Try On History Fund Drive
We did it!
Yes, together we filled the hat to the brim and met the $1,500 financial goal for the Try On History Drive 2018. The drive, started in September 2018, was stuck at 88% until the December 2018 newsletter went out with a final push. Long-time Heritage Associate FRIEND and former board member Virginia Meyer saw the article and called in to see just how much more was left to raise. When told, she immediately said, “The check is in the mail!” Hats off to Virginia.

More than a financial goal to meet, the 2018 Try On History Drive was an effort to add three early 20th century representational costumes to the museum’s growing costume closet. The outfits typifying the 1910-1915 era can be used by museum educators for interpretation programs about the “life and times” of the 1910 Jail when it reopens with exhibitions installed. They can also be used for future programming about the Magic Valley era.
Costumes are more than just fun. In the hands of a museum educator, they become teaching tools that attract audiences and spark the imagination to see the past. By comparing and contrasting the past to the present, the audience engages in critical thinking, an important skill not just when learning from history, but also for countless applications in life.
EXPANDING THE MUSEUM REPRODUCTION CLOTHING COLLECTION
Jennifer Saxton, head of theater production at UTRGV, has long supported the museum by volunteering at Summer Nights at the Museum. With the Try On History program, she is also enlisting her students. Her class of beginning sewers created an entire set of historically-accurate bonnets for the museum, based on joint research by Saxton and Curator of Collections Lisa Adam. Numerous visitors have tried on the bonnets, even posing against a green screen to be inserted in a historical image from the museum’s archives. Saxton noted that the bonnets were an ideal project for her students to see every aspect of costuming, from research and pattern drafting to fabrication.
In partnership, a Sit & Sew was organized for anyone who likes to sew by René Ballesteros, the Programs & Events Officer at MOSTHistory. The project was a lady’s pocket. In colonial times, pockets were tied around the waist, not attached to or incorporated into the fabrication of a skirt. These pockets will be used by museum educators and visitors as part of MOSTHistory’s Try On History program.
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Try On History Fund Drive
Be fashionably generous. Make a donation.

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