Monday, during its annual meeting in St. Louis, the American Alliance of Museums honored the museum with an Excellence in Exhibition award, one of only five issued to museums across the country. The award recognizes the design, development, and implementation of William Conner House, which reopened to the public last year after new interactive and media experiences were installed.
The historic home, which was built nearly 200 years ago, was first opened to the public by Eli Lilly in 1934. Since it has undergone several renovations both inside and out. Most recently, new visitor experiences were installed in the exhibit from November 2015 to March 2016 as an official Indiana Bicentennial Legacy project.
“William Conner House now strikes a careful balance between offering the kinds of interactive elements and activities that are common to museum exhibitions while maintaining a period-appropriate domestic look and feel as one would expect for a historic home,” said Brian Mancuso, Conner Prairie‘s director of exhibits. “We worked with museum artisans, historic trades specialists and local artists to produce elements for the home that both communicate content and fit with the historical and domestic environment.”
This award from the American Alliance of Museums is the latest of national honors and accolades Conner Prairie has received in recent years. The museum has received the national medal from Institute for Museum and Library Services, the top honor a museum can receive. The National Science Foundation awarded a $2.3 million grant to Conner Prairie to create a STEM-based exhibit with interpretive programming that debuted in 2014.
Additionally, Conner Prairie, which is Indiana’s first Smithsonian-affiliated museum, was named a magnetic museum in the book, “Magnetic: The Art and Science of Engagement,” and has been cited as one of the most-visited outdoor museums in the nation by the Outdoor History Museum Forum.
Judges noted that Conner Prairie’s exhibit team “made great use of interactive media throughout William Conner House for reinterpretation, which encourages visitors to be part of the experience of a historic house through multiple engagement strategies.”
SOURCE: Conner Prairie