Tag: museum

A Place for All People – Opening Celebration!

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Davenport Public Library, Saint Ambrose University, and the Davenport Civil Rights Commission Celebrate Opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture with Smithsonian Poster Exhibition and Russell Lovell’s “Iowa: Bright Radical Star”

On Sept. 24, 2016 the Smithsonian Institution opened its newest museum, the National Museum of African American History and Culture. The celebration will reach beyond Washington, D.C. to Davenport as the Davenport Public Library, in partnership with Saint Ambrose University and the Davenport Civil Rights Commission presents “A Place for All People: Introducing the National Museum of African American History and Culture.” The commemorative poster exhibition will be on view January 18, 2017 through March 4th, 2017 at the Davenport Public Library – Main Library, located at 321 Main Street.

Organized by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) in collaboration with the National Museum of African American History and Culture, “A Place for All People” highlights key artifacts that tell the rich and diverse story of the African American experience.

The Davenport Public Library will be hosting a series of events at the library centering around this display on January 18th, February 4th, February 16th, and May 4th. Please stay tuned for more information about times and locations for the other events!

The opening celebration will be held on Wednesday, January 18th at 6:30 pm at the Davenport Public Library – Main Library. This event will feature Professor Emeritus Russell Lovell from Drake Law School presenting “Iowa: Bright Radical Star”, an exploration of Iowa’s trailblazing role in expanding and protecting civil rights beginning in 1893 with Iowa’s rejection of the Fugitive Slave Act. There will be light refreshments and a drawing for 3 books.

Also on display at the Main Library will be the Putnam Museum’s exhibit “Davenport’s Civil Rights Movement: 1945-1974”. The exhibit explores the people and events of those tumultuous years by putting local efforts in the national context. Following World War II, local residents, such as Charles and Ann Toney and the Catholic Interracial Council, worked several fronts to bring equality and fair treatment to all Quad Citians. This display incorporates photographs, documents and biographies about local Civil Rights leaders.

We’ll be giving away three books at each event: “How to Build a Museum: Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture”, “National Museum of African American History and Culture: A Souvenir Book”, and “Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race”.

 

QC Museum Week is June 18-26

- Stephanie Leave a comment

qcmuseumweekQC Museum Week is quickly approaching! Have you started planning what museums you’re going to visit? Do you have your favorites picked out. QC Museum Week runs June 18-26th this year. This event is put on by the Quad Cities Convention & Visitors Bureau, as well as local museums.

This year’s theme is Quad Cities mysteries! Be sure to stop in to one of our many local museums to enjoy exhibits, events, special admissions, and learn more about some Quad City mysteries.

Visit the QC Museum Week website to learn more about the offers that each museum is running. You will also find the websites and contact information for each museum!

(Some of the museums are also participating in the Quad Cities Museum Geocache! Geocaching is a treasure hunt where participants are given a specific latitude and longitude that they have to travel to in order to find the treasure. )

Participating Museums

  • Afro-American Heritage Center
  • Augustana’s Fryxell Geology Museum
  • Augustana Teaching Museum of Art
  • Buffalo Bill Museum
  • Buffalo Bill Cody Homestead
  • Butterworth Center & Deere Wiman Houses
  • Catich & Morrissey Galleries
  • Colonel Davenport House
  • Dan Nagle Walnut Grove Pioneer Village
  • Davenport School Museum
  • Family Museum
  • Figge ARt Museum
  • German American Heritage Center
  • Hauberg Center – Historical Tulip Mansion
  • Hauberg Indian Museum
  • Iowa 80 Trucking Museum
  • Karpeles Manuscript Museum
  • Palmer Family and Chiropractic History Museum
  • Pine Creek Grist Mill
  • Putnam Museum & Science Center
  • Rock Island Arsenal Museum
  • Rock Island County Historical Society

The Objects of Her Affection by Sonya Cobb

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the objects of her affectionHow far would you be willing to go to keep your family together? To get your dream house? To provide a life for your children that you never had? Would you hunt for your dream job? Would you steal? Would you jeopardize your own future to make sure your children have whatever they want? All of these are questions that Sophie Potter has to deal with in Sonya Cobb’s new novel, The Objects of Her Affection.

In The Objects of Her Affection, Sophie finds herself home alone with two young children, wanting to give them the house and the childhood that she never had growing up. She bounced from apartment to apartment as a child, moving when her mother found new work. After her father figure died, her mother skipped town, leaving Sophie to fend for herself.

With her husband ensconced and buried within his work as a museum curator at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and with her own career at a standstill after the birth of their two children, Sophie finds herself floundering for support and yet in charge of all the bills and the family’s well-being. After she finds her dream house and convinces her husband of its potential worth, he leaves her in charge of figuring out the whole mortgage and loan business. After signing up for what she believes to be the best offer, Sophie soon realizes that that deal was too good to be true after notices and bills keep showing up at her door, she actually can’t afford the mortgage payment each month, and the business can’t track down who actually owns her loan.

Frustrated, she visits her husband at work to tell him about the mess she’s in and accidentally slips a piece of museum property in her purse. Not wanting to get him into trouble, she decides to sell the piece. Shocked at the amount of money she gets, Sophie sees that she can afford to keep up on all of the bills using that money without having to tell her husband about the mess she has put them in. Sneaking more objects out of her husband’s office gives her a thrill and a sense of satisfaction that she has been missing since the birth of her children, but once the museum realizes pieces are missing and the FBI comes to interview everyone, Sophie is forced to make a choice between telling the truth and keeping her dream afloat by stealing yet another museum piece. The Objects of Her Affection gives readers an up-close look at the lengths people will go through to keep their families together, just how dangerous keeping secrets can be, and how giving up is never an option.