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Official State Museums

Official museums listed by state.
State Name Designated as Year
Alabama Dothan Landmark Parks Official agricultural museum 1992
Alaska [ None ]    
Arizona [ None ]    
Arkansas [ None ]    
California California State Military Museum and Resource Center Official state military museum 2004
Colorado Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum Official state air and space museum 1997
Connecticut [ None ]    
Delaware [ None ]    
Florida Admiral John H. Fetterman State of Florida Maritime Museum Official state maritime museum 2006
Florida The Orange Blossom Special Railroad Museum Official state railroad museum 1984
Florida The Gold Coast Railroad Museum, Inc. Official state railroad museum 1984
Florida The Florida Gulf Coast Railroad Museum, Inc. Official state railroad museum 1984
Florida The Florida Museum of Transportation and History Official state transportation museum 1985
Georgia The Georgia Museum of Art Art museum 1982
Georgia The Ralph Mark Gilbert Civil Rights Museum Official Georgia historical civil rights museum 2009
Georgia The Central of Georgia Railroad Shops Complex Official railroad museum 1996
Georgia The Southeastern Railway Museum Official state transportation history museum 2000
Hawaii [ None ]    
Idaho [ None ]    
Illinois [ None ]    
Indiana [ None ]    
Iowa [ None ]    
Kansas The Kansas firefighters museum Official state Kansas firefighters museum 2007
Kentucky [ None ]    
Louisiana Louisiana Museum of Natural History Official museum of natural history for the state of Louisiana 1999
Maine [ None ]    
Maryland [ None ]    
Massachusetts [ None ]    
Michigan [ None ]    
Minnesota [ None ]    
Mississippi The Tupelo Auto Museum, Inc. State automobile museum 2003
Mississippi The Mississippi Industrial Heritage Museum, Inc. State historical industrial museum 2003
Mississippi Mississippi Museum of Natural Science, The Fannye A. Cook Memorial, a Division of the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks Official state natural science museum 1974
Missouri [ None ]    
Montana [ None ]    
Nebraska [ None ]    
Nevada [ None ]    
New Hampshire [ None ]    
New Jersey [ None ]    
New Mexico The Anderson-Abruzzo international balloon museum Official balloon museum 2005
New York [ None ]    
North Carolina [ None ]    
North Dakota The North Dakota museum of art North Dakota art museum 1981
North Dakota The Mandan railroad museum North Dakota state railroad museum 1989
Ohio [ None ]    
Oklahoma [ None ]    
Oregon [ None ]    
Pennsylvania [ None ]    
Rhode Island [ None ]    
South Carolina The South Carolina Railroad Museum Official railroad museum of the State of South Carolina 1997
South Carolina The South Carolina Tobacco Museum Official tobacco museum of the State of South Carolina 2004
South Dakota The Museum of Wildlife, Science, and Industry Site of the official State Fishing Museum for the State of South Dakota 2004
Tennessee The Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum Official railroad museum 1978
Tennessee The Cowan Railroad Museum Official railroad museum 2007
Texas Burton Cotton Gin & Museum Official Cotton Gin Museum of Texas 2009
Texas Texas Maritime Museum Official state maritime museum 1987
Utah Ogden Union Station Utah's state railroad museum 1998
Vermont [ None ]    
Virginia To the Rescue Emergency medical services museum 1994
Virginia Wood Brothers Racing Museum and Virginia Motor Sports Hall of Fame Motor sports museum 1995
Virginia Virginia War Museum," (formerly known as the War Memorial Museum of Virginia) War memorial museum 1997
Washington [ None ]    
West Virginia [ None ]    
Wisconsin [ None ]    
Wyoming [ None ]    
Teaching History with Museums: Strategies for K-12 Social Studies
Teaching History
with Museums

Teaching History with Museums: Strategies for K-12 Social Studies, by Alan S. Marcus, Jeremy D. Stoddard, Walter W. Woodward. 200 pages. Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (December 15, 2011) Teaching History with Museums provides an introduction and overview of the rich pedagogical power of museums. In this comprehensive textbook, the authors show how museums offer a sophisticated understanding of the past and develop habits of mind in ways that are not easily duplicated in the classroom. Using engaging cases to illustrate accomplished history teaching through museum visits, this text provides pre- and in-service teachers, teacher educators, and museum educators with ideas for successful visits to artifact and display-based museums, historic forts, living history museums, memorials, monuments, and other heritage sites. Each case is constructed to be adapted and tailored in ways that will be applicable to any classroom and encourage students to think deeply about museums as historical accounts and interpretations to be examined, questioned, and discussed.
Connecting Kids to History With Museum Exhibitionse

Connecting Kids to History With Museum Exhibitions, edited by Lynn McRainey, John Russick. 334 pages. Publisher: Left Coast Press (December 10, 2008) Kids have profound and important relationships to the past, but they don't experience history in the same way as adults. For museum professionals and everyone involved in informal history education and exhibition design, this book is the essential new guide to creating meaningful and memorable connections to the past for children. This vital museum audience possesses many of the same dynamic qualities as trained historian—curiosity, inquiry, empathy for the human experience—yet traditional history exhibitions tend to focus on passive looking in the galleries, giving priority to relaying information through words. D. Lynn McRainey and John Russick bring together top museum professionals to present state-of-the-art research and practice that respects and incorporates kids' developmental stages and learning preferences and the specific ways in which kids connect to history. They provide concrete tools for audience research and evaluation; exhibition development and design; and working with kids as "creative consultants." The only book to focus comprehensively on history exhibits for kids, Connecting Kids to History With Museum Exhibitions shows how to enhance the experiences of a vitally important but frequently the least understood museum audience.