I believe I heard Ed Abel say once that 60% of museum visitors say they
first started going to museums as children. Going with their parents had
the highest return rate of all.

When I was a child (too many years ago), many art museums would not allow
anyone under 12. Mother took me around the building at the Huntington in
LA so I could see the Blue Boy through a window. I was nine and small for
my age. She said boys of 12 were running in the halls. She thought it was
a shame they could go in, and I could not.

Thank goodness she could take me to places like the U. S. Capitol,
Plymouth Rock, the Old North Church, national parks, Woodrow Wilson's
birthplace in Virginia, etc. and whet my appetite regardless of age. By
the age of nine they had dragged me through 37 states.

I love it that I now will see parents viewing an art exhibit with the
infant in a papoose pouch. I will take my grandson to a museum this
weekend as part of my time on his birthday weekend. He has come to expect
such since I first took him to the Houston Museum of Natural Science when
he was six.

Mary Kirby
Historic Upshur Museum
[log in to unmask]

On Fri, 9 Jan 2004 09:13:08 -0500 Tom Hanchett
<[log in to unmask]> writes:
> Our museum is debating audience development strategies. Does anyone
> know
> of data on the relative importance of children as part of the
> potential
> museum-going population?  What do you lose if you do NOT go after
> children and youth? Have experts written about this? We are
> especially
> interested in history museums.
>
> Tom Hanchett, Levine Museum of the New South
> [log in to unmask]
>
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