On Saturday July 15, the Santa Monica History Museum will host a celebration in honor of the City’s 142nd Anniversary.
For this special event, the museum is offering 50 cent admission for student, adults, and seniors as well as a limited time offer of a reduced membership cost at just $18.75 during the month of July. Veterans and children ages 12 and under are free.
Among the various displays, the Museum will offer free monthly educational programs, the Hands on History program and Discovery the History which will be centered around early Santa Monica history.
The Hands on History program will be taking place from 11a.m.-12 p.m. and Discover the History will be taking place from 3:30 p.m.- 5 p.m.
Museum officials said the birthday celebration goes beyond the typical events held by the museum because it is more about giving back and bringing the community together.
The program focuses on teaching young children ages 5-11 and providing them a setting with interactive elements to reinforce what they just learned.
Museum Manager Ashley Jackson said there are also activities aimed at adults but the entire day is a family-friendly event.
“Discover the history is a lecture series and we get more reception from adults in that one but it's a family friendly lecture where we focus on an interesting topic about Santa Monica history and we have a presenter that's typically a docent or a local historian, somebody who knows a lot about the subject will come in and talk for probably around 40 or so minutes and then there will be questions from the audience,” she said. “We often serve refreshments and just kind of engage with the community.”
Aside from the monthly educational programs, the museum features its five unique “pocket galleries” or permanent collections year-round that are always on display. Some of these collections include exhibits on the Douglas Aircraft Company, The Outlook Newspaper and others that dig deeper into Santa Monica's history. They also offer a rotating summer exhibit which will remain available until September 30.
This year, the summer exhibit is focused on the history of the KCRW radio station and is called 70 Years on the Air: KCRW is new as ever. Many of the artifacts on hand are donated by collectors, Santa Monica families or inherited by working with the subject of the exhibit.
Ultimately, the museum wants to provide a fun way for community members to become more knowledgeable on the city
“So It's our hope, or at least my hope that people kind of come away with this newfound interest in Santa Monica,” said Jackson. “I think that Santa Monica does have a very interesting history and I think that a lot of it is just kind of unknown to people they, don't really know where things in Santa Monica come from or how they got started and it is actually really fascinating once you get into it. Beyond that, I think we would really love it if we kind of got people more interested in their community and kind of got more of them more interested in being active participants in their community whether that meant volunteering somewhere or things like that,”
Santa Monica History Museum is located at 1350 7th St. Regular opening hours are Tuesday/Thursday 12 – 8 p.m. and Wednesday/Friday/Saturday 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. Visit www.santamonicahistory.org for more information.
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