Historic House + Small Museums Affinity Group- SEMC

Biltmore will reopen its doors on November 2 in a display of community resolve as Asheville and Western North Carolina continue their healing journey after Hurricane Helene.

As with the entire region, conditions vary by location across the 8,000-acre property. Biltmore House and the Conservatory, Winery, Gardens, and overnight properties received minimal or no damage from the storm, and significant efforts have been made to welcome back visitors in time for the holiday season✨

🎄Christmas at Biltmore—beginning on November 2—will feature fragrant wreaths, glittering garland, and the sparkle of thousands of ornaments from Biltmore House to Antler Hill Village.

Biltmore will also offer Candlelight Christmas Evenings, where you can enjoy America’s Largest Home and the thousands of ornaments and holiday lights twinkling throughout the Estate. For more information regarding Biltmore reopening in time for the holidays, visit this link ➡️ https://always.exploreasheville.com/article/biltmore-estate-will-reopen-nov-2-in-time-to-celebrate-holiday-season

To help you manage your stress in the coming days, revisit 2020 advice from AAM's Center for the Future of Museums' founding director Elizabeth Merritt:

How to Stay Informed While Staying Sane Note: This post was updated on October 28, 2024. I sometimes joke that my animal avatar is a Whale Shark, because it’s my job to trawl the ocean of news every day, filtering masses of content in se…

FREE - The Foundation for Advancement in Conservation is excited to present the "Handling and Maintenance of Historic House Collections" program, which includes a free webinar series taking place in January 2025 and a free in-person workshop taking place in February 2025. Preventive conservation is the backbone of historic housekeeping and essential to the preservation of our cultural heritage. Preservation of historic homes and their contents is especially challenging as objects are often exhibited with fewer controls than in a formal museum context.

Webinars: Join us for the webinar series to learn key concepts around preventive conservation practices, which are essential in caring for these important historical sites and the objects they house. The webinars will take place January 7, 9, 14, 16, 2025 at 1:00-2:00pm ET.

Workshop: We welcome you to apply by November 17, 2024, to participate in the in-person workshop to gain training in preventive conservation through a housekeeping lens. The workshop explores the relationship between objects, their history of use, and their long-term preservation in a historic house setting. The workshop is immersive with four live online webinar sessions taking place before five days onsite, February 3-7, 2025, in two historic houses on the Johns Hopkins campus in Baltimore, Maryland. Registration to participate is free and participants will receive free accommodations during the in-person component of the workshop, as well as a $500 travel stipend.

AIC & FAIC Learning: Handling and Maintenance of Historic House Collections Online component: January 7, 9, 14, 16, 2025In-person component: February 3-7, 2025, Baltimore, MDInstructors: Olivia Bascle, David Bayne, Maddie Cooper, Megan Ramsey, Paige SchmidtCoordinator: Kelly McCauley Krish

Today is All Saints’ Day. Established by religious ceremony and local custom, 19th c New Orleanians would observe this holy day to mourn & honor the dead. Also known as Toussaint, it consists of church services & pilgrimages to the cemeteries. You can also learn about these customs on the Creole Death & Mourning tour at Gallier House, which runs until Nov. 11.

Image: Decorating the Tombs in One of the City Cemeteries, by John Durkin and published in Harper's Weekly, Nov 1885.

Several internships and job opportunities, including Associate Manager of Administration, Education Programs
The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, Nashville, TN

Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum - Top Nashville Experience and Tours The Museum, Hatch Show Print, Haley Gallery, and Historic RCA Studio B will be closed on October 20 for the Medallion Ceremony. Members-elect John Anderson, James Burton, and Toby Keith will be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

🌎 November is National Native American Heritage Month! 🌎

Join us at Grave Creek Mound Archaeological Complex for two weekends of special programming to honor Native American culture and heritage.

🗓 November 2: Our 2nd Annual Native Peoples Heritage Day! Bring the whole family for engaging all-ages activities and a film screening that delves into Native history and culture.

🗓 November 9: Experience the powerful traditions of the Dineh Tah' Navajo Dance Troupe! Back by popular demand, they'll be performing and sharing insights in an inspiring lecture.

📍 Location: Grave Creek Mound Archaeological Complex

Happy Halloween from the spookiest flower in the Smokies: ghost pipe! 👻

This hauntingly beautiful bloom is lurking in the darkest corners of the forest, and you better keep an eye out, because this eerie flower doesn’t need any sunlight.

The secret to its unique nature lies in its lack of chlorophyll (green plant pigment responsible for photosynthesis) and its ability to survive as a parasitic plant, feeding on its host. Nature can be wonderfully mysterious.

Kenzie Connor Photo

Richmond mayor takes aim at billboard atop a historic Black cemetery Mayor Levar Stoney has asked the Richmond City Council to re-designate Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground as a cemetery, making the billboard illegal.

Today, Helenwood, Tennessee, is home to one of the visitor centers for Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area, but in 1921 the Devil was discovered nearby. Found in a mine by Cruise Sexton, the giant petrified monster was displayed in the town train station where people could pay a quarter to marvel at the frightening demon. In reality, the Devil was secretly sculpted by Sexton who soon sold it for $2000. Unfortunately, the Devil has been lost to history, or maybe it eventually just fell apart.

We knew they'd been working hard since Helene, but I guess you could say we've been working our poor employees to the bone..........😉💀

Time once again for a seasonal special edition of Stratford Mail: Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble! 🎃

Visitors to Stratford are often struck by the wards against witches and evil spirits incised into its exterior brick and interior floors. These marks are reminders of our ancestors’ belief that this visible world overlapped an invisible world that was a source of both palpable wonders and terrors. Witches and conjured spirits were believed to gain access to homes through hearths, windows, and other openings, and hide in the shadowy nooks, crannies, and corners of homes. Once inside they would vex the inhabitants and ruin their property.

