New Salem Museum Celebrates Preliminary Opening

After almost two years of rigorous research and design, the long-anticipated Salem Museum will welcome the public to a Preliminary Opening featuring eight of the eventual thirty themed display panels, a presentation and tour by the Museum Planning Team, and a reception.

The Preliminary Opening will take place on Thursday, April 21, 2011 at 7:30 p.m. at Old Town Hall, 32 Derby Square, Salem, as part of the Old Town Hall Lecture Series. Tickets are $20 general admission, $10 for students, and may be purchased at oldtownhalllectures.com. Tickets will also be available at the door.

“The Salem Museum will be an entry point for visitors -- an overview of Salem history, if you will” says K. David Goss, Museum Project Director and Assistant Professor of History at Gordon College. “Our goal is to heighten people’s awareness of the richness and diversity of Salem’s history through this relatively simple visitor center, and then send them on their way to real sites.” From the museum, visitors will have ready access to Pioneer Village and the play Cry Innocent, both presented by Gordon College’s Institute for Public History.

The Salem Museum will fill the large, colonnade gallery on the first floor of Salem’s historic Old Town Hall. Visitors can take a leisurely stroll through over 400 years of Salem history, starting with Native American settlement, through European settlement in 1626, to the present day. Displays include vibrantly colored text-and-image panels, objects, models, and reproductions.

The display panels visitors can expect to see at the Preliminary Opening on April 21 include:

• Founding of Salem 1626 
• Revolutionary War 
• China Trade
• The Pepper Trade
• The Civil War 
• Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Frank Poor and Sylvania
• The Great Fire

The remaining twenty-two panels will be unveiled when the completed museum opens on Saturday, June 11, 2011. The Grand Opening will coincide with the 1630 arrival of Governor John Winthrop and the Arbella fleet to Salem, and with the seasonal opening of Pioneer Village.

“This will be a very family friendly museum,” says Ken Harris, artistic director. “We’ve included information about the lives of young people during the past four centuries, and provided fun, interactive activities.” The museum panels will also be available in Spanish translation.

For information on the Old Town Hall Lectures Series: oldtownhalllectures.com

For information on Gordon College’s Institute for Public History: gordon.edu/public-history

Stepping back in time at Pioneer Village

It was a beautiful weekend to do some time-traveling, so my family and I headed about a mile south of downtown Salem to explore Salem in 1630 at Pioneer Village.  Interpreted by the Gordon College Institute for Public History's "Folkways" program, Pioneer Village is an authentic stop that will complete any visit to Salem.

Entering Pioneer Village

Trying out the stocks.

Still life in the Governor's Mansion

Looking out of the Governor's mansion.

My kids were pretty quick to recognize the difference between the Governor's house and the other homes in Pioneer Village.  Clearly the Governor was wealthy, because his roof isn't thatched, and he has glass in his windows.  Most impressive.

The blacksmith.

The blacksmith works making hooks and tools for the village, and offers excellent interpretation of what life was like in 17th century Salem.

Playing games to pass the time.

Trying to imagine a family of 4 (or 5 or 6) living in this house.

For more information on Pioneer Village, visit PioneerVillageSalem.com.  Admission is: Children $5, Adults $6. Salem residents get free admission, and their ticket stubs are valid for discounts at the Witch House and Cry Innocent.   

Pioneer Village is open 12pm - 4pm daily (Saturdays 10am - 4pm) through October.

Lecture Series at Old Town Hall

The North Shore’s rich and sometimes unexplored historical past now has a new “home”—the Old Town Hall Lecture Series, launching this Fall at Salem’s Old Town Hall and presented by Gordon College’s Institute for Public History.

The Old Town Hall Lecture Series will take place on the third Thursday of the month, from November 2010 through May 2011 at 7:30 pm, at Old Town Hall, Derby Square, Salem, MA. Subscription and individual tickets may be purchased online at oldtownhalllectures.com.

Thursday, November 18, 2010:

Judge Sewall’s Apology. Illustrated lecture and book signing with Richard Francis (retired prof of creative writing, Bath Spa University, England)

Thursday, December 16, 2010:

Witchcraft and Conflict in Early New England. Illustrated lecture and book signing with Emerson (“Tad”) Baker (Salem State College archaeologist and history professor)

Thursday, January 20, 2011:

Judith Sargent Murray: A New Era in Female History. Illustrated lecture and book signing with Bonnie Hurd Smith (independent scholar and public historian).

