The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture will bring its free Hometown Treasures program to Montgomery County’s historic Scotland community on Friday, September 18, and Saturday, September 19, offering families guidance on preserving photographs, quilts, letters and other meaningful belongings.
Presented in collaboration with Glenstone Museum and Juneteenth Scotland Foundation, the event will take place at the Bette Carol Thompson Scotland Neighborhood Recreation Center, located at 7700 Scotland Drive in Potomac. Hours are noon-7pm Friday and 11am-5pm Saturday.
Community members may bring up to three family treasures for a one-on-one Professional Review with preservation specialists. Participants will learn more about their objects and receive practical advice on caring for them. Items may include photographs, books, uniforms, military memorabilia, family records, textiles and other keepsakes. Advance registration is required for the reviews, which provide preservation guidance rather than monetary appraisals.
A free Community Expo will also be open to visitors without registration or an appointment. Activities will include do-it-yourself preservation workshops, art and quilting demonstrations, oral history demonstrations, hands-on activities for all ages and opportunities to connect with local cultural and historical organizations.
“Preservation shouldn’t feel like something that only happens behind the walls of a museum,” said Reneé S. Anderson, head of collections at NMAAHC. “Families can take meaningful steps at home to protect documents, textiles and other objects that matter to them.”
Scotland was settled by formerly enslaved people in the decades after the Civil War and is one of Montgomery County’s earliest African American communities. Organizers say the program offers an opportunity for families to consider both how to protect their belongings and how to pass along the stories connected to them.
Hometown Treasures is the traveling program of the museum’s Save Our African American Treasures initiative, which has brought preservation specialists into communities nationwide since 2008. The upcoming event marks its first visit to the Washington, D.C., suburbs.
Registration and additional information are available on the museum’s website. The program takes place in Potomac, not at the museum in Washington, D.C.
