Genesee Country Village and Museum

Purpose: Supporting Lifelong Learning The Genesee Country Museum will develop a comprehensive master interpretive plan that integrates its nineteenth-century historic structures, artifacts, fine art, gardens, and landscapes into a single, intellectually consistent resource. The museum will assemble a team of scholars, local educators, community representatives, museum staff, volunteers, and board members to meet eight times over the three years of the grant. Seven meetings will be roundtable workshops, each devoted to a specific aspect of nineteenth-century American history. Between workshops, team members will generate working papers that will then be edited and synthesized into the interpretive plan. The final workshop will convene to review and comment on the plan and to generate ideas for its implementation at the museum, in outreach programs, and electronically via the museum's Web site. The plan will be used the guide the development of new collecting plans, exhibitions, programs, and events; to provide new content and context to "virtual" visitors on the Web site; and to inform other planning processes relating to the institution's grounds and facilities, marketing and advertising messages, retail merchandise, visitor services, and development efforts.