User:Lonnac/sandbox

Midway Village Museum, established in 1968 by the Swedish, Harlem and Rockford Historical Societies, is a 148 acre outdoor history museum located in Rockford, Illinois. Museum facilities include a Victorian Village and Main Museum Center. It offers tours, history-themed educational programs, historical reenactments and other special events, as well as facility rentals.

Victorian Village
The Victorian Village is comprised of 26 historical buildings with artifacts that depict life in northern Illinois from 1890 to 1910. Buildings in the village include a General Store, Bank, Barber Shop, Church, Hotel, and one-room School House. There are also 19th century gardens with period flowers and other botanicals, including an historic Preservation Garden with rare Irises dating from the 1500s to 1910. The Victorian Village is open from spring to late fall and offers tours with history interpreters who guide visitors through the Victorian Village.

Main Museum Center
The Main Museum Center was opened to the public in 1974 and now encompasses 20,000 sqft of interactive exhibits related to many aspects of life in early northern Illinois, as well as Rockford’s development and economic impact in the early 20th Century. It is open year around and offers self-guided tours. Exhibit galleries focus on early Rockford history including the iconic Sock Monkey sewn using red-heel socks manufactured by Nelson Knitting Company in Rockford, Illinois, the Rockford Peaches women's professional baseball team who played from 1943 through 1954 in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, examples of early agricultural and furniture manufacturing, Colonel Bert Hassell’s 1928 SMI Stinson-Detroiter Airplane and female aviator Bessie Raiche. Midway's “Many Faces, One Community” gallery highlights immigration to Rockford and Northern Illinois by Swedish, Italian, Irish, and other immigrants.

Educational programs
The Midway Village Museum educational department offers a range of history-themed educational programs that meet certain Illinois State Standards for K-12 education. These educational programs include:


 * Field Trips
 * Historical Reenactment Days
 * Outreach Trunks
 * Third Grade Interactive Local History Program
 * Rockford Focused Lesson Plans

Digital archives
The Midway Village Museum collections department provides online access to some of its most frequently requested photographs, postcards and documents. From 2017 to 2020 support from the Community Foundation of Northern Illinois and the Illinois State Historical Records Board allowed Midway Village Museum to digitize 5,000 historic images and documents, which are now available online. Items archived include:


 * Postcards and photographs of central Rockford, Camp Grant, and local landmarks and businesses
 * Photographs of community activities
 * Letters home from Rockford boys fighting in the Civil War
 * Transcripts from interviews done in 2007 with immigrants to Rockford and their children