At the Nathan Hale Homestead in CT, we had a similar situation. The kitchen in the home was in really bad shape, so it was redone "authentically." There was also a small barn that wasn't originally on the property, but was of the time. So all living history activities took place in the barn, kitchen, and even on the lawn. All artifacts were stored in the rest of the house and only reproductions were kept in the barn and kitchen. This kept everything very easy -- there was never any confusion as to what was a useable reproduction and what was an artifact. Plus we could differentiate this to the guests as well.
Hope this is helpful.
Sheryl Woodruff
>Dear List,
>
>I have a question for those who are involved in living history sites,
>and I'm sure it's an old problem that you have dealt with before. I
>work at two "living history" sites where we have historically
>furnished spaces that contain a mix of period artifacts, modern
>reproductions, and modern objects. The historically furnished houses and
>other structures are often used for various domestic and other
>demonstrations, and we are constantly battling about which objects can
>be used (i.e. which dishes to use, which chair to sit on, which table to
>set things on, which woodworking tools to use, etc.). As you can guess,
>our period objects are at peril under this system. Like all museums, we
>don't have funding to furnish our "living history" spaces entirely
>with quality reproductions; most of our period pieces are donations
>acquired many years ago.
>
>What I want to do is to philosophically separate our objects into two
>collections, a "museum" collection and a "living history"
>collection, although they will be mixed in the historically furnished
>spaces. The museum collection will consist of our period objects and
>will generally be "hands off", and guidelines for handling and
>moving such items will be regulated. Use of our "living history"
>collection will be more lenient and these will be the tools and other
>objects used for public demonstrations. My problem is that I want to
>devise a system that will be easy for our staff interpreters and
>volunteers to understand so that when working they will readily know
>what things they can handle and use. Our current system of just saying
>use this but don't use that, or providing a list, just doesn't work.
>I think we really need something more visual and apparent to anyone
>regardless of their knowledge of our collections. Any ideas? Thank you
>in advance.
>