Wards like the hexafoil or ‘daisy-wheel’ incised on the nursery floor of Stratford were proactive countermeasures to supernatural mischief. Alternatively, folks might invoke the protection of Jesus’ virgin mother, inscribing AM (Ave Maria), VV (Virgin of Virgins), or simply M (Mary) in vulnerable locations–all of these are visible on the red exterior brick of Stratford. Colonial-era Virginians believed in witches, but extant records indicate that Virginians were reluctant to prosecute and convict for witchcraft. Join us this month as we consider witches and witchcraft in the Virginia colony–Listen to Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble now at https://bit.ly/4hs8qMp! 🔮

Happy Owl-oween from the Graveyard of the Atlantic!

This great-horned owl was seen posing like a gargoyle on a window of the Bodie Island Lighthouse. We know they sometimes roost on the balcony because rangers have found their owl pellets there. Owl pellets are oval-shaped... things containing bones, fur, and other body parts owls can’t digest.

Don’t worry, we won’t show you photos of owl pellets.

Great-horned owls are one of the most widespread owls in North America, living in almost any semi-open area where they can hunt. You might hear their characteristic “hoo-h-hoo" in forests, grasslands, deserts, wetlands, and even urban areas.

They can hunt a wide variety of animals, including amphibians, reptiles, small mammals, and even mammals larger than themselves. The owls of the Outer Banks play a vital role in controlling rodents in the dunes and maritime forests of Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

When was the last time you saw (or heard) an owl?


📸 NPS

I feel like a broken record, but... We still don't have power to the whole building. So, until we get power back on, the museum will be open Tuesday-Saturday from 10 am to 3 pm and Sunday from 1 pm to 3 pm. The main galleries are lit by daylight during those hours and most of the quilt show can be seen fairly well.

The Gift Store side of the building does have power. If you want to purchase any fall or last minute Halloween decor and gifts, please drop by. We will have some good deals on these items!

The back portion of the building with the Pottery Hall, Communities exhibit, Native American exhibit, Drug Store and Merchants exhibit, and the Public Safety exhibit also have power. Guests are welcome to explore these areas.

The second floor exhibits, County exhibit, Education exhibit, Military exhibit, Agriculture exhibit, and Ellenton exhibit do not have power and will be blocked off to visitors due to lack of daylight, potential trip hazards, and dark stairwells.

Aiken County Visitors Center
Thoroughbred Country South Carolina
Visit Aiken SC

Feeling cute. May move across the room later.

Did you know one of Thomas Edison's early inventions was a talking doll (1890) that used a miniature phonograph for a voice? It just wants to be your friend 'til the end. Only on the market for one month (imagine that), the phonograph proved to be too fragile for children to play with. (Yeah, that’s the reason) Edison subsequently had the sound device exorcised to allow for the remaining dolls to be sold. The doll pictured here is in the park's collection and certainly doesn’t wander the shelves at night looking for a new friend, sorry, voice.

We know what you're thinking. I want to hear the voice recordings! No problem. Check out: https://youtu.be/_bgXH7U2Ja0. Learn more at: https://www.nps.gov/edis/learn/photosmultimedia/hear-edison-talking-doll-sound-recordings.htm

All right, have a good one. Did you hear something?

Image: Sometimes I frown…but when I do it’s because you won’t go to sleep. A toy doll with blonde curls wearing a blue dress in a case at Thomas Edison National Historical Park.

We have it on good authority that this photo is from a children's haunted house! 🎃🤡👻

Ed Kelly Collection: Halloween witch at Gateway Shopping Center, 1975

ALHFAM's Historic Foodways Professional Interest Group will host a 90-minute virtual presentation by author and culinary historian Michael W. Twitty, on Thursday, November 7th, at 7pm (EST). Tickets are available for both members and non-members of ALHFAM, and registration is now open!

https://alhfam.org/event-5884334/

Today, 3 PM ET

Join us for our Cemetery Preservation Basics webinar tomorrow at 3 p.m. Eastern. Jason Harpe, who has 25 years of experience in historic preservation, including in conservation of gravestones and monuments, will provide an overview of the basics of cemetery preservation. Register at tinyurl.com/4mw5rvba.

Several open positions within the Museums of Washington and Lee University, Lexington, VA

wlu.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com Washington and Lee is a top-ranked, private institution in Lexington, Virginia where we integrate the rigorous inquiry and critical thinking of a liberal arts curriculum with nationally accredited undergraduate programs in business and journalism, and a graduate School of Law. Our graduates, mentore...

The DAR Museum in Washington, D.C. is hosting its Making-Meaning-Memory: A Sewn in America Symposium on November 1-2, 2024. Virtual and in-person option for one or both days available. Lunch provided with in-person registration. Registration through link.

Making – Meaning – Memory: A Sewn in America Symposium Friday, November 1, 2024, 9am – 4pmSaturday, November 2, 2024, 9am – 5pm Virtual and in-person option for one or both days available. Lunch provided with in-person registration

Our special event, Harvest Time on the Shoreline, is coming up! Join us Saturday, November 2nd from 10:00 – 3:00 for a family fun event! Interact with exhibits & demonstrations to learn about the harvest season & the historic Indigenous Community around Lake Scuppernong. There will be historic crafts and games to participate in. We will also have popcorn, hayrides, and offer scheduled guided tours at 10:30, 12:00, & 1:30.