diminishing. As a result of these decreased revenues, the house
is increasingly in need of repair, some of the furnishings are in need of
repair or replacement, but, as will be discussed later, improvements are only
happening on a minimal scale.
Visitors to Orchard House have a variety of motivations: I
visited because of this project, but chose the project because I live nearby and
had never seen the house. Others visit because of the link to Alcott’s Little Women, which was a favorite of
their childhood. Still others come with school field trips, have an interest in
the Transcendentalists, or because they want to see every historic house museum
in New England. But what do they come away with after their 45 minute tour? Do
they have a strong sense of what Alcott’s day to day life was like? Can they
picture her writing at her desk? Have they thumbed through her journals or seen
a manuscript of any of her books? Have they been inspired by her story or that
of her family? The reviews are somewhat mixed.
Orchard House may only be seen by a guided tour which takes
about 45 minutes. To begin the tour, visitors view a short movie. I missed the
movie on my visit, as a tour had started a few minutes before and a large group
of high school students was due momentarily. I opted to join the tour already
in progress to stay ahead of the crowd. Approximately 15 people comprise each
group, but even this number makes for crowded quarters in the small rooms of
Orchard House, and was a bone of contention in a number of the negative reviews
posted online.[1] I
have to concur: As it turned out, the tour guide for the group I joined was an
older woman who spoke slowly and tended to repeat herself, so our group seems
to have slowed down the general process. Two or three times during the tour we
experienced traffic jams as one group came down the stairs while another waited
to go up, or a group tried to come in a room while we still occupied it. This
experience didn’t appear to add to anyone’s enjoyment of the house. The crowded
conditions also precluded wandering through the room to see the objects and
furnishings at close range.
Other online comments noted that some tour guides were
better than others for various reasons, and again my experience bore this out.
When my attention wandered from my own group, I was able to overhear another
guide give her group a large quantity of information that ours did not receive.
I also noted that our guide often used qualifying phrases such as “We don’t
know but…” or “We like to think…” before offering information about an item,
such as Alcott’s desk. “We like to think of Alcott sitting at this desk to
write Little Women, but we don’t know.”
Typically this type of statement gets distorted and remembered incorrectly, and
the online reviews bear this out. All of the reviews I read mentioning the desk
stated absolutely that the book was written at that desk. This amounts to the
tour guides propagating myths about the Alcotts and the house, even if they do
so inadvertently. The guides cannot control what people remember, but they
should understand the power of suggestion and be more responsible with their
speech.
These seem like minor quibbles, but since the tour guide is
the sole point of access to the collection, they matter. Although a canned
speech is not a good answer, talking points would be, in order to ensure that
each group hears the same core elements about the house and the Alcott family.
After overhearing the other guide, I wondered how much information I had missed
in other rooms. Pacing is also important: Our group had little opportunity for
questions or clarification, with another group on our heels we were hustled
along to the next space as soon as our guide finished speaking. All of this
speaks to a need for training, which in all likelihood, Orchard House can ill
afford, but more on that later.
The fact is, the collection at Orchard House is not intellectually
accessible: Visitors may not linger in rooms to inspect the objects, there are
no key cards to the rooms (a la the Isabelle Stewart Gardner Museum), and there
are no posted descriptions of the items or the rooms. The only access is via
the tour guide, and as we have seen, that is not a uniform experience nor is it
completely satisfying. There are portions of the house that are behind closed
doors and remain unmentioned. There may be nothing in those spaces that would
add to the tour, but the fact that no reference was even made (“That door leads
to ____”) makes me wonder what I missed.
Although Orchard House is furnished in large measure (about
80%) with objects owned by the Alcott family, those objects do not include personal
papers, correspondence, and journals of the family.[2]
Most of that material, according to our tour guide, is in the possession of the
Harvard libraries, which precludes the possibility of any scholarly research at
Orchard House. The Alcott’s story has been romanticized, the difficult parts
(of which there were in abundance) touched on only lightly. I have to wonder if
Louisa’s journal, or a transcription, was available what impact it would have
on the story as presented. The curation of the collection, its presentation
through guides, and the lack of personal papers available to visitors enables the
organization behind Orchard House to tell the story they want to tell.
