I saw this article on how museums are creating more interactive displays. That might be one ticket to increasing the number of visitors, creating lasting impressions, etc. While the article covers non-rail museums, the general themes are worthy of consideration.

Museums Pull Visitors Into Exhibits -- Literally

> I saw this article on how museums are
> creating more interactive displays. That
> might be one ticket to increasing the number
> of visitors, creating lasting impressions,
> etc. While the article covers non-rail
> museums, the general themes are worthy of
> consideration.

Our Thomas Edison Depot Museum satellite facility is based on this, and has received double the attendance of our Main facility, which is much more traditional in nature. The "hands-on" or "technology driven" exhibits there include;

-- a recreation of the school room confrontation between Thomas Edison's teacher, Alexander Crawford, and his mother when he was called "addled", with a voice over by well known Edison impersonator Drew Wilson

-- a recreation of Edison's home basement laboratory, with Edison testing chemicals and the bottles with "Poison" on them. In addition, objects found during the archaeology dig are on display in front of this display, with buttons that light up objects in the display when pushed, showing how Edison used them

-- A "Talk of the Town" Exhibit, which interviews people living in Port Huron and in communities along the line between Port Huron and Detroit (the station agent in Mt. Clemens, for instance)
about Tom and his early days

-- an interactive board which shows how Edison was NOT perfect, and was fired or run out of jobs between 1863 and 1868 a full 15 times before he ended up in Boston where his first experiments made him money

-- Interactive display showing how much power and effort it takes (through the use of a hand crank generator) to move electrical power over distances

Now we just need to update the exhibits at our other sites!

TJ Gaffney

tjgaffney@phmuseum.org