Wilmette History Museum
L&J: What are some of the current or recent exhibits you’re most excited about? Rachel: In May we opened our exhibit, The Ouilmettes: A Retelling. We’re very excited about this exhibit in our first floor gallery space because it is the first full-scale exhibit about the Ouilmette family in our museum. Wilmette, of course, is named after the Ouilmettes. This exhibit looks more deeply at Archange and Antoine Ouilmette, their eight children, and their descendants. We’ve also just opened Good Sports: Wilmette Women Gear Up in our lower level. This is a costume exhibit, featuring garments worn by Wilmette women athletes. It’s a very fun and colorful show. Rachel: Our museum functions very well with support from the Wilmette Historical Society and the Village of Wilmette. These two entities focus on different aspects (for example, the Village of Wilmette helps us by maintaining our historic building, while the WHS helps to fundraise for our programming and exhibits). We’re able to have an excellent professional staff, which is so important in the museum world.
Rachel: The Wilmette Historical Society was founded in the 1960s to support the Wilmette History Museum, which had been housed in the basement of Village Hall. The Museum moved around a bit for some time, before ending up our current building in the 1990s. The museum is jointly operated by the Wilmette Historical Society and the Village of Wilmette. L&J: What do you see as the core mission of the WHS, and how has that mission evolved over the years? Rachel: Our mission is to explore, preserve, and share the history of Wilmette. How we share the history has evolved recently. Nowadays we are focused on going out into the community more, dedicating more time to an online presence so that people can interact with us from anywhere, and finding new ways to spark an interest in history. We’re especially excited to build more interactive and tactile elements into our exhibits, as well as to explore ecological history, science and technology. L&J: Why do you feel it’s important for Wilmette to have a historical society and museum? L&J: Can you share a brief history of the Wilmette Historical Society—how it came about and what inspired its founding?
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