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News

Aristides and LeQuire: Kindred Artists 

By Meghan E. Gattignolo  Once again, the extraordinary Juliette Aristides and the irreplaceable Alan LeQuire are gracing the galleries of the Customs House Museum & Cultural Center with the presence of their artistic talents. Aristides paints and draws in the classical realist tradition, and LeQuire is one of Tennessee’s most well-known sculptors. Both have been featured…

Noel Night 2023 Gift Guide  

By Meghan E. Gattignolo   It’s finally upon us! The holidays are creeping up and Noel Night 2023 is just around the corner! You love Art Walk throughout the rest of the year, but have you experienced December’s Art Walk and Noel Night at the Customs House Museum & Cultural Center?  Every year during December’s Downