About the Author

Barbara Franco has extensive experience in public history as a museum director, curator, and exhibition developer, including assistant director for Museums at the Minnesota Historical Society, executive director of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, and founding director of the Gettysburg Seminary Ridge Museum. She has written numerous articles on museum practice and historical interpretation, and currently works as an independent scholar and museum consultant. She serves as president of the Advent Historical Society, preserving and interpreting a historic 1849 Millerite chapel in Centre County, Pennsylvania.

Her broad interest in the social, cultural, and intellectual history of the 19 th century has included the decorative and fine arts, communal societies, fraternal organizations, the role of religion, and the Civil War era. In addition to numerous exhibition catalogs and articles, she co-edited Ideas and Images: Developing Interpretive History Exhibits (1992) and Interpreting Religion at Museums and Historic Sites (2018). She is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College and the Cooperstown Graduate Program in Museum Studies.