Oklahoma History Center, Oklahoma City

The Oklahoma History Center, opened in 2005, is a beautiful, still sparkling-new museum. State museums generally have a lot of ground to cover, and have to face the challenges of what to include and how to organize and display the wide range of available material.  Exhibits here range from the very popular "Another Hot Oklahoma Night: A Rock & Roll Exhibit" to exhibits on Oklahoma cartoonists, Native American tribes, kitchens, and aeronautics.


It's really a full-day experience, or perhaps a 2 half-day project.  For tourists trying to see everything in one several-hour visit, the range can be overwhelming.  I could have spent an entire visit in the arts and entertainment section, which started with the guitar display at the entrance and led to a full room on the rock/country exhibit "Another Hot Oklahoma Night," with a huge range of Oklahoma-based acts, including instruments, costumes, posters, and a section set up to look like a 70's college dorm room.  Life sized posters outside featured Woody Guthrie, Charlie Christian, and Bob Wills, and one of the first acts featured inside is Wanda Jackson,  reflecting the local Oklahoma influence on popular music. Newer music makes an appearance as well--The Flaming Lips are one of the modern bands with a presence here.


Broader cultural exhibits include an extensive walk-through the century section, with fashions and fads from the 20th century (I had forgotten all about the new-fangled Trimline phones of the 70s!) and samples of kitchen decor and appliances in bygone years.

A replica of the Winnie May highlights the aeronautics section, and provides a stunning foreground for a shot of the Oklahoma State Capitol.  There is also a cute little cafe here decorated with old-fashioned luggage--another memory trigger.  See if you can find the classic Samsonite design your parents took on their honeymoon!

Extensive historical exhibits on Oklahoma politics, African-Americans in Oklahoma, and Native American tribes could take several hours to absorb on their own.  And, like many other state museums, the History Center has exhibits on prominent native citizens in the military.  If you're traveling, then, you might want to consider either choosing an area and focusing your time (perhaps on one of the subjects you can't find in other museums) or allotting  a couple of 2-3 hour visits.  Give yourself time to look around outside as well; the exhibits continue with a scaled Red River path outside,and models of working oil derricks, reflecting the influence of the oil industry in Oklahoma's history.


The gift shop is definitely worth a look as well--a large selection of original, location-specific t-shirts, lots of children's gifts.

From the website:

Oklahoma History Center                                      Museum Hours             
800 Nazih Zuhdi Drive                                               Monday - Saturday 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Oklahoma City, OK 73105                                         Closed: Sundays, New Year’s Day, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day
405-522-0765

Admission
Adults: $7
Seniors ( 62+): $5
Students: $4
Children (5 & Under): Free
Family: $18.00
Veterans and Active Duty Military: Free            OHS Members: Free
Group Rate (10+): $5 per person
Discounts for OMA, AAM, Time Travelers network, Smithsonian Institute and Affiliate Members

Old State House Museum, Little Rock

The Old State House Museum occupies the former State House for Arkansas.  The use of an historical building (as opposed to the new, modern buildings created for other state history museums, such as North Carolina's and Oklahoma's) offers some advantages.  To begin with, the site is beautiful.  Visitors can admire the historical building itself, rather than relying on pictures or models.  There is also a certain privilege involved in sitting in and occupying the rooms where history happened.   Of course, there are some trade-offs.  Rooms have to be re-imagined from their original purpose to accommodate displays and lines of visitor traffic.  Rather than the stunning, open great room that newer museums have as an entrance, the Arkansas History Museum has a hallway followed by the admission desk.

Once inside, the museum has the more intimate feeling that one would expect from a well-used historical building.  Exhibits spread across several rooms explore the history of the State House itself, and the dedicated women who protected and preserved it.  At one point, the building housed a medical school, and artifacts and photographs highlight the use of the building and the state of medicine during its use in that capacity. Another room features memorabilia from Bill Clinton's years as governor and from his campaign for the presidency. Visitors can also view--and sit in--the room used by state legislatures in earlier years.

The museum also explores the state's ambiguous reputation.  A permanent exhibit titled "Arkansas/Arkinsaw: A State and its Reputation" takes an interesting look, as their website notes, at  "the early development of a dual image, with Arkansawyers being portrayed as coarse, illiterate, and violent backwoodsmen on one hand, while also lifted up as noble frontiersmen – independent, honest, and humble."  Cartoons, quotations, and artifacts--such as Grandpa Jones' banjo--explore, explain, and question the image of the Ozark Hillbilly.  I found this the most interesting part of the museum, since it looked at this material with a sense of humor even as it considered the perhaps more serious implications of the hillbilly stereotype.

Information from museum website:

Admission is FREE
Open 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday-Saturday; 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. on Sunday;
Closed Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas, & New Years Day

Location & Directions
The museum is located at 300 W. Markham, situated between the DoubleTree and Peabody Hotels.