Thursday, February 17, 2011:

Salem and the Civil War: 150th Anniversary: Illustrated lecture by K. David Goss (Gordon College history professor and director of the Institute for Public History).

Thursday, March 17, 2011:

America, Europe and the Religious Divide. Illustrated lecture and book signing with Thomas A. (“Tal”) Howard (Gordon College history professor).

Thursday, April 21, 2011:

Opening of the New Museum of Salem. Featuring representatives of the museum planning team

Thursday, May 19, 2011:

Witch Hunting and Popular Religion of the 17th Century. Illustrated lecture and book signing with David D. Hall (Professor of New England Church History at Harvard Divinity School)

For more information on the lecture series, visit oldtownhalllectures.com.

Pillage the Village this Weekend!

Pioneer Village at Forest River Park will be overrun by a notorious bunch of sea-robbers this weekend, July 24-25!

“Pillage the Village: Pirates Invade Salem!” is a special event for the entire family that will feature a treasure hunt, period music, sword fights and more. Guests can wear pirate finery for adult and children’s costume contests, bring a picnic for the day, or join a pirate crew while witnessing the chaos of the Salem village under ‘attack.’

Local actors will bring famous pirates from New England’s past to life. The village will be crawling with characters including Captain Ned Low, “Black Sam” Bellamy and even Lynn’s Rachel Wall, who was the last woman hanged on Boston Common.

Here are the details you need to know for an excellent day of Piracy at Pioneer Village:

Admission: $10 Adults, $8 students, seniors, and military, $6 for children 4-12 . All proceeds will go toward the continuing restoration of the Village.

Saturday, July 24: 10am - 4pm

Sunday, July 25: 12pm - 4pm

Pioneer Village is America’s oldest living history museum, built for the 300^th anniversary of the founding of Massachusetts in 1930. It features thatched cottages, the colonial governor’s “Fayre House,” and even an English-style “wigwam.” Interpretation at the Village is provided by the Institute for Public History at Gordon College, which also produces Cry Innocent!

Arrrrh!

Training in Historic Interpretation Offered by the Gordon College Institute for Public History in Salem

Think history is dry? Think again. Interpreting history to students in the 21st century means incorporating objects, music, dance, and theatre.

Beginning on Saturday, May 22nd and running through Friday, June 11th, the Institute for Public History--recently established by Gordon College, in Salem--will offer four courses for the training of public educators, undergraduates in history or theatre, or just those interested in adult development activities.

The courses cover four areas of training in historic interpretation. Meeting on the weekends, Researching Folkways and Material Culture covers the skills of understanding and extrapolating information from historical objects. Longtime North Shore historian and Gordon professor David Goss will be beginning with this course and then following with one called, The Salem Witchcraft Hysteria.

Two other courses will meet on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays and will be taught by History Alive! Artistic Director Kristina Wacome Stevick: Improvisation and Interactive Theatre and Period Style, Voice and Movement. These theatre-focused courses will teach the art of using dramatic technique and the understanding of class, fashion, mores, geography and invention to literally bring history alive on the stage or in the classroom.

All courses will include special guest speakers, historic tours and site visits, and all will take the Salem historical setting as their foundation. Many of those involved in the courses will be training for the summer season with the long-running play, Cry Innocent, or as historical hosts and volunteers at Pioneer Village: Salem in 1630. Public school teachers are encouraged to register for the weekend sessions, earning 4 graduate credits and learning valuable transferrable skills to history classrooms.

Official undergraduate or graduate college credit (2-credits per course) is available for all of the courses and will require the completion of various projects. However, the Institute does invite those who wish to attend the training for enrichment purposes only to register at a greatly reduced fee.

All courses will meet in the Salem Old Town Hall at 32 Derby Square, Salem. Tours of numerous Salem sites will be included in the instruction and will be covered in the costs for the course. Syllabi for each of the courses is available at the Institute for Public History website.

For specific dates, costs, and registration please visit the Institute website at: gordon.edu/public-history. Register soon, space is limited to less than 20 students per course.

