New-York Historical Society to open children’s museum

An article in the New York Times discusses the growing number of children’s museums around the country and the plans of the New York-Historical Society to open one in 2011. In 2007, there were 243 children’s museums in the United States, with 78 in the planning stages, compared with 38 children’s museums in 1975.

In November 2011, the New-York Historical Society will open the DiMenna Children’s History Museum. In an effort to make history more vivid for children, the Historical Society will make the new museum alluring and accessible for kids. The museum will be an interactive experience that will focus on the lives of young New Yorkers, from famous figures like Alexander Hamilton, who came to New York as a teenage orphan to attend college, to the boys and girls who hawked newspapers on city streets 100 years ago. Educators helped select a diverse group of historical figures to illuminate different aspects of history.

The museum’s exhibits will be pitched at about a fourth-grade level, but the information presented is intended to appeal to all ages.

An exhibit about the “orphan trains” that took thousands of children from New York to rural and farm communities across the country will allow children to sit next to a cutout of a composite orphan on a three-dimensional train, listen to train noises and see a map of places along the routes. The exhibit will also feature children’s art and photographs and letters from the children who rode the orphan trains.

Most exhibits will focus on individuals and their stories. One exhibit will feature a “talking” portrait of a young Cornelia van Varick, the daughter of a 17th-century female textile merchant, meant to show what life was like for a young girl at the time.

The museum will include many interactive features like touch screens presenting toys from various periods, a place where children can videotape their own histories and a historical “facebook.” Visitors will be able to use maps and other documents to solve history’s mysteries.

“The unifying architectural design of the museum is that you’ll feel like you’re inside a cabinet of curiosities,” said Lee Skolnick, the designer of the museum, who has also designed 50 other children’s museums. The DiMenna Children’s History Museum will be located in the same building as the New-York Historical Society and will be about 4,000 square feet.