Historic House Museums
Heritage Consulting Inc. continues to develop new programs and services for historic sites and small museum clients. The firm has a particular expertise in organizational development issues, especially as they relate to historic sites and house museums. Since the publication of Ms. Harris’ book New Solutions for House Museums: Ensuring the Long-Term Preservation of America’s Historic Houses by AltaMira Press in 2007, she has spoken at more than 35 national, regional and statewide conferences and symposia about her work. Ms. Harris was honored with a Mid Career Fellowship from the prestigious James Marston Fitch Charitable Foundation to conduct her pioneering research on alternatives for historic house museums that are no longer viable. Since then, Ms. Harris has taught classes at several graduate programs in historic preservation and public history on this topic. Clients have asked Heritage Consulting to assist on the following types of projects.
Heritage Consulting has assisted on the following types of projects:
- Reuse planning for historic sites
- Feasibility studies
- Reuse plans
- Fund-raising plans and strategies
- Public relations campaigns
- Program development
- Speeches and articles on reuse planning for historic sites
- Alternate uses for historic sites
- Decision making processes for reuse plans
- Speeches and articles on house museums
- Assessment of historic house museums for sustainability
- Facilitate public meetings for assessment of alternatives
- Identification of options for reuse of historic sites
- Consolations with boards to assess alternatives
- Provide draft leases, Raps, stewardship models and articles for reuse planning
Books and articles by Donna Ann Harris on House Museum Topics
New Solutions for House Museums: Ensuring the Long Term Preservation of America’s Historic Houses, published by AltaMira Press, April 2007
“New Solutions for House Museums” Preservation Colorado quarterly newsletter, Winter 2008
“Reuses for Existing Historic House Museums” Forum Journal, journal of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Summer issue 2007
“New Solutions for Historic House Museums,” History News, the magazine of the American Association for State and Local History, Fall 2007
“Saving Legacies, Saving Houses” article for Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums web site 2005
“Reinventing the House Museum” article for Preservation New Jersey newsletter, 2005
Donna Ann Harris is quoted in the following articles
“What to do with These Old Houses,” The Pew Charitable Trusts Magazine, Spring 2008 “Revitalizing America’s Historic Sites,” Monta Lee Dakin, Mountain-Plains Museum Association newsletter, Summer 2007“Houses, Histories and the Future,” The Pew Charitable Trusts Magazine, Spring 2008
“Historic House Museums: An Embarrassment of Riches,” Forum Journal, Spring 2008
“Historic Homes Needs a Curator—and Tenant,” Houston Chronicle article May 1, 2008
“A Model for Historic House Museums Carter’s Grove Change is Model for Historic House Museums,” Virginian Pilot, January 29, 2008
“Preserving Historic Buildings,” Virginia Gazette, January 30, 2008
“This Old House,” St. Louis Post Dispatch, May 11, 2008
“Nothing Down, $0 a Month, Hammer Required,” New York Times, August 30, 2007.
Book reviews of New Solutions for House Museums
Book review, The Public Historian, Summer 2008
Book review, Museums Australia Magazine, Summer 2008
Book review, The Old House Journal, June 2007
Book review, Museum Audience Insight blog, January 14, 2008
Book announcement, Forum Journal, March 2007
Book review, Staten Island Advance, June 17, 2007
Book review Museums Aoterora, New Zealand, by David Reynolds www.museums0aotearoa.org.nz/Site/Publications, 2007
Please contact us if you would like to see copies of any of these reviews.