Museum of American Heritage facts for kids
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| Established | 1990 |
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| Location | 351 Homer Avenue Palo Alto, California |
| Visitors | 10,000+ |
The Museum of American Heritage (MOAH) is a cool museum in Palo Alto, California. It's all about old electrical and mechanical inventions. Imagine gadgets and machines from the 1750s all the way to the 1950s! The museum keeps a huge collection of these amazing items. You can see some of them displayed in a historic house at 351 Homer Avenue in Palo Alto. MOAH is a non-profit group that helps save and share these pieces of history.
Contents
Discovering the Museum's Past
The Museum of American Heritage first opened its doors to the public on September 20, 1990. Before it became a museum, it was the private collection of a man named Frank Livermore (1919-2000). He loved collecting old inventions!
The museum moved a few times in its early years. It started on Alma Street in Palo Alto. Then, from 1995 to 1998, it was in a building that used to be a car dealership. Finally, in 1998, the museum moved to its current home on Homer Avenue.
When Frank Livermore passed away, his collection had about 1,000 amazing artifacts. He set up a special trust to make sure his collection would be kept safe and shown to everyone. Today, the MOAH collection has grown a lot. It now holds over 8,000 special items!
Exploring Museum Exhibits
The museum has five rooms where the exhibits change often. These exhibits show off different items from the museum's huge collection. Sometimes, they even borrow cool things from other local collectors.
Some past exhibits have included:
- Frank's Cabinet of Curiosities: Celebrating 30 Years (March 2020 - August 2021)
- Cointraptions: Classic Coin-Operated Machines (September 2019 - February 2020)
- The Happy Homemaker: History of Household Appliances (March 2019 - August 2019)
- Vintage Toys: It's Child's Play! (September 2018 - February 2019)
- In the Groove: A History of Record Players (March 2018 - August 2018)
- Thomas Edison and His Rivals: Bringing Electricity to America (September 2017 - February 2018)
- Open for Business: Office Success Before Computers (March 2017 - August 2017)
- The Evolution of Film (September 2016 - February 2017)
- Pinball! An Exhibition of Vintage Pinball Machines (February 2016 - August 2016)
- 25 Years of the Museum of American Heritage: A Retrospective (April 2015 - January 2016)
- Museum of American Heritage A to Z (October 2015 - March 2015)
- Time Machines: Clocks & Timekeeping (April 2014 - September 2014)
- Television, A History (Fall 2013)
- Inventing the 20th Century (Summer 2012)
- Antique Toys, 1870-1930 (Winter 2010)
Permanent Displays
There are also six rooms in the Williams House that have exhibits that stay the same. These include:
- An early 1900s Kitchen, showing how kitchens used to look.
- A 1920s General Store, filled with items from an old Chicago shop.
- A working Print Shop with old printing presses.
- An Early Automobile Garage and Workshop, showing how cars were cared for long ago.
The Museum's Amazing Collection
The museum's main goal is to collect and keep safe old electrical and mechanical items. These are things invented or built between the 1750s and the 1950s. The museum often accepts donations of items that fit these rules.
Most of the MOAH collection is kept in a special warehouse. It's not usually open to the public. The collection includes many different types of items. You can find old sewing machines, typewriters, cameras, radios, and televisions. There are also clocks, toys, adding machines, calculators, and kitchen appliances.
With over 8,000 official items, it's one of the biggest collections of its kind in the United States! Items from this collection are used for the museum's exhibits. Other museums and places can also borrow items from MOAH for their own displays. For example, the San Francisco International Airport museum and the Los Altos History Museum have borrowed things.
If you want to see the full list of items, the museum's collection database is available to look at when you visit the museum in Palo Alto.
The Historic Williams House
The Museum of American Heritage is located in a beautiful building called the Williams House. This house was custom-built in 1907 by Dr. Thomas Williams. He used it as both his home and his private medical office. Dr. Williams was famous for opening the very first doctor's office in the Palo Alto area. This office eventually grew into the well-known Palo Alto Medical Clinic.
The house has a special design called Tudor Revival. A famous architect named Ernest Coxhead designed it. The Williams family owned the house for many years. When the last daughter, Rhona Williams, passed away, she left the house to the city of Palo Alto. She wanted it to be used for the good of the community.
A New Home for the Museum
In 1997, Palo Alto asked for ideas on how to use the property. The city chose the Museum of American Heritage's plan. After a lot of work to restore the old house, the museum opened its doors there in 1998.
Some cool parts of the Williams House include:
- A two-story section where the family lived. It has lots of built-in cabinets. (The upstairs is not usually open to visitors.)
- A single-story part designed just for Dr. Williams' medical office. It even had an operating room with a big skylight for light!
- A large separate garage. This garage once held one of the first cars in Palo Alto. It was changed quite a bit during the 1997 restoration.
The Williams House is now on the Palo Alto Historic Inventories list. This means it's a very important historic building in the city. Behind the main house, there's a newer building called the "Livermore Learning Center." This is where a small family orchard used to be.
The Beautiful Williams House Gardens
The gardens around the Williams House are also very special. Old photos show that the property started with an open view and just a few trees. But Dora Williams, Dr. Williams' wife, loved gardening. Her garden grew and became very complex in the 1920s and 1930s.
Dora kept detailed notes about her garden over the years. These notes have helped the museum restore the garden to look just like it did originally! Unlike many public gardens, this one shows what a home garden looked like in the early 1900s. It has "outdoor rooms" created by rock walls and plants. You can also find pretty fountains and ponds.
The garden also had practical uses for the Williams family. It included a vegetable garden, a medicinal plants garden, and areas for drying clothes and composting. It's believed to be the only historically preserved garden in Palo Alto, and one of the few in California. The Museum of American Heritage is working hard to keep the Williams House Garden beautiful.
See also
- Silicon Valley Museums, for a listing of nearby museums and art galleries
