Main Page
Contents
- 1 Upcoming Events!
- 2 Our Expansion—Our Interns
- 3 Catawiki
- 4 A Letter About Our Economy; About Our Community
- 5 Publicity and Press Clippings
- 6 Material Culture Studies, Including The Electric Organ
- 7 Shoppe with Us! The Museum Gifte Shoppe
- 8 Volunteer at the Museum
- 9 Links
- 10 Hours
- 11 Admission
- 12 Directions and Parking
Upcoming Events!
Our Expansion—Our Interns
If youve come by Headquarters on Bridge Street recently you might notice a change to our floor plan. No desk. Well, no desk with a human behind it, doing office work. That's because we've expanded and the office is now in an adjoining studio space off of the center hallway of the old fire station building. This leaves us more floor space for live events, and give us a real office, where Museum staff can do the behind-the-scenes paperwork that keeps the operation rolling in the public spaces of the Museum. Our larger stage has been re-wired with stage lighting and foot-lights, and our deck made more welcoming by James and Bob, long-time Museum friends from Boston. Thanks!
Our new office also gives us more space for our interns too. Melissa Mendes and Brandon Ellston are with us on a semi-regular basis and are busy photographing (check out our Flickr site!) and cataloging objects like the Dog's Tooth Necklace (photo to the right)—carpentry, cleaning and display creation (see the newly organized "Invasive and Non-invasive species of White River Junction" display on the main floor!) The great work of David Hammond, research fellow from Washington, D.C., in administration, development, displays, research, writing and editing (and much more) continues and more exhibits and publications are planned for the Fall.
Don't forget, David, Brandon, Melissa, our new office and our wonderful new stage space were all made possible by the generosity of people just like you. So, poke your heads in the door and see. We are busier now than ever, but we are never too busy to say "Howdy" to old friends.
Tramp and Hobo Symposium
It was a great series of events. Extraordinary really. Thanks to everyone who came down. You all seemed to enjoy yourselves immensely. Perhaps that's because it was really cool. Art, history, lectures, music and film. Am I leaving anything out? Campfires? Howling at the moon? Yes, they all happened too. And it was great. But its not quite over yet. One of the tramps got delayed by late freights, by the bulls, and by (maybe) too much of that brown corn; but, on July 4th, in the last (maybe) public event associated with our Symposium, the famous Stumps Duh Clown will appear here after our river flotilla and BYO-BBQ on the 4th of July. He'll play some of his own tunes. He'll play some Mississippi John Hurt tunes. And best of all, hell invite us all to sing and play along with him. Don't miss it! It'll be more than cool. It'll be great!
For our full schedule of Upcoming Events Click Here!
Catawiki
The Main Street Museum's Catawiki is a unique digital initiative in material culture studies utilizing open-source code to describe the artifacts in our collections and to create a completely fluid, adaptive taxonomic structure for their interpretation. The Catawiki uses the same "wiki" code utilized by "Wikipedia" and is able to be modified by users from any internet access point. The categories currently acting as a organizational foundation for these structures are:
- Objects as Evidence of Human Culture, for instance: Pet Toys; Geographically or Historically Significant Items (Relics); Manuscripts; Art; Military History; Textiles and Clothing; Shoes; and "Things, or Fragments of Things Once Owned by, or Associated with, Notable People Particularly Notable Vermonters".
- Biology: Living, or Apparently Once Living, Objects, including
- Flora: "The Invasive and Native Species of Windsor County" for instance, or "Dried Roses from Robert Todd Lincolns House in Manchester, Vermont" and "Camellia Blossoms and Leaves from the Varina and Jefferson Davis Memorial".
- Fauna includes: Homo-sapiens; White-tailed Deer and Other Mammalia; Reptiles; Birds; Entomology (Insects); Corals; Flocked Pets; Other, or Unidentified Species; etc.
- Inanimate, or Apparently Inanimate Objects, or Boxes of Rocks including Minerals, Man-made Minerals, Silt from the 1927 Flood, Round and/or Rusted Things.
- And, of course, Miscellaneous or Other Things.
- Vinculum (or Overlapping) Categories can be accessed from the sidebar to the left and include: Carbon; Color as a Hysterical Reaction; Cute Things; Flocking; Objects Chewed by Pets; Teeth, More Teeth, Things with Nail-holes; "Things Made from Animals or Parts of Animals" and Tramps and Hobos.
A Letter About Our Economy; About Our Community
During this season, with the world economy being what it is, I think its worth an additional letter, to tell you about the scene here as we view it from the banks of the White River.
The Main Street Museum, so far, has been spared any ill effects from the economic downturn. In fact, over the last five months the Main Street Museum has seen a spike in the number our visitors, (a corresponding increase in admission fees dropped in our ticket "pillar"), and a significant increase in our grant awards as well. Extraordinarily encouraging news in a climate of non-profit uncertainty!
People seem to be thinking and acting more locally. Unwittingly or not, the Main Street Museum—our Tramp and Hobo Symposium planned for May; our new thrift store and our daily increasing activity—is riding this wave of change. We are confident that we can not only ride into the future, but surf! Wishing you All the Best in the Tenuous—but also Exciting—Future, —David Fairbanks Ford, and All of the Staff, Interns and Volunteers at the Main Street Museum
Publicity and Press Clippings
Read what we write about ourselves. Read what others write about us.
