New Exhibit Opening | October 27, 2018 CSPM is thrilled to unveil A Home of One’s Own: the Life of Helen Hunt Jackson on Saturday, October 27. Years in the making, the new exhibit will allow visitors to deeply engage with Jackson’s extensive literary legacy and her pivotal advocacy on behalf of American Indians while understanding the role that Colorado Springs played in shaping both her career and personal life. And for the first time, we will be sharing extensive interpretation of the descendants of the Jackson Family and their important contributions to our regional and national history. Helen Hunt Jackson, ca. 1875 CSPM Collection. There were several motivating factors to reimagine/reinvent our interpretation of the Helen Hunt Jackson home. After observing museum guests examining the home and its contents, we realized most visitors believe the house is a facsimile or model, rather than the real thing and few left the exhibit area understanding why Helen Hunt Jackson is a an important figure in American History. Additionally, Jackson Family descendants continue to generously donate artifacts to our collection and we are proud to share them with the public. Finally, as scholars reassess Helen Hunt Jackson’s literary career and advocacy work, we can use new ways of thinking to connect visitors with her legacy. Of note, the three rooms of the HHJ home permanently installed on the museum’s third floor will not be changing, but the interpretive space around them will. However, during the exhibit construction process, CSPM collections staff took the opportunity to clean, catalog and photograph the thousands of objects and books inside the home. We have also worked to ensure the ongoing preservation of the structure and its Helen Hunt Jackson & unidentified friend. CSPM Collection. MUSELETTER OCTOBER 2018| PG 2
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