In these days of an aging traditional audience, shrinking attendance, tightened budgets, increased competition, and exponential growth in new types of communication methods, America’s house museums need to take bold steps and expand their overall purpose beyond those of the traditional museum. They need not only to engage the communities surrounding them, but also to collaborate with visitors on the type and quality of experience they provide. This book is a groundbreaking manifesto that calls for the establishment of a more inclusive, visitor-centered paradigm based on the shared experience of human habitation. It draws inspiration from film, theater, public art, and urban design to transform historic house museums while providing a how-to guide for making historic house museums sustainable, through five primary themes: communicating with the surrounding community, engaging the community, re-imagining the visitor experience, celebrating the detritus of human habitation, and acknowledging the illusion of the shelter’s authenticity. Anarchist's Guide to Historic House Museums offers a wry, but informed, rule-breaking perspective from authors with years of experience and gives numerous vivid examples of both good and not-so-good practices from house museums in the U.S.

Historic house museums can be found in nearly every city in the United States and Canada. These are the homes of the earliest settlers, statesmen, frontiersmen, great writers, artists, architects, and industrial magnates. These are the places, carefully saved and preserved, that represent a cultural heritage. Despite their popularity, it is not uncommon to find museums that are in poor repair, their collections neglected and their staffs grossly overworked. Many are run by well-meaning and hard-working volunteers who have little or no professional training. Often they survive on shoestring budgets and are able to present only limited programs. Serving both as a hands-on guide and reference, this book examines these problems, offering practical advice and solutions which can be easily implemented. Its useful "lessons" include governance, where to find help, care of collections, conservation, security, and interpretation--all designed to increase the professionalism of the historic house museum.

A generational shift is occurring at historic house museums as board members and volunteers retire while few young people step forward to take their place. These landmarks are also plagued by serious deferred maintenance, and many have no endowment funds. What will happen to these sites in the next ten years, and what can be done to assure their continued preservation for generations to come? In New Solutions for House Museums Harris examines possible options and provides a decision-making methodology as well as a dozen case studies of house museums that have made a successful transition to a new owner or user.

Historic House Museums in the United States and the United Kingdom: A History addresses the phenomenon of historic houses as a distinct species of museum. Everyone understands the special nature of an art museum, a national museum, or a science museum, but “house museum” nearly always requires clarification. In the United States the term is almost synonymous with historic preservation; in the United Kingdom, it is simply unfamiliar, the very idea being conflated with stately homes and the National Trust. By analyzing the motivation of the founders, and subsequent keepers, of house museums, Linda Young identifies a typology that casts light on what house museums were intended to represent and their significance (or lack thereof) today. This book examines: • heroes’ houses: once inhabited by great persons (e.g., Shakespeare’s birthplace, Washington’s Mount Vernon); • artwork houses: national identity as specially visible in house design, style, and technique (e.g., Frank Lloyd Wright houses, Modernist houses); • collectors’ houses: a microcosm of collecting in situ domesticu, subsequently presented to the nation as the exemplars of taste (e.g., Sir John Soane’s Museum, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum); • English country houses: the palaces of the aristocracy, maintained thanks to primogeniture but threatened with redundancy and rescued as museums to be touted as the peak of English national culture; English country houses: the palaces of the aristocracy, maintained for centuries thanks to primogeniture but threatened by redundancy and strangely rescued as museums, now touted as the peak of English national culture; • Everyman/woman’s social history houses: the modern, demotic response to elite houses, presented as social history but tinged with generic ancestor veneration (e.g., tenement house museums in Glasgow and New York).

Celebrating the lives of famous men and women, historic house museums showcase restored rooms and period furnishings, and portray in detail their former occupants' daily lives. But behind the gilded molding and curtain brocade lie the largely unknown, politically charged stories of how the homes were first established as museums. Focusing on George Washington’s Mount Vernon, Louisa May Alcott’s Orchard House, Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, and the Booker T. Washington National Monument, Patricia West shows how historic houses reflect less the lives and times of their famous inhabitants than the political pressures of the eras during which they were transformed into museums.

Preventive Conservation for Historic House Museums describes the care routines that a historic house should practice to protect the site and its collections from damage, wear, deterioration, and catastrophic loss.

The first of its kind to offer a discussion of financial management particular to historic house museums, this book is a vital resource to preservationists, staff, volunteers, and board members of historic houses. A reference tool that is accessible in approach yet comprehensive in scope, this book takes you step by step through securing and managing a historic house museum for years to come. In straightforward language, utilizing case studies from historic house museums, and providing sample documents to get you started, Financial Fundamentals for Historic House Museums guides you on how to: Incorporate as a tax-exempt organization Find historic property designation options and successfully apply Understand contributed income opportunities and raise money Create sustainable earned income opportunities Understand basic accounting and financial planning to ensure the future of your historic house museum.