Testimonials
The Main Street Museum—White River Junction's answer to the Library of Congress.
—Peter Welch, U. S. House of Representatives, 2007.
It is only due to organizations such as yours that the important works of our Country are brought to the attention of the public.
—Marie Reilly, Museum of Bad Art, Dedham, 1998. learn less...!
The Main Street Museum forces one to contemplate the nature of museums and curating. Why do we save what we save? How do we decide what to discard, what to display, what to hide away, and what to destroy. —Joe Citro, Weird New England, 2004
Material Culture Studies, Including The Electric Organ
History is false. It has to be. —Jules David Prown
Its really all about questions. We are a museum. We collect and preserve objects. (And other things too. But objects, mainly.) And then we do what all museums are supposed to do. We discuss the objects. We have conversations with you, the viewer, about the objects. And we have found, over the years, as we do this, that each object raises a number of questions. Sometimes it seems that each object has about five or 10 questions associated with it. And each question we research raises five or 10 more questions. And we might do this five or ten times for each object. And it also seems that we only end up answering about one question for each ten that we ask the object, or the object asks of us. But with so many questions—just multiply 5 to the 5th power—that still means that we have come up with a lot of answers in spite of ourselves. All in all, we think that the questions are more fun than the answers. But you are free to decide for youself.
Read what we've written about objects. Read what the experts have said as well. This is just a starting point. We have only just begun to really think about things, and our relationships to things.
Our fully functioning blog features discursions on material culture studies, miscellanea and much more! Museumology Blog continues the heartfelt commentary of the previous blog of the Main Street Museum at Blogspot. You can read the latest entries, musing about roadtrips, history, collections and collective insanity, and post your own responses here.
A German critic, W. Bürger, writes "Our Museums...are veritable graveyard-yards in which have been heaped up, with a tumulour-like promiscuousness, the remains which have been carried thither...all are hung pell-mell upon the walls of some noncommittal gallery a kind of posthumous asylum, where a people, no longer capable of producing...come to admire this magnificent gallery of debris. —G. Brown Goode, Museums of the Future, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C., 1891: p. 427
Shoppe with Us! The Museum Gifte Shoppe
The Museum Gift Shoppe features souvenirs, a wide variety of books on museums and museum-y things, our own booklets with hand-stitched bindings, and wonky gifts that no one in their right mind would purchase!
Volunteer at the Museum
The Main Street Museum is a great place to visit, and a great place to volunteer. You can do everything from staffing open hours (Thursday - Sunday, 1 - 6 p.m.), to helping out with arranging and maintaining displays, setting up for special events like concerts and First Fridays open house nights, to research, writing, and even special exhibits and special events. Whether it be free-wheeling research, carpentry, photography, landscaping, or music - whatever it is that you like to do, we'd love to talk to you.
E-mail us at info@mainstreetmuseum.org for more information, or call us at 802-356-2776.
Links
Other Museum-things.
- "As in totemism, we participate in each other as we participate in the object." —Sartre, Les jeux sont faits, 1943, and Norman O. Brown, Love's Body, 1966.
Hours
The Museum at 58 Bridge Street is open Thursday through Sunday, from 1 to 6 p.m.
Admission
The Museum suggests a $3 to $5 donation for visiting our collections. (Members of the Museum are admitted free of charge). Reservations are not necessary. Discounts are available for groups. Children under age 12 are admitted free of charge if accompanied by an adult. No one is turned away for lack of funds.
Directions and Parking
Museum Headquarters are located at 58 Bridge Street, in downtown White River Junciton, adjacent to the Lehman Bridge, between the railroad underpass and the White River. Parking for Museum patrons is available by the Museum Riverside in the back of the Museum Building, on the street (Railroad Row works!) or in the Courthouse/Depot Parking lot.
Parking—Urgent Notice!
Vehicles parked next door on Daniel Johnson's property or at the Home Comfort Warehouse WILL BE TOWED AT OWNERS EXPENSE!
Please park on any of White River Junction's streets. They are quite safe. Railroad Row is close by. Public parking lots are conveniently located by the Courthouse and Railroad Depot across the street from the front of our building. Our small parking lot in the back of the building may be full. Please do not park in it unless you are familiar with the parking situation here.
DO NOT park cars on our right-of-way on the side of our building, on property of Daniel Johnson or Everything Glass directly next door or at the Home Comfort Warehouse in back of the Museum! CARS WILL BE TOWED FROM OUR NEIGHBORS PROPERTY, and from our Right-Of-Way!
Bob Pickering is in charge of parking on our neighbors property. He wears a baseball style cap, or other hat, and is sometimes followed closely by his partner Elizabeth who carries a tiny dog. Please alert museum staff if they are seen on museum property, or if they approach museum patrons. THE MAIN STREET MUSEUM TAKES NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ACTIONS OF EITHER BOB OR ELIZABETH PICKERING
Daniel Johnson, property owner of the former "ProCam" building employs Mr. Pickering. In the event of trouble or concerns please report his actions directly to Mr. Johnson at design-build@valley.net, or 802-291-7080 or to the Hartford Police, 802.295.9425.
We're sorry for all the trouble —The Management.
The Main Street Museum, 58 Bridge Street, White River Junction, Vermont, 05001-1909, info@mainstreetmuseum.org, 802.356.2776
