I’m a sucker for a good house museum. There’s something about this particular kinds of museum, usually the preserved home of a famous individuals, that brings history alive in ways that other kinds of museums cannot. No matter how good the exhibit design in a traditional museum, objects are still housed in large (or not so large) modern buildings. Outdoor museums provide provide versatile interpretive spaces, but almost all must compete with the noisy modern world nearby. House museums – like the museum forts I discussed a couple weeks ago – allow visitors to step back in time and fully immerse themselves in the aesthetic of another era. Good house museums can provide the much-needed context for the history of a place or of a person. They provide a direct, visceral connection to the past and bring often larger-than-life historical figures down to earth, turning elites into understandable people who ate, slept, lived, and walked upon the very boards where the visitor now walks.

Like all museum types, house museums do have some inherent problems. They are often small and awkward, providing little space for crowds to maneuver and a nightmare for anyone requiring handicapped accessibility. Museums like the Paul Revere House and George Washington’s Mount Vernon are jam-packed year-around and difficult to appreciate through the crowds (though it should be noted that Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello outside Charlottesville, Virginia seems to have a pretty good timed ticket system set up that alleviates some of these problems). Upkeep on historic houses is expensive and locations are not always ideal.

As is often the case when dealing with elites, interpretation can also be difficult. Interpreting the lives of prominent individuals, whether national figures or merely local leaders, can be like picking one’s way through a minefield. In order for interpretation to be meaningful, it must be accurate and well-rounded, but not everyone wants to hear about a Victorian mayoral sex scandal, or a local leader’s unsavory political opinions or business practices, or George Washington’s slaves. Finding a sensitive and educational approach to handling uncomfortable historical issues related to the museum’s former residents is a vital step for any house museum.


Then there is the question of elites themselves. In an environment in which academic and public historians alike are trying to turn the focus of scholarships and museums away from the big names of history and towards the common man, don’t house museums inherently champion the wealthy and powerful at the cost of the poor, ethnic minorities, women, and other marginalized groups? The answer is yes, but this is not an insurmountable problem. A good house museum can incorporate the story of not only a house’s owner, but the stories of family members, servants, slaves, and the wider community. When the Pittock Mansion in Portland, Oregon first opened for tours in 1964, its restorers left the kitchen as it was and did not open that part of the house to the public. But in 1999, the kitchen was restored back to its original appearance (or as close as could be managed), allowing the lives of the Pittock servants to be properly integrated into the history of the house.

Perhaps due to these interpretive difficulties, or perhaps due to tradition, house museums are grossly under-utilized by museum interpreters and local historians. Instead of being museums about people, as they are so very suited to be, they are turned into museums about artifacts. More often than not, house museums become a way to display historical furniture and decor in a more “realistic” settings, sometimes even without particular regard to setting or the people who lived there. Signage will focus on the styles and periods of the furnishings each room contains, sometimes with only passing reference to the people who once used the rooms. Too easily do house museums become traditional artifact museums housed in a pretty building that don’t interpret the building itself or the people who lived there.

With these interpretive pitfalls in mind, I have constructed a list of tips for house museums, based upon my own experiences in a variety of house museums and my own [beliefs] regarding what makes for good museum interpretation.

* Focus on people, all the people. Including information about architecture and furnishing is great, but make that the footnote and bring the human stories front and center. Talking about how a person might have used a room, or connecting some object in the house to a well-known story will catch the public’s attention and teach visitors more about history than a list of dates and styles will. And don’t just talk about the most prominent people, or the good things about them. In recent years, Monticello and Mount Vernon have both found excellent ways to connect the stories of slaves to those of founding fathers. Talking about these sensitive issues is difficult, but to ignore them is to hide a vital part of history. House museums provide an excellent opportunity to show how the noble and ignoble, the high and low, the rich and poor, all collide in complicated ways.

* Choose a period and stick to it. Too often house museums become warehouses for historic furnishings of all kinds. Sometimes those furnishings don’t match the style or the time period of the house owners the museum is trying to highlight, often they don’t even match each other. House museums should create a coherent story about a particular time, place, and people. Choosing a single moment in time – a particular year in the house’s history, perhaps – helps to focus the museum’s educational efforts and create a coherent story.

* Create sensory ambiance. One of the tantalizing things about house museums is the ability they have to make visitors feel like they have stepped back in time. But too often this impression begins and ends with the visual. Why not connect people to the house’s time period using other senses? One of the most unique ways I have seen this done was at the Handel House Museum in London. The Handel House rents out what was once George Frederick Handel’s music room (complete with authentic, playable harpsichord) to to young, aspiring baroque musicians. As visitors walk through the house, they hear sounds of musicians rehearsing the sort of music Handel composed in the very room where he composed it. The result is nothing short of magical.

* When possible, offer special programs and tours. House museums provide a unique space, so they should use it as best they can. Special evening tours can work wonderfully in house museums, enhancing the already intimate feeling the space provides. Special programs focusing on particular topics (servants, material culture, architecture) can expand the range of things a house museum can interpret. The most interesting sort of special programming I have seen was at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum in New York City. The museum offers tours of a restored nineteenth century tenant and their programs tell the stories of the immigrants who once lived there. Tours have different themes that visitors can choose from, and there are even living history programs available. In creating lots of different kinds of unique programs, instead of trying to pack everything into one, the Tenement Museum takes full advantage of a museums space like no other.

* Don’t be afraid to use reproductions or substitutes. A good house museum should create historical ambiance, as we have already discussed. But sometimes the original items from houses no longer exist and can’t be found. Instead of leaving the house bare, or overstocking it with unrelated items, re-create the house. Using reproductions also offers visitors a greater possibility to interact with the space. They can lie on beds, sit on chairs, and otherwise se what it was like to actually live there.

* Find the bigger picture. Today, your house museum might be a lone historical house on a modern city block. Cars probably zoom by and the view out the bedroom windows is likely vastly different than the view its original owners saw. But just because the house is physically disconnected from the world around it doesn’t mean the interpretation of the house should be. Make clear why the house was built, what the people who lived there meant to their community, and why the stories are still significant today.

House museums are treasures of the museums community, combining a chance to both restore and educate. Through them, we can find a way into the hearts and minds of people who lived in a past era. We must recognize their uniqueness and use it to our best advantage.