In this day and age, it seems reasonable to think that a
museum would further their cause through their own website and through social
media. The website is an older design and needs updating. Events at Orchard
House are updated, but slowly: As of this week, the first event listed is for
school vacation week which began April 19th. At first blush, it
appears that Orchard House has a robust online presence: The homepage of their
website sports an array of links to Facebook, Twitter, and a number of other popular
social media sites. However, following those links tells another story.
Foursquare, which has diminished in popularity, once gave
users the opportunity to “check in” and post online about the location they
were currently visiting (that feature was discontinued in 2014). Orchard House
received 37 votes during the popular phase of Foursquare; and 9 reviews between
2011 and 2016.[3]
The only photographs show the outside of house. In the heyday of Foursquare it might
have behooved Orchard House to have a reminder notice in the gift shop for visitors
to check in.
Flickr, which allows users to post photo albums online shows
that 9 people are followers of the Orchard House page. There is 1 album of 14
photos, all of which depict a run to benefit Orchard House in 2006. There have
been no further updates, although the Orchard House website is advertising
another run in September 2016.[4]
Apparently the person who created this album has moved on to other projects and
no one else has taken this on. Orchard House should re-evaluate keeping this
link on their website.
The link to Mundimago (which uses Instagram, but is not part
of it) started out with more promise. 243 photographs were posted regularly
until the last one which is dated 29 December, 2015, and the page has 440
followers.[5]
Many of the photographs are of events in the house, such as women dressed as
the Alcott sisters in front of the Christmas tree, which is a nice change from
pictures of the outside of the house. YouTube is dismal with 8 videos of women
from various countries reading the first few lines of Little Women, the last of which was posted 3 years ago.[6]
Clearly there is a trend here: At some point, 1 or more people at Orchard House
were posting to social media sites on behalf of the house, but that has not
continued. Perhaps those people have moved on to other tasks, or are no longer
with Orchard House. In any event, there comes a point where an out of date
presence does more harm than good, and Orchard House should re-evaluate their
presence on these sites.
Orchard House also has a blog, the link for which is among
those at the bottom of the homepage, rather than on the main menu. True to form
it has not been kept up: The last entry in the blog was in September 2015, and
it was one of only 3 that year. The blog was started in 2009 with 10 posts, had
only 1 in 2010 and 2011. It bounced back with 12 posts in 2014.[7]
If I were to guess, I would say there will be no more blog posts unless
something momentous happens to or at Orchard House. The initial wave of
activity, the slump, followed by a second wave of posts leads me to believe
that the person who started the blog either left or moved on to another
project, with no one to take their place.
There are 3 other links to social media, which have a somewhat
better presence: Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. Pinterest is a little
difficult to track as there are no dates attached to the items which have been
posted. The Orchard House page has 9 boards and 110 followers, which looks
pretty good compared to some of the other sites, but there is no way to know if
posts on this site are ongoing.[8]
The boards are not specifically about the house but related topics such as 19th
century clothing, suggested reading, and productions of Little Women. It actually looks like a good strategy to get people
interested in the house; it also has the potential to expand their offerings.
Both Facebook and Twitter have fairly regular posts which
continue to this day. However uninspired they may be (the tweet from 21 April: “Morning”
accompanied by yet another photograph of the front elevation of the house),
people do respond and do tweet at Orchard House. They have 1752 followers, which
may not compare with Ashton Kutcher, but far exceeds the counts on any of their
other pages except Facebook.[9]
The Orchard House Facebook has nearly 9,000 likes which is respectable.[10]
Again, the posts are not stellar, but people respond and talk about visiting
the house. The biggest problem I found with the Facebook page was attempting to
search for it from my own Facebook page: I searched for Orchard House and only
turned up unofficial sites. I only got to the real page when I clicked the link
from the Orchard House website. It does seem that Orchard House recognizes, to
some degree, the value of these 3 social media sites and is trying to
capitalize on them. They could use some pointers, maybe a theme, and could
stand to loosen up their no photography policy; they might be surprised at the
results.
