Clarke House Museum, Chicago’s Oldest Surviving Building, Hosts Family Day, October 13
2012-09-20 — /travelprnews.com/ — A trip to 1850s Chicago is as easy as visiting the Prairie Avenue Historic District where Chicago’s landmark house museum, the Clarke House Museum, hosts the free admission Family Day, Saturday, October 13, 9 a.m. – 3 p.m., one of the featured events of the Chicago Architecture Foundation’s Open House Chicago (www.openhousechicago.org). All family day activities take place on the grounds in the Chicago Women’s Park and Gardens, 1827 S. Indiana in Chicago.
Learning history is fun at The Clarke House Museum’s Family Day where historic interpreters will demonstrate processes used during the 1850s including food preservation, period laundry techniques, butter-making, child-care, textile-working, and other everyday activities engaged in by families in the years prior to the American Civil War. Special kids’ activity stations include a simulation milking cow, candle-dipping, and constructing period political rosettes.
Free abbreviated tours of Clarke House Museum will depart throughout the day from the east portico, fronting Indiana Avenue, leaving every fifteen minutes. The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America in the State of Illinois is responsible for refurbishing Clarke House and they continue to support the collection and programs of the museum. (Please note these tours will be suspended during the hours of 12-1pm and 2pm-3pm to accommodate the museum’s regular tour schedule.)
Additionally, musical entertainment will also invoke the past as Tin Cremona performs a 45 minute concert of antebellum-era songs on the west portico starting at 2:15 p.m. Plus you can take a part of the experience home as the Clarke House Museum store features reproduction toys and household items, books, note cards and other special items.
Clarke House is celebrated as an excellent example of Greek Revival style architecture in the Midwest and was built 175 years ago in 1836 for Henry Brown Clarke and his wife Caroline Palmer Clarke. The Clarkes moved from New York in 1835 with their family to a new home and a new city on the prairie. Over the years, the house has survived fires, belonged to a church and was moved twice. Clarke House is now located in the Chicago Women’s Park & Gardens in the Prairie Avenue Historic District, close to its original site and is open to the public as a museum.
The second annual Family Day at Clarke House Museum, Saturday, October 13, is presented by the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. For more information, call 312.744.3316 or visit www.cityofchicago.org/dcase.
The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America, founded in 1891, is an unincorporated association of 45 Corporate Societies with over 15,000 members headquartered at Dumbarton House, a federal period house museum in Washington, D.C. The Illinois Society (NSCDA-IL), chartered 1895, is headquartered at the Fortnightly in Chicago. The NSCDA-IL has supported Clarke House as its chosen museum property since the early 1970s through a partnership with the City of Chicago. The NSCDA-IL authentically furnishes Clarke House to the period 1853-60 with artifacts from its collection and is currently sponsoring renovations at the museum. For more information, visit www.dames-il.org.
Cindy Gatziolis 312.744.0573 cgatziolis@cityofchicago.org
Becky Young LaBarre 312.326.1480 rebeccajyoung@sbcglobal.net