RIHS Celebrates Museum Day Live! With Special Programs, Free Admission
(PROVIDENCE, R.I.) ??? Held during Women’s History Month, this special edition of the Smithsonian Institution???s signature Museum Day Live! event will encourage all people ??? and particularly women and girls of color ??? to explore their nation’s museums, cultural institutions, zoos, aquariums, parks, and libraries, which will offer free admission for the day.
??As a Smithsonian Affiliate, the RIHS is excited to take part in Museum Day Live!, and will be offering free admission at the John Brown House Museum and the Museum of Work & Culture on Saturday, March 12.
??Those interested in visiting RIHS museums with free admission on Museum Day Live! should visit smithsonianmag.com/museumday/museum-day-live-march-2016/tickets/ to register.
??The RIHS lineup for the Smithsonian Institution???s Museum Day Live! (please also see attached flyer):
??John Brown House Museum (52 Power St., Providence, R.I.)
??10am-Noon
Interactive chats with Elyssa Tardif, Ph.D., about Dinah Sisson, 18th-century free African American woman in Newport who shaped public opinion to further her cause.
??1:30pm & 3pm
???Re-Claiming Oneself: Identity, Liberty and Visual Literacy in the African American 19th-Century Photographic Archive??? Ren??e Neely, Research & Public Engagement Coordinator, RIHS, will deliver a presentation featuring the ways that young African American women reinvented themselves using photography after the Civil War. Have your own photo taken in our pop-up photo booth with fun historical props!
??All Day
Artifacts from the RIHS special collections will be on display, including the first edition of the Memoirs of Elleanor Eldridge, a WWII love letter, and the account of a picnic in Portsmouth in 1766.
??Museum of Work & Culture (42 S. Main St., Woonsocket, R.I.)
??11am, 1:30pm, 3pm
The Museum of Work & Culture, in partnership with Flickers: The Rhode Island International Film Festival, will present three screenings of two short films whose selection was inspired by First Lady Michelle Obama???s call of ???One visit, one performance, one touch, and who knows how you could spark a child???s imagination????
??The films will be Rhiannon Evans???s ???Fulfilament,??? in which viewers travel around the brain with a little, lost thought and discover what it takes to make a great idea, as well as Alyce Tzue???s ???Soar,??? in which a precocious young girl makes a new friend when a tiny boy pilot drops out of the sky on a broken flying machine.
After the screening children will be encouraged to carry the film???s theme of imagination into the Museum with a ???Choose Your Own Adventure??? activity, in which they create a character and write their own story as they explore the Museum???s immersive exhibits.