Orchard House has some additional links at the bottom of
their homepage, and it was these I found most troubling. The first claims Orchard
House is an official project of “Save America’s Treasures” but the link
redirects the user to the renamed/rebranded National Trust for Historic
Preservation (NTHS). First and foremost, Orchard House should be aware of the
change and update their link. The user
must search the site for articles relating to Orchard House. The first in the
list was published in 2009 when Boston was the recipient of $1million in grants.
The money was divided between 25 sites: 12 won grants and the other 13 received
$5,000 for applying. Orchard House was one of the 13. (Some sites that received
grants were the Edgell Library of Framingham, the Paragon Carousel in Hull and
the Vilna Schul, all of whom received about $100,000.)[11]
Another link claims that Orchard House “is distinguished as a Catalog for
Philanthropy charity.[12]
Sadly, this is a dead link. There is no redirection, no web hosting service
offering the domain name for sale, nothing. This result (which I checked
several times over the course of this research) is disturbing. Is or was the
Catalog for Philanthropy real? This does not reflect well on Orchard House on
several levels: They are not tending to their webpage, and they are making
claims that do not appear to be true. It may be that the link to NTHS refers to
the grant they received many years ago to repair the foundation (as mentioned
by my tour guide), but that is not clear and the article relating to that grant
does not appear on the NTHS website. Therefore, the article on NTHS that is
available to the user makes it appear that Orchard House is gilding the lily,
and exaggerating the grant they received in 2009.
Social media and links to outside foundations are not the
only places that indicate a bumpy path for Orchard House. The financial records
also reveal ups and downs, with the downs in the majority. The numbers do not
point to a steady decline or a sudden fail, but rather, like the blog, periods
of success followed by periods not so successful. When the numbers bounce back,
they are not as solid as before, therefore the trend overall is downward.
As a 501(c)(3) non-profit, Orchard House files form 990 with
the IRS annually, and these records are available to the public. This doesn’t
necessarily mean they are online, but they can be requested. Form 990
essentially captures the same information that a business would include on its
balance sheet and on its profit and loss statement. That means assets,
liabilities, revenue, and expenses are all enumerated. There is also
information relating to paid management positions, which allowed me to track
changes there. All in all, the trends are not encouraging.
I was fortunate to find the files for 2 years, 2003 and
2012, and each of these incorporated numbers for previous years. As a result I
was able to access detailed information on the financial position of Orchard
House for 1999-2002, and 2008-2012. The numbers are not encouraging for the
future of Orchard House. In addition, I was able to infer other information
about changes to the management structure, which may also portend bad news.
Revenues from admissions doubled from 1999 to 2000, which
was amazing development, but in the next 2 years that was not sustained and the
numbers began to fall again. By 2012 that revenue was less than what it had
been in 1999 and Orchard House ended the year with a $41,000 loss. The years 1999-2002
also show that donations climbed steadily for 3 years and then exploded in
2002, with a result that was nearly 3 times the amount raised in 1999. The 2003
form also shows that Orchard House had, in addition to the Executive Director,
a paid Director of Development.[13]
Orchard House continues to generate significant donations;
as a non-profit at least 33% of their revenue must be from contributions and
they are between 75 and 89%. However, revenue for each year from 2008 through 2012
is less than each year from 2000 through 2003.[14]
The level of donations Orchard House receives may be a mixed blessing: On the
one hand, it is wonderful thing that people are interested in preserving
Orchard House and are willing to give to the cause, on the other hand if they
are sustained by donations they are less likely to look at decreasing revenue
from visitors with any kind of urgency.
The revenue numbers from Orchard House are consistent with
the trends noted in Cary Carson’s article on historic house museums. While
Orchard House has not reacted as drastically as some institutions mentioned in
the article, they have worked to cut expenses. Most notably, and perhaps
ironically, the Director of Development position has disappeared from the IRS
form. It may be that the Executive Director has taken on the responsibilities of
development in addition to her other duties or they have been parceled out
among other staff or the Board of Trustees.