Derby Square Lecture Series

We have more new programs to talk about today! (I love this!) Gordon College is ushering in spring with the new Derby Square Lecture Series at Old Town Hall. You may know The Gordon College Institute for Public History for it's award winning production of Cry Innocent: The People Verses Bridget Bishop. Or, perhaps you know their most scary work at Pioneer Village during Haunted Happenings, Spiritways: A Night in Besieged Salem. Now we can add "lecture series" to the list of excellent programming provided by Gordon College.

Here is the spring schedule:

Lecture #1 – March 30, 2010
"God and the Darwin Wars"
Dr. Karl Giberson, VP, BioLogos Foundation, Director of the Forum on Faith and Science at Gordon College
Karl Giberson is the author of four books on the intersection of science and religion including the highly acclaimed Saving Darwin. He was raised in a fundamentalist parsonage to believe the universe was 10,000 years old, evolution was a conspiracy with no scienti c foundation, and Darwin was evil. In “God and the Darwin Wars” Giberson tells the story of his struggle to
make peace with Darwin without losing his faith. Interwoven with his personal journey is the story of a deeply religious America wrestling with a science that is often used as a club to bash religion.

Lecture #2 – April 28, 2010:
“Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future”
Chris Mooney, Knight Fellow in Science Journalism at MIT, author, journalist
Chris Mooney o ers an updated "two cultures" polemic for America in the 21st century. For every ve hours of cable news, less than a minute is devoted to science; 46 percent of Americans reject evolution and think the Earth is less than 10,000 years old; the number of newspapers with weekly science sections has shrunken by two-thirds over the past several decades.
A plea for enhanced scienti c literacy, Mooney urges those who care about the place of science in our society to take unprecedented action. We must begin to train a small army of ambassadors who can translate science's message and make it relevant to the media, to politicians, and to the public in the broadest sense. An impassioned call to arms to reintegrate science into the public discourse--before it's too late.

Lecture #3: - May 19, 2010
A FREE Follow-up Session with local schools and colleges concerning curriculum directions.
Q&A session will follow the 40-minute presentations, and authors will be available for book purchase and signing following the sessions.

Here's the fine print...

• Lectures will be held in the Salem Old Town Hall, Derby Square at 7PM.
• Tickets: $5.00 per lecture, or $8.00 for both. Final session free to all.
• Costs are subsidized by the Gordon College Institute for Public History.

Time Travel Days... May 2 & 3

The Gordon College Institute for Public History is hosting TIME TRAVEL DAYS at the Old Town Hall Derby Square, Salem on Saturday, May 2nd and Sunday, 3rd, 2009 from 8AM-6PM.

This event FREE fun for everyone!

Celebrate Salem’s rich history through games, food, theatre, music, dance, demonstrations and more Performers include The Commonwealth Vintage Dancers, Essex Harmony, Pastimes Entertainment, Empire Theatre Company, Norman Jones, and History Alive!

If you have a favorite Salem memory, you can record it in Gordon College's public history project during the event.

The City of Salem and Gordon College thank American Express and the National Trust for Historic Preservation for considering the Old Town Hall to receive $100,000 in preservation funding.

Visit http://www.partnersinpreservation.com/boston/ to cast YOUR vote for the Old Town Hall! Voting reminders and other information can be obtained at http://www.salemoldtownhall.com/

If you go, take pictures and you can post them on the Partners in Preservation web site AND I invite you to send them to me - I will run a blog post that features your pictures of people interacting and having fun at Old Town Hall!

Time Travel Days at Old Town Hall - Call for Proposals, deadline April 9, 2009

The Gordon College Institute for Public History announces a collaborative festival for residents and visitors providing opportunities to interact with Salem's rich and diverse history. Time Travel Days is looking for musicians, performers, vendors, and presenters to provide programming for students, history buffs and the community at large. Programming may be from any time period, but must be related to Salem.

Potential programming participants are invited to submit a response to the call for proposals below. Programmers whose proposals are selected may be required to submit an additional application.

Programmers will not be paid, but items such as recordings, books, lectures on tape, etc may be sold.

Call for Proposals

Deadline: Wednesday, April 9, 2009