Textiles have played a huge part in human history. It may not be on the level of agriculture, but they have been truly significant on both a functional and cultural level. That should continue for the foreseeable future, which is why the Textile Society of America exists. They are a Berkeley, CA based non-profit that “provides an international forum for the exchange and dissemination of information about textiles worldwide, from artistic, cultural, economic, historic, political, social, and technical perspectives.”
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I swear that every kid who grows up in Connecticut goes on a field trip to Old Sturbridge Village at some point. For me it wasn’t until 10th grade (and we were on our way back from a longer trip to Boston and Plimoth Plantation), but I think most kids go earlier in their lives. If you weren’t lucky enough to grow up within a couple hour bus ride of Old Sturbridge Village (which is based in Sturbridge, MA), you should know that it’s the “largest outdoor history museum in the Northeast” and it “depicts a rural New England town of the 1830s.” It’s the perfect place for immature children to try to get the staff to fall out of character.
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What do hipsters love? Brooklyn and things with suggested prices/contributions (you can feel like a full paying customer without being a full paying customer). They also like artsy stuff. I have to imagine that the Brooklyn Museum is a hipster’s paradise, but then again it’s probably paradise for a lot of people considering that it’s “one of the oldest and largest art museums in the country.” They have more than half a million square feet of space and an amazing group of collections “that range from the ancient to the contemporary and encompass virtually all the world’s principal cultures.”
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When you get engaged, everybody tells you how much fun registry shopping is. I’m still waiting for the fun part. Just kidding. The fun part was doing our Amazon Registry, which had all of the cool kitchen gadgets that I wanted. When someone bought us something on that, I got really excited. I was a little bit less excited about our registries at Simon Pearce, Bloomingdale’s, and Restoration Hardware. I’m very grateful to everyone who bought us a gift from those registries, but a blowtorch is way better than a water pitcher in my book. Now let’s go back to that last place we registered: Restoration Hardware. That ended up being our least popular registry (in terms of % completed), which is surprising when you consider that the Corte Madera, CA “home furnishings retailer” made the Inc. 5000 with 91% three-year growth to $1.2 billion in revenue. While that growth rate is lower than what we’re accustomed to, we can make an excuse for a company that passed the billion dollar mark (and is no longer eligible for the list now that they have IPOed).
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One of the worst parts about growing up is that the things that amazed you as a kid are often totally disappointing when you revisit them as an adult. When I was about five, my dad, my friend, my friend’s dad, and I visited the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York, NY (it must have been right after the museum opened). As a military obsessed little boy, it was the best thing ever. (And then we went to a dinosaur exhibit. And then we went to a baseball game! It was a truly awesome day.) More than twenty years later I went back to the Intrepid, and I was still blown away. Instead of being disappointed, I was able to recognize how impressive the aircraft carrier and the museum built on it really are. There’s a reason that nearly a million people people visit every year to see “a snapshot of heroism, education, and excitement.”
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I grew up about an hour outside of New York City. My parents would take me in a few times a year, and from those experiences I developed an idea of what big cities are like. It took a while for me to realize that New York is remarkable as cities go. It’s huge. It has a prime geographical location. Its people are diverse in a multitude of ways. It’s filled with wealth, yet more than 20% of its citizens live in poverty. There is no other city in the world like New York, and that’s why the Museum of the City of New York must be a fascinating place to visit. They are a non-profit that explores “the past of this fascinating and particular place for lessons about our future” while celebrating “New York’s heritage of diversity, opportunity, and perpetual transformation.”
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When I was a kid I was jealous of the kids who went to one of the other elementary schools in town because they had an awesome carnival. I was kind of a wimp about carnival rides, so the most intense ride that I would go on was called the Himalaya. All it did was spin you around kind of fast. While the painting on the ride was certainly accurate to the name, I’m not sure that it was a very good representation of Himalayan culture. The Rubin Museum of Art in New York, NY is. It’s “a dynamic environment that stimulates learning, promotes understanding, and inspires personal connections to the ideas, cultures, and art of Himalayan Asia.” It also won’t make you nauseous like the ride might.
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I grew up along the coast of Long Island Sound and spent a few weeks every summer on Nantucket. As a result I’ve always had a fascination with coastal societies. I just love seeing how the natural environment shapes the way people live. Today it may be hard to imagine how a city as large and modern as New York, NY has been influenced by its natural surroundings, but the South Street Seaport Museum shows the history of New York City’s relationship with the sea. The museum “is dedicated to preserving and interpreting the history of New York as a port city.” They do this with “16 historic and contemporary installations interweaving the city, the sea, and the Seaport neighborhood.”
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One of the best parts of growing up in Connecticut was the history. As a kid, I was always imagining myself back in the Revolutionary era. There were constant reminders of the past, and I found them fascinating. (One of my favorite hobbies was digging holes in my backyard looking for artifacts.) The tough thing is that New England is a thriving part of our economy, which means that there is constant pressure to erase the past so as to build something better. That’s ok to some extent, but history needs to be preserved. Historic New England is a non-profit that does just that. It’s a Boston, MA based “museum of cultural history that collects and preserves buildings, landscapes, and objects dating from the seventeenth century to the present and uses them to keep history alive and to help people develop a deeper understanding and enjoyment of new England life and appreciation for its preservation.”
