Winter Gardening and the Forced Bloom: Bulb Trays and Flower Pots By Edward McWilliams, HCA Curator of Exhibits & C.A.R.E. Team Manager In our previous article from the Historical Hobbyist, we discussed the seasonal pastime of forcing bulbs to bloom in the winter. Of the four containers that this technique involves, we covered Bulb Jars […]

Winter Gardening and the Forced Bloom: Bulb Jars and Flower Bricks By Edward McWilliams, HCA Curator of Exhibits & C.A.R.E. Team Manager When you mention the month “October,” do you think pumpkins, gourds, and scarecrows? I think spring flowers blooming in winter! Yes, October is the time to start bulbs indoors for wintertime blooms. Imagine […]

  It’s the HCA Blog Premier of “Animating Delaware History!” We’ve been doing some work with our Delaware State Seal exhibit at The Old State House and our resident animator, Bradley Dotson, came up with a creative twist to the story behind the Seal:   Of course, this isn’t really how our State Seal came […]

Buena Vista Conference Center, a set on Flickr. The Buena Vista campus was just too beautiful to keep to ourselves last week. We thought we’d spread some of the love for those of you who won’t make it out to see it before summer’s end. Enjoy! Are there any other historic sites in bloom right […]

We were saddened to learn this morning of the passing of beloved Delaware artist, Jack Lewis. With a career spanning the course of nearly a century, Mr. Lewis created a prolific body of work that captured and brought out the beauty in Delaware and Delawareans alike. The State of Delaware is fortunate to have more […]

By: Alice Guerrant The staff of the Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs has finished the first complete draft of the statewide historic preservation plan for 2013-2018. We’ve kept it as short as possible, while making sure the necessary background is included. Help us make the plan better! Click here to download a copy of […]

By Chuck Fithian, HCA Curator of Archaeology While the fighting was occurring in America, peace negotiations had been taking place in Russia, and later in Belgium. One of Delaware’s senators, James A. Bayard, would be one of the American commissioners who helped negotiate the Treaty of Ghent, which was signed on December 24, 1814 ending […]

As the Olympic Games come to a close across the pond, our thematic sampler from the state’s collections must also come to an end… but we will keep up the guessing game from yesterday as we present you with one of Delaware’s gold historical treasures:   What do you think this treasure could be?

We continue to celebrate the Summer Olympics in London by highlighting something silver from the state’s collections of historic objects… We thought it might by fun to let you figure out what this one is… It was made by Bancroft Woodcock. Here is a close-up of his maker’s mark: So what do you think? An […]

While there aren’t any Olympic medals in the state’s collections of historic objects, we care for metal items of all kinds. We thought it might be fun to join in the Olympic spirit by highlighting some random bronze, silver, and gold objects as we round out the last three days of the games. First (or […]