Sam Houston Memorial Museum Blog

A Business Model Shift
Mikey Sproat, Curator of Collections

Indiana. Washington state. Brownsville, Texas. The updated Sam Houston Memorial Museum website has been active now for several months, and has included, more specifically, the new “Collections” tab which places information and images about objects and documents from the museum’s collection online. Since then, we have received inquiries from across the country about artifacts and archives in the collection. Requests have come from interested parents helping their kids search for school project ideas this spring, academics affiliated with higher education conducting summer scholarship, independent researchers, and history enthusiasts looking for new (old) topics.

          Remember the renowned closet of curiosities from a couple centuries ago? The 20^th century model of museums once displayed all their artifacts, and people used to walk through the front door to learn about their contents. This business model changed when the world shut down due to a global pandemic in the spring of 2020. The Sam Houston Memorial Museum is back open, ready to serve its audience in a safe, healthy, and fun way. However, our business model has shifted to include this online showcase of artifacts as well. This blending of in-person experience and online option will not go away but will augment your involvement with our museum. In fact, much of our collection has ‘holes’ in the information, like unknown donors, or un-transcribed Sam Houston letters. You could help us by filling in the blanks for any of the objects in our collection or donating to the digitization project for this online collection project. Want to learn more? Type a keyword into the search option on the “Collections” tab at the Sam Houston Memorial Museum website, or better yet, stop by in-person to visit and learn more about our hero Sam Houston, and what honor means to you.