Historic House Museums Book

HISTORIC HOUSE MUSEUMS BY LAURENCE VAIL . 1933. FOREWORD DURING recent years history has captured interest and imagination in every part of the country. Tradition has arrived in even the youngest section and historic houses which have long been treasured where they are very old are beginning to be cherished almost everywhere. Hun dreds of old places are open to the public as historic house museums and are examined sympathetically, often eagerly, by millions of visitors each year. The influence of these museum houses is great. Al ready it has begun to lead the way to some entirely new arrangements for society., as the last chapter of this book suggests. The outlook is exciting. The first chapter of the book is a short history of American houses, with examples drawn from among houses already dedicated to museum use. The remaining chapters, which, as Part II, make up the bulk of the book, constitute a manual for people concerned with establishing or administering historic house museums. Observations for this study have been made in the course of very recent travels during which most of the houses listed in the first appendix were examined carefully and photographed. This field work was for the purpose of a general study on the part of the American Association of Museums, and was supported by a grant of the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The authors aid in the work was Mr. Lewis Barrington, to whom he acknowledges much indebtedness. To Mr. Fiske Kimball and to Mr. L. C. Everard he is also grateful for suggestions prompted by their reading of the book in manuscript. iii CHAPTER CONTENTS PART ONE ORIGINS I. HISTORIC HOUSES 3 PAR rwo METHODS II. OWNERSHIP AND CUSTODY 25 III. ADMINISTRATION 34 IV. FINANCES 39 V. PRESERVATION AND RESTORATION 54 VI. FURNISHINGS 65 VII. SUPPLEMENTARY COLLECTIONS 71 VIII. MUSEUM BUILDINGS 77 IX. ATTRACTING VISITORS. 81 X. INTERPRETATION 87 PAR THREE PROSPECTS XI. MUSEUM RESORTS 99 APPENDICES A. DIRECTORY 1 13 B. BIBLIOGRAPHY 160 INDEX 169 ILLUSTRATIONS Fairbanks House, 1636, Dedham, Mass Frontispiece FACING PAGE Puritan Village at Salem Lost Types Reconstructed. 6 Whipple House of the Seventeenth Century at Ipswich 6 Photo by Walter R. Merry man Bradford, Mass. Warren House Near Surry, Virginia Seventeenth Century 8 Senate House of Early Dutch Type Kingston, New York 8 Kitchen of Seventeenth Century Alden House at Duxbury. 8 Photo by Maynard Workshop, Boston,. Parlor of Alden House Refinished in Eighteenth Century 8 Photo by Maynard Workshop , Boston. Warner House at Portsmouth Early Eighteenth Century 10 Photo by Samuel H. Kingsbury, Portsmouth, N. H. Miles Brewton House at Charleston Georgian Resi dence 10 Photo by Horace Lippincott in Library of Congress. French Cabin of Vertical Logs under Modern Can opy 12 1 1 Illustrations are by the author except as noted otherwise. The end papers are reproduced from a pictorial map by courtesy of the Deerfield Im provement Society, Deerfield, Massachusetts. VH1 ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE Early Spanish Adobe House Santa Fes Oldest Building 12 Jeffersons Monticello Harbinger of the Classical Revival 14 The Portico of Arlington, Built during the Greek Revival 14 Brigham Youngs Twenty-gabled Lion House, Salt Lake City 16 Whittier Home at Amesbury Nineteenth Century House 16 Toll House and Cobbler Shop, Greenfield Village, Michigan 18 Courtesy Edison Institute...Read More