History Museums - Historic House and other History Museum Types

History museums are oriented on collecting, preserving, and displaying objects important for the history of a certain territory - local or more general. Their purpose is to give a chronological perspective. History museums contain many artifacts, documents, and archeological items. Some of the more famous history museums (or museums with a history department) are the Museum of History in London, the National Museum of History in Chapultepec Castle, Mexico City, and city museums of Amsterdam, Dresden, Luxembourg, New York City, Stockholm, and Warsaw. One of the more common types of history museum is a historic house. Reason to make a house a historical house could be that it is of architectural significance, that someone famous was born or lived in it, or that something important happened in it.

Historic sites are also types of history museums. They are usually places where preserved pieces of social, political, or military history or they mark public crimes that happened there. Examples of that kind of historic site are Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and Robben Island. A historic site can be any place, building, or site of local, regional, or national significance. The law usually protects them.

One more special type of history museum is an ethnography museum. They are more concentrated on the culture (again local or national) than on chronology. Among newer nations, they are seen as a contribution to unity among different cultures, while in nations with a history of colonizing, ethnographic museums represent the cultures of other peoples. They are usually founded in capital cities.

History museums are very concerned with preserving the history of rural and urban traditions, especially because of the rapid influence of progress. The first such museum was founded in Sweden by Artur Hazilius in 1873. He founded the museum of traditional life at the Nordic Museum in Stockholm. After that idea spread, other cities also started opening history museums.