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Despite my outdoorsiness, I was never a boy scout. I’ll admit that I was a little jealous of the other kids when they came into school with their uniforms covered in patches, but I’m sure I earned plenty of patches as a kid–even if I never actually got patches (now I can buy them from Best Made Company). Still, I have a ton of respect for Boy Scouts of America. They’re an organization that has lasted more than a century by staying focused on a core set of values. They believe “that helping youth is a key to building a more conscientious, responsible, and productive society,” and they’ve continuously adapted the way that they’ve helped you to keep current. Boy Scouts of America is headquartered in Irving, TX, but they operate (and have job opportunities) all across the country.
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I spent at least a week every summer on Nantucket until I was 18. It was also a great time, and it’s where I have some of my fondest childhood memories. Oddly enough, I’ve only stepped foot on Martha’s Vineyard once. I was flying from Nantucket and the plane stopped on the Vineyard. I got out for some fresh air (it was a tiny plane) and got right back on. That means that I’ve never visited the Martha’s Vineyard Museum in Edgartown, MA, but I’m sure it has a lot in common with the museums that I’ve visited on Nantucket. The museum is “dedicated to furthering an interest in, experience of, and appreciation for the history and culture of the Island and its environs.” That’s exactly what you’d expect, and they do this with exhibitions, collaboritive educational programs, scholarly research, archival collections, and community outreach.
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Despite the fact that I come from an extremely artistic family (Dad – architect, Mom – graphic designer, Sister – painter), I know almost nothing about art. So it shouldn’t surprise you that I know even less about Latin American art. But if I did want to start learning about it, I’d probably head to the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach, CA. It’s a non-profit organization that “educates the public through the collection, preservation, presentation and interpretation of modern and contemporary Latin American art in order to promote cross-cultural dialogue.” It was founded in 1996, and since then it has doubled in size.
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I have to admit that it gets a bit monotonous writing about non-profit internships every weekend. There’s an endless number of organizations to cover, but so many of them are very similar to ones that I’ve already featured. But today I found one that is about as unique a non-profit as I’ve come across in my nearly four years of doing this. It’s the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta, GA. They’re exactly what they sound like, an organization that “is the largest American organization solely dedicated to the art of puppet theater.” I’ll admit that I haven’t been to a puppet show in a while, but when I was a little kid I put on a mean one. Puppetry is an interesting art because it can be as simple as a sock on a hand or as complex as Big Bird. It may not get as much credit as other performing arts, but it’s definitely worthy of having an organization devoted to it.
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I’m starting to get settled in my new place. After living in two moderately new high-rises in downtown Chicago, I’ve moved into a more historic building–it was built in 1921 and served as a Chinese consulate at some point. Now that I’m starting my fourth year living in the city, I feel that it’s only appropriate for me to start learning a little more about the city’s history. That’s why I should probably make a visit to the Chicago History Museum, which is just a mile down the street from me. Ironically, the museum, having been founded in 1856, “is the city’s oldest cultural institution,” though they pretty much had to start over after the Great Fire destroyed their building and most of their collection in 1871. Three years later there was another fire that destroyed most of what remained. Luckily, there haven’t been any more fires, so the Chicago History Museum has had a decent amount of time to build a new collection.
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I’m no art expert, which is probably why most of the artists whose work I am familiar with are both European and dead. My knowledge of contemporary American art is pretty limited. Maybe that would change if I visited the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, NY, as it’s the “preeminent institution devoted to the art of the United States.” My awesome sister (who is a painter now pursuing a career in medicine) gave me the heads up on the fact that they’re hiring interns. The Whitney Museum of American Art was founded in 1930 after sculptor Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney’s offer to the The Metropolitan Museum of Art of a collection of more than 500 works was rejected. Much like taking her ball and going home, she took her art and started a new museum.
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I’m on Cape Cod for a wedding this weekend, so I decided to take my girlfriend over to Nantucket, MA for the day yesterday. I hadn’t been there in 9 years after going there every summer for the first 18 years of my life. It’s a wonderful island that is loaded with history. We walked around all day and made stops at the Old Gaol and the Whaling Museum, both of which are owned and operated by the Nantucket Historical Association. Both are well worth a visit, and so are all of the other NHA properties. If you want to learn about early American history, Nantucket is a great place to visit, and much of the reason is because of the work of the Nantucket Historical Association.
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We often forget that this country has been built (and is continuing to be built) by immigrants. For hundreds of years people have risked everything that they had to try for a better life in America. While just getting here is a journey, the first few years of “making a new life, working for a better future, starting a family with limited means” can be daunting. The Lower East Side Tenement Museum in New York, NY tells the story of life in America for nearly 7,000 immigrants from over 20 countries who lived in the building between the years of 1863 and 1935. It’s a part of American history that doesn’t get a lot of attention (how many of us have visited colonial era museums?), yet it’s an extremely important part of our national identity.
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