Anarchist's Guide to Historic House Museums

I serve on the board for a historic iron blast furnace, Beckley Furnace, in northwestern Connecticut. We had been running low on ideas, both to inspire us and to attract new visitors.One of our new board members, a grad student in history and a former summer docent here, recommended this book, which she had read in class, as something that might shake up our approach.I’ve not finished reading it yet, but so far it has stimulated my thinking, and when I told the other board members about it at our meeting last night, several expressed an interest.It looks like it will have a really positive effect on what we do here. And, so far, at least, it is free of the platitudes that dominate much of the “how to” literature in this field.

The Anarchist’s Guide to Historic House Museums offers fresh ideas for museum administrators and staff to evaluate and improve the visitor experience to their historic house museums (HHMs). The authors, Franklin D. Vagnone and Deborah E. Ryan, use a variety of HHM case studies to illustrate their points. Each chapter in the book opens with a thought-provoking quote by a museum representative that the authors explore throughout the chapter, offering insights and recommendations for making HHMs relevant to the community and meaningful to the visitor. The authors define a key problem on p. 59: “For many HHMs, it will initially be difficult to find ‘a place of relevance and meaning, to genuinely contribute to building better communities and serving the needs of individuals, and to define the new normal in a world that no longer derives knowledge from objects, looks to institutions for answers, or defines reality through materiality’.” The ideas and suggestions presented in the book apply not only to HHMs, but to many different types of organizations. While I was reading The Anarchist’s Guide, I visited a well-known HHM in Manhattan and experienced many of the elements it described that detract from the visitor experience. I came away thinking the director should really read this book. During the same week, I visited a small, state-funded museum with a limited collection, yet I got the impression that the museum administration had definitely read the book and successfully implemented many of its suggestions to increase visitor engagement. The difference between the two experiences proved to me that The Anarchist’s Guide to Historic House Museums is a useful tool for HHM administrators and staff to improve their institutions and remain relevant.

Great source for ideas about reframing cultural heritage institutions. Definitely focused on Historic House Museums, but a lot of what's being talked about could be applied to archives, special library collections, historic sites, non-history museums. It's a whole series of little case studies about why we need to stop being so darn precious about everything and aim for relevance to visitors.The way it's organized is a bit off-putting-- for someone who still habitually "guts" books like I learned to in grad school, this book was a little challenging at first. But after reading it through, you get to the point about a third of the way in where you can jump around a bit. Would definitely recommend.

I like the approach and the irreverence of this book. I am looking at a recently acquired historical property, and encouraging the organization to use more imagination than they have considered in the past. We are sharing copies of this book, and I hope it rattles some cages.

The authors speak directly to urban-area museum staffs, but every museum can benefit from some element of their interpretive philosophy.

Anarchist's Guide makes a strong point for making the museum house interesting. I'm pretty sure their advice will be ignored by most old house curators!

Liked the anarchist approach to keeping historic house musuems current. Can pick and choose what might work at your institution. Change is hard!

Very helpful book by an experienced expert on house museums. Our Group is working on a house museum relating toDr. James Still; his life and times in Medford, NJ. in the 1800's. Nice to know we are not alone and that many others out there have the sameconcerns and challenges.