The Executive Director, Jan Turnquist, has apparently taken
on another project in hopes of boosting Orchard House into the spotlight. In
2014 a Kickstarter campaign generated funds to produce a film that will tell “the
complete history of the house.”[15]
In an interview in Persephone Magazine, Turnquist talks about the man who built
the house in the mid-17th century. This is a new development: The
Orchard House website acknowledges that Bronson Alcott bought the house, that
it existed prior to occupation by the Alcotts, but does not give any further
history. This new element to the story of Orchard House, if the documentary
comes to fruition, may help revitalize the sagging revenues of the museum. One troubling
aspect of the interview is Turnquist’s answer to a question regarding the
annual number of visitors to Orchard House: She put that number at “30-50,000.”[16]
Unless they have had an extreme uptick, this is inaccurate: The 2012 Form 990
states 18,000 visitors.[17]
We can hope that Orchard House has experienced an increase at the gate;
otherwise Turnquist has her head in the sand or tends to embellish to make the
museum look better. When coupled with the claims of foundation support that are
not entirely accurate, this adds up to a disturbing picture.
In any event, the idea of a documentary is a step towards
what Carson sees as possible solutions to the crisis of historic house museums.
Carson writes about the differences in how younger generations learn, the
attraction of multimedia presentations, and the desire of museum visitors to
feel as though they have been transported back in time.[18]
This film, which will include interviews with visitors about their museum
experience, may entice more visitors to experience Orchard House, as some of
those interviewed said they felt transported to Alcott’s time.[19]
While it is not realistic to expect Orchard House to develop multimedia
presentations with 21st century bells and whistles, hopefully they
will consider making tours of the house more immersive. Most of the special
events involve costumed re-enactors and I find it reasonable that tour guides
could also be in costume and take the part of a member of the family. A tour
would feel far more authentic if a woman in a 19th century dress
greeted the group with “Hello, my name is Anna Alcott, welcome to my home. Let
me show you around.”
Certainly additional staff training might need to be
undertaken for such a change to occur, not to mention extra costumes, and that
raises the specter of budget constraints. An article by Corinne Jörgensen, Paul F, Marty,
and Kathy Braun regarding conditions in Florida libraries was based on an IMLS
project. Realizing this was a nationwide initiative I searched for the same survey
in Massachusetts and found a report on the results. 506 institutions in
Massachusetts responded: 16% of them were historical societies, 12% were
museums and 4% were historic sites.[20]
There is no way of knowing from this if Orchard House participated, but they
would likely have fallen into one of these categories. The survey found that
one of the greatest areas of need was around information resources: There was a
lack of knowledge of current practices, grants, and workshops; institutions
need training and money for that training as well as for preservation.[21]
While much of this survey focused on preservation, it is applicable in the
context of making Orchard House more appealing to visitors. They may not be
aware of how other institutions are meeting the current challenges, also may
not be aware that such avenues may be available to them. Orchard House has been
doing things the same way for decades (Turnquist mentioned in her interview
that she had been a guide in the 1970s[22])
and at this point, it is unclear whether they think they need to change their
methods.
In terms of preservation, again, the survey findings are
applicable. When I toured the house, the guide pointed out some reproduction
wallpaper on the first floor and curtains in the study, stressing that they had
gone with the “cheapest” option in both cases. Orchard House continues in the
Alcott tradition of not enough money. But in all seriousness, this may point to
a lack of knowledge of how to find sufficient funding for such projects that
enable Orchard House to maintain an authentic appearance. I saw multiple places
in the house which need preservation and conservation, from water damage in an
upstairs nursery, to worn carpets and peeling wallpaper. Our guide made no
mention of climate control and if it exists I would be surprised. Old houses do
not lend themselves to the ductwork for air-conditioning. Many of the
furnishings are near windows where the sun can reach them and, as a result,
will deteriorate. There was no mention made of preservation efforts in the
house; they may be occurring, but sadly they may be at the same level as the “cheap”
curtains in the study.
If Orchard House intends to survive in the 21st
century they must adopt current practices, learn from successful peers, and
loosen their stranglehold grip on their collection. At Orchard House what you
see is all you get: The tour provides a closely curated story of the Alcotts
and their house. There is little historic context included, little mention of
other notable figures who were such a large part of the Alcotts’ lives. The
focus is kept on Louisa and Little Women,
but there are multiple opportunities to tell different stories about other
members of the family. Visitors have no opportunity to investigate objects and
learn anything for themselves. Orchard House works to maximize the number of
people who can tour the house, which means tours and crowded and the next tour
is on your heels, so you have to keep moving. By continuing the way they always
have, Orchard House runs the risk of running themselves into the ground.
