the Association for Living History, Farm and Agricultural Museums
Excerpt of an article written by Peter Lummel, 2003, Open-Air Museum Domain Dahlem, City Museum of Berlin, Berlin, Germany. ALHFAM members can access the full text of this article and thousands more though the A.S.K. database. Not a member? Join today! Library of Congress Coffee and the Industrial Revolution The Industrial revolution transformed the world,… Continue reading Coffee and the Revolution of Daily Life
By Kimberly Costa, Independent Historian The main goal of any first- or third-person interpreter is to engage the visitor on a level meaningful to that visitor. To engage can mean a myriad of things: to capture their attention, teach a lesson, give a point of view, to shock the senses or simply to make the… Continue reading Dealing with the Disconnected Visitor
By David Makowsky, Ukranian Cultural Heritage Village Journalists have a tremendous influence in shaping a visitor’s decisions on what to include on their “must do” list. In today’s digital age, a photo or article conveying a museum’s story can raise the public awareness of the institution. The return on investment can be tremendous. For example,… Continue reading To Arms, To Arms… the Media are Coming!
By Jochen Welsch, Old Sturbridge Village Visitors to Old Sturbridge Village routinely ask if, and usually assume, that early nineteenth-century farmers were "organic." Most look perplexed when we answer that no, early nineteenth-century farmers were not organic. The public assumes that agricultural history and organic farming go hand in hand. This reveals a basic misunderstanding… Continue reading The Myth of Our Organic Past
By Barbara Corson, Department of Agriculture, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Most people feel some discomfort when confronted with the idea of killing an animal that they know as an individual. There are different ways of dealing with the discomfort, including trying not to think about it and buying the meat once it is not recognizable as… Continue reading Philosophy in Raising and Butchering Livestock
The following is a shortened version of an article that appears in full in A.S.K.: ALHFAM’s Skill & Knowledge Base. Want full access to all 25,000 documents? Join today! Membership starts at just $30 per year for individuals. When is clothing dead? If l threw out all of Living History Farms’ faded clothing, I’d lose… Continue reading How Clothing Dies (and How to Put Off the Inevitable)
For over 35 years, the Association for Living History, Farm and Agricultural Museums (ALHFAM) has published the presentations and workshops presented at each Annual Conference in monograph form. Until 2017, these Proceedings were published in hard copy and distributed by ALHFAM. Beginning with the 2016 Proceedings, the board made the decision to make the entire… Continue reading Now Available: Printed Edition of the 2016 ALHFAM Conference Proceedings
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