Each month we’re highlighting Affiliate-Smithsonian and Affiliate-Affiliate collaborations making headlines. Congrats to these Affiliates making news this month! If you have a clipping you’d like to have considered for the Affiliate blog, please contact Elizabeth Bugbee.
Senior paper conservator Janice Stagnitto Ellis, left, and political history curator Harry Rubenstein of the Smithonian’s National Museum of American History discuss Thomas Jefferson’s Bible at History Colorado Center on Wednesday. (Photos by Hyoung Chang, The Denver Post)
Richard Parker, left, Bill Ferguson, right, reconstruct pieces made of red sandalwood to create The Ten Thousand Springs Pavilion on display at the International Museum of Art & Science. photo by Joel Martinez/jmartinez@themontor.com
Smithsonian scientist Rusty Russell shows off a specimen he collected in the desert at the 2009 Citizen Science Week. During the week from Feb. 12 through 16, school groups will get the opportunity to work with Russell at the Riverside Metropolitan Museum.
FLORIDA The Mennello Museum of American Art opens the African American Art: Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights Era and Beyond exhibition, with 100 artworks on loan from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, in Orlando, 2.1.
PENNSYLVANIA The Heinz History Center opens 1968: The Year that Rocked America exhibition which contains three artifacts on loan from the National Air and Space Museum, in Pittsburgh, 2.2.
CALIFORNIA The Sonoma County Museum opens SITES’ Mail Call exhibition in Santa Rosa, 2.10.
The Agua Caliente Cultural Museum opens its Native FilmFest with National Museum of the American Indian guest programmer Elizabeth Weatherford in Palm Springs, 2.27.
TEXAS
The Ellen Noël Art Museum hosts curator Carolyn Russo from the National Air and Space Museum, who will be giving a series of lectures and a photography class in conjunction with the In Plane View exhibition, in Odessa, 11.1-2.
ARIZONA
Curator John Hasse from the National Museum of American History and Affiliations director Harold Closter will take part in the Musical Instrument Museum’s special jazz events in Phoenix, 11.10-11.
MASSACHUSETTS
Deputy director Richard Pickering and food historian Kathleen Wall from Plimoth Plantation will be performing historical theater and giving food talks about the Pilgrims and Thanksgiving at the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., 11.11.
NORTH CAROLINA
National Portrait Gallery’s Sid Hart will host a lecture about on the War of 1812 at the Greensboro Historical Museum in Greensboro, 11.13.
FLORIDA
The Frost Art Museum will host the Reflections Across Time: Seminole Portraits exhibition, which includes loans from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, and the National Museum of the American Indian, in Miami, 11.17.
WASHINGTON
The Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture will host the National Museum of American History’s Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Warriors: Photographs by Gertrude Käsebier, in Spokane, 11.17.
PENNSYLVANIA
The Heinz History Center opens the From Slavery to Freedom exhibition, featuring artifacts on loan from the National Museum of American History, in Pittsburgh, 11.30.
The Smithsonian and the National Endowment for the Humanities examine the legacy of the Dust Bowl era through current issues of drought, agricultural sustainability and global food security during a live, interactive discussion with experts. The program will be webcast from the museum to Youth Town Halls at locations across the nation Oct. 17 at 1 p.m. EDT.
In the 1930s, severe drought and extensive farming caused widespread agricultural damage, crop failure and human misery across the Great Plains. Called the “Dust Bowl” because of the immense dust storms created as the dry soil blew away in large, dark clouds, it is considered one of the worst ecological disasters in American history. Millions of acres of farmland were damaged and hundreds of thousands of people were forced to leave their homes. Many migrated to California and other western states where the economic conditions during the Great Depression were often no better than those they had left.
The Oct. 17 discussion in Washington, D.C., taking place in the Warner Bros. Theater at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, will be joined by audiences at nine Smithsonian Affiliate museums and the National Steinbeck Center, which will also host regional Youth Town Halls. Participants at the regional Town Hall sites will prerecord questions on video to be played during the live National Youth Summit webcast. The Youth Town Halls will take place at:
The live webcast is available to educators and students through free registration atamericanhistory.si.edu/nys.
The National Youth Summit brings middle and high school students together with scholars, teachers, policy experts, witnesses to history and activists in a national conversation about important events in America’s past that have relevance to the nation’s present and future. The program is an ongoing collaboration between the National Museum of American History, the National Endowment for the Humanities, PBS and museums across the United States in the Smithsonian Affiliations network.