Perhaps they will find a way to reinvent themselves and move into the 21 century.
[1] Louisa May Alcott’s
Orchard House, reviews, Yelp, http://www.yelp.com/biz/louisa-may-alcotts-orchard-house-concord Accessed 24 April, 2016.
Orchard House, reviews, TripAdvisor, https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g60901-d105507-Reviews-Orchard_House-Concord_Massachusetts.html Accessed 24 April, 2016.
[2] “Learn About the Alcotts
and Orchard House,” Louisa May Alcott’s Orchard House, http://www.louisamayalcott.org/alcottorchard.html
Accessed 21 March, 2016.
[3] “Louisa May Alcott’s
Orchard House,” Foursquare.com, https://foursquare.com/v/louisa-may-alcotts-orchard-house/4b7b51f6f964a5202e5e2fe3
Accessed 27 April, 2016.
[4] “Louisa May Alcott’s
Orchard House,” Flickr.com, https://www.flickr.com/people/louisamayalcottsorchardhouse
Accessed 27 April, 2016.
[5] “Louisa May Alcott’s
Orchard House,” Mundimago.com, http://www.mundimago.com/profile/alcotts_orchard_house
Accessed 27 April, 2016.
[6] “LMAlcott Orchard House,”
YouTube.com, https://www.youtube.com/user/LMAlcottOrchardHouse
Accessed 27 April, 2016.
[7] “Louisa May Alcott’s
Orchard House,” Blogspot.com, http://alcottorchardhouse.blogspot.com/
Accessed 27 April, 2016.
[8] “Louisa May Alcott’s
Orchard House,” Pinterest.com, https://www.pinterest.com/lmaorchardhouse/ Accessed 27 April, 2016.
[10] “Louisa May Alcott’s
Orchard House,” Facebook.com, https://www.facebook.com/louisamayalcottsorchardhouse/likes
Accessed 27 April, 2016.
[11] “2009 Partners in
Preservation: Greater Boston,” National
Trust for Historic Preservation, https://savingplaces.org/stories/partners-in-preservation-boston#.VylE_4SDGko
Accessed 21 April, 2016.
[12] “Louisa May Alcott’s
Orchard House,” LouisaMayAlcott.org, http://www.louisamayalcott.org/
Accessed 21 April, 2016.
[13] Louisa May Alcott
Memorial Association, Form 990 Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax,
2003, http://990s.foundationcenter.org/990_pdf_archive/042/042126592/042126592_200312_990.pdf
Accessed 14 April, 2016.
Louisa May Alcott Memorial Association, Form 990
Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax, 2012, http://990s.foundationcenter.org/990_pdf_archive/042/042126592/042126592_201212_990.pdf
Accessed 14 April, 2016.
[14] Ibid.
[15] “Kickstartable: Orchard
House – Home of Little Women: Documentary,” Persephone Magazine, 16 October,
2014, http://persephonemagazine.com/2014/10/kickstartable-orchard-house-home-of-little-women-documentary
Accessed 29 April, 2016.
[16] “Kickstartable – Orchard House,”
, http://persephonemagazine.com/2014/10/kickstartable-orchard-house-home-of-little-women-documentary
[18] Cary Carson, “The End of
History Museums: What’s Plan B?,” The
Public Historian vol. 30:4, 2008, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/tph.2008.30.4.9
Accessed 24 March, 2016.
[19] “Kickstartable – Orchard House,”
, http://persephonemagazine.com/2014/10/kickstartable-orchard-house-home-of-little-women-documentary
[20] Angelina Altobellis, “Massachusetts
Connecting to Collections Statewide Preservation Survey Final Report,” 28
March, 2011, https://mblc.state.ma.us/advisory/preservation/c2c-executivesummaryandanalysis.pdf
Accessed 14 April, 2016.
[21] Altobellis, “Massachusetts
Connecting to Collections,” 2001.
[22] “Kickstartable – Orchard House,”
, http://persephonemagazine.com/2014/10/kickstartable-orchard-house-home-of-little-women-documentary
