Hannah Hethmon's Blog

He’s the master of macabre and mystery, the man who created mystery fiction, the face on the socks and beer bottles of everyday Baltimoreans. He’s Edgar Allan Poe, and he belongs to Baltimore. Join me on a visit to the Poe House in Baltimore, the tiny house where his career began, to learn about Baltimore’s devotion to Poe, his tragic life, and the future of his legacy in the city where he died mysteriously. 

This episode is sponsored by Grove Hist...

So much of Maryland was built on the back of enslaved Africans, yet it’s easy to avoid confronting the history of slavery in Maryland’s former plantation country. Historic Sotterley is trying to change that. The plantation was built in 1703 by a man who made his money off the slave trade, and the site was witness to 165 continuous years of slavery. Today, staff and descendants at Sotterley are committed to sharing the site’s whole history and healing the legacy of trauma left by the violence...

About half of all museums in the US are in small towns in rural America. Each of these museums holds stories and objects that are worth preserving and sharing, but they don’t always have the funding and infrastructure they need to operate and innovate. That’s where Museum on Main Street comes in. This Smithsonian program brings traveling exhibits to small towns for six weeks at a time. But the exhi...

“Podcast advertising is set to double over the next three years…” (Warc)

“…repeat advertiser business shows they are working, which is why the big podcast advertisers keep coming back.” (National Post)

“…podcast ads are moving beyond the experimental phase to becoming a line item on marketing budgets as brands of varying sizes track KPIs.” (Mobile Marketer)

Keeping our finger on the pulse of the advertising industry and trends in media buys is not typically high on the to-do list for museums,...

What do Baltimore, Russian Jews, the third oldest synagogue in America, Eastern European Catholics, seances, and Harry Houdini have in common? You’ll find out in this episode, a visit to the Jewish Museum of Maryland, an institution that prioritizes storytelling (and is pretty good at it). Join me for a tour of the historic Lloyd Street Synagogue, a journey back in history to the heyday of the Jewish market on Baltimore’s East Lombard Street, and a celebration of the life of Harry Houdini, t...

Episode Description: Located in a waterfront 1860s oyster cannery in the Baltimore Harbor, The Baltimore Museum of Industry is trying to inspire and engage their visitors around the concept of work by telling the stories of historical workers. But in order to better fulfill this mission, the museum has to be constantly re-evaluating themselves and their assumptions about work. In this episode, I talk to staffers Beth Maloney and Auni Gelles about how an experimental interactive and a new job...

The Sandy Spring Museum describes itself as “community-activated.” They want to be a secular gathering places, where people of different backgrounds can come together and build a sense of place and belonging. I visit the museum to speak with Executive Director Allison Weiss about the museum’s radically community-driven programming, the Quaker principles built into the museum’s design, and how they are trying to serve a community of incredible diversity.

Music in this episode is by Los Hijo...

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In the early 17th century, 300 English settlers traveled to the new colony of Maryland in search of new opportunities and a place where they could practice their Catholic faith in peace. They built Maryland’s first capital, St. Mary’s City, and their city thrived…until its founders fell from power in England. Soon, St. Mary’s City was abandoned and it’s wooden structures rotted. The city lay hidden under farm fields and forests until archeological efforts led to the formation of Historic St....

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Frustrated by traditional publishing in our field? Eager to get your timely book on the field published while the content is still relevant? Sick of minuscule royalties and low sales? Want to take control of the publishing process and actually make money on your books?

When I wrote my book on podcasting for our field, Your Museum Needs a Podcast, all these questions applied to me, and I wanted my book to be affordable for anyone working in a museums, history organization, or cultural nonprof...

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There’s a time machine in downtown Baltimore on Holliday Street. A time machine that will take you back to the origin of public collections of art, history, and science…and then zip you through the present and into the future of museums. The Peale Center, the oldest purpose-built museum space in the US, is starting its third century as a building and its third life as a museum after decades of sitting vacant. But history isn’t repeating itself here. Executive Director Nancy Proctor wants it...