The summit will include segments from award-winning documentary filmmaker Ken Burns’ forthcoming film The Dust Bowland a panel discussion, moderated by Huffington Post science editor Cara Santa Maria, and featuring: Ken Burns, Dust Bowl survivor Cal Crabill, U.S. Department of Agriculture ecologist Debra Peters, fifth-generation farmer Roy Bardole from Rippey, Iowa, and farmer and founder of Anson Mills, Glenn Roberts. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack will welcome the audience through a video statement. Panelists will take questions from students participating in the summit, and offer their own perspectives on what history can teach people about their relationship with the environment.
Programming for the National Youth Summit on the Dust Bowl is produced by the National Museum of American History and the National Endowment for the Humanities in partnership with Smithsonian Affiliations and PBS/WETA.
Smithsonian Affiliations collaborates with museums and educational organizations to share the Smithsonian with people in their own communities and create lasting experiences that broaden perspectives on science, history, world cultures and the arts. More information about Smithsonian Affiliations is available here.
The National Endowment for the Humanities is an independent federal agency created in 1965. It is one of the largest funders of humanities programs in the United States. NEH grants typically go to cultural institutions, such as museums, archives, libraries, colleges, universities, public television and radio stations, and to individual scholars. For more information on the NEH, visit http://www.neh.gov/.
The National Museum of American History collects, preserves and displays American heritage in the areas of social, political, cultural, scientific and military history. To learn more about the museum, check americanhistory.si.edu. For Smithsonian information, the public may call (202) 633-1000.
OHIO
The Springfield Museum of Art will host an opening event for the Jack Earl: A Modern Master-A Retrospective exhibition featuring loans from the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Springfield, 10.3.
Harold Closter will attend the Ohio Historical Society’s Affiliations Announcement in Columbus, 10.30.
LOUISIANA
The Ogden Museum of Southern Art will host an opening for Art for Art’s Sake exhibition featuring loans from the National Postal Museum. Linda Edquist, conservator, will attend the opening in New Orleans, 10.6.
PENNSYLVANIA
The Senator John Heinz History Center will host an opening for Gridiron Glory: Best of the Pro Football Hall of Fame exhibition featuring loans from the National Museum of American History in Pittsburgh, 10.6.
The Historic Bethlehem Partnership will host Richard Kurin, Smithsonian Under Secretary for History, Art, and Culture, for a lecture program and book signing in Bethlehem, 10.14.
ILLINOIS
The Lakeview Museum of Arts & Sciences will open their new facility, the Peoria Riverfront Museum. Harold Closter and Aaron Glavas from Smithsonian Affiliations will be in attendance in Peoria, 10.11.
WASHINGTON
The Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture will host the National Museum of American History’s Buffalo Bills’ Wild West Warriors exhibition in Spokane, 10.17.
WISCONSIN
Smithsonian Affiliations National Outreach Manager Aaron Glavas will attend the Milwaukee County Historical Society’s Affiliations Announcement in Milwaukee, 10.18.
FLORIDA The Museum of Arts & Sciences will host Richard Kurin, Smithsonian Undersecretary for History, Art, and Culture, for a book talk in Daytona Beach, 10.20.
The Polk Art Museum will be hosting the National Portrait Gallery’s exhibition In Vibrant Color: Vintage Celebrity Portraits from the Harry Warnecke Studio in Lakeland, 10.27.
ARIZONA
The Heard Museum will host SITES’ Native Words, Native Warriors in Phoenix, 10.27.
CALIFORNIA
Smithsonian Affiliations’ External Affairs Coordinator Elizabeth Bugbee will attend the Western Museum Association’s Conference in Palm Springs, 10.21-24.
GEORGIA
Curator Michelle Delaney from the National Museum of American History will serve on a panel presentation at the Booth Western Art Museum’s Annual Cowboy Festival in Cartersville, 10.26.
Since Smithsonian Affiliations started collaborating with the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation at the National Museum of American History, we’ve learned a lot about Places of Invention. (See this blog to learn more about our collaboration.)
Affiliate staff and their community partners, on the roof of the National Museum of American History during the kickoff workshop for Places of Invention
Affiliates have joined the action too. On June 15, Affiliate staff and their community partners joined a day-long workshop to kickoff their individual research projects around their own communities and what makes them so innovative. (Read more about the kickoff workshop on the Lemelson Center’s blog, Bright Ideas.)
Now, we are all much more attuned to what makes a place of invention – be it exceptional natural resources, the right mixture of people and skills, or an inspiring location… or something else. Invention was readily on view during a recent trip to western Massachusetts, and we suspect, can be documented in many other communities as well.
