Paul Szmal: And welcome back to FLX Morning, it is 8.15, and we'd like to welcome in via Zoom, Katie Grindstaff joining us from the Seward House Museum, Katie good morning, how are you this morning?
Katie Grindstaff: Well I'm great, how are you?
Paul Szmal: Doing well, doing very well, and I know you've started to gear up for what is going to be a busy time of year at the Seward House, but before we get to some of the upcoming events I wanted to kind of pick your brain a little bit about Finger Lakes History Day and how the Seward House is involved with that.
Katie Grindstaff: Yes, so Finger Lakes History Day is a program that we are restarting up after a few years of not participating in this, and it is kind of a subset of a larger national competition called National History Day, which is a competition for children or students in grades 6 through 12, where they research historical subjects based on an annual theme, and then they do this for about a year, collect all their research, go to libraries, museums, get all their primary and secondary sources, and then they create a project, it could be a performance, a documentary, a website, an exhibit, and then they compete, and this breaks down into every state, and then every state breaks down into every region. So Finger Lakes region is of course ours, and it comprises five different counties here in central New York, and the Seward House is the coordinator, we are the coordinators for this regional contest, and we are so, so, so excited to be participating. Actually our region was the only one that was not participating actively in the entire state of New York until this year, with students participating. So we are hosting our competition on March 15th, we've got a couple of schools participating, including Auburn High School, so we are very excited for that.
Paul Szmal: So when the schools come to the Seward House Museum, what will the students be doing when they get there?
Katie Grindstaff: Yeah, so we're actually going to be holding the competition not at the Seward House, but at the PERC, so the Presbyterian Event and Retreat Center, or the Case Mansion, here in town, since they have a little bit more room, and the students will be bringing their projects in, they all have to write a paper on an abstract of their project, they have to talk about their process, they show their project, which lasts about ten minutes, and then they have five to ten minutes to be interviewed by judges, who are different local historians, academics, museum professionals, who will be coming in and judging all of these projects.
Paul Szmal: Wow, this sounds like this is going to be pretty interesting.
Katie Grindstaff: Yeah, yeah, we're really excited about it, it's a fantastic opportunity for the students, a great opportunity to put on their college applications, and we hope it can grow over the years.
Paul Szmal: We're talking with Katie Grindstaff from the Seward House Museum here on FLX Morning. When is the season opening date for the Seward House Museum?
Katie Grindstaff: Yeah, so our season is going to begin officially on March 4th, so that is a Tuesday, we'll be open at 10am in the morning, and we will be open for the rest of the year, until December Tuesdays through Saturdays, 10-5, having tours run on the hour, just like last year. So we're super excited, we've been shut down to the public throughout January and February, getting all of our programming organized, working on our strategic plan, writing grants, things like that, so we're super excited to have people in the house again, very soon.
Paul Szmal: Now, if people are unfamiliar with the Seward House, or they've never been before, what can you tell people about the experience of coming to the museum, Katie?
Katie Grindstaff: Yeah, so the Seward House Museum is a historic house, our house was built in 1816, and it is most famously home to the famous Seward family, who would have consisted of William Henry Seward, and his wife Frances Seward, and their children, it was actually Frances's family's home, originally her father built it, Elijah Miller, and William Henry Seward is famous for, of course, Seward's Folly, or the Purchase of Alaska for the United States, he also was Governor of New York, he was a U.S. Senator, he was Secretary of State under President Lincoln and Johnson in the 1860s, and this family, they were also anti-slavery, this house was a stop on the Underground Railroad, and they, or Frances mainly also supported the Women's Rights Movement, so we have a lot of really, really amazing and relevant history to talk about, so people can come, they can take field trips here, people can come just on their own or with their friends and family, take tours, we have hour-long tours run on the hour, where you get to see the entire space, everything is set up like you are stepping into, perhaps, the year 1850, it looks like the Seward family has just left, from the way everything is decorated, and we've got a fantastically original collection, so almost everything in the house was actually used by the family.
Paul Szmal: So with the season opener in March, I'm sure there are some activities that are planned for the spring months, what can you tell us about those?
Katie Grindstaff: Yeah, so we are just finishing developing our spring calendar, and for March, we have our first Friday event, of course, which will also fall on the Brave Brews weekend, so just like almost every other month, we will be open on that first Friday, we will have a few rooms open to the public for free from 5 to 7, that is going to be on March 7th, we are also going to be participating programmatically in the Brave Brews weekend, so that next day, Saturday, March 8th, we're going to be offering a couple different sets of our Real Housewives of Cuyahoga County specialty tours, which is something we usually only offer once a year, and these are hour and a half long tours that basically, they tell stories of shock and intrigue and scandal from the archives of the University of Rochester, the Seward papers, basically we talk about gossip, intrigue, and tales of bad behavior, and stories you wouldn't normally hear about the history of families here in Cuyahoga County, and these tours will be happening at 10 o'clock, at noon, and at 2 o'clock, so there's three opportunities, and if you reserve a ticket, you will also receive a complimentary drink token for Lunkenheimer Craft Brewing Company, so that is another really cool perk that we're excited about.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, those sound like some pretty fun activities at the Seward House Museum, if people want to find out more about these upcoming events, where can they go to check you out online?
Katie Grindstaff: Yeah, so you can go to SewardHouse.org, and you can book all of the tours, or just see what our collections are, see what our education resources opportunities are, through that website, and all of those tours and events that we will be hosting will be accessible through Eventbrite.
Paul Szmal: All right, wonderful, thank you so much for updating us, Katie, much appreciated.
Katie Grindstaff: Yeah, thank you for having me on the show.
Paul Szmal: All right, it is 824 on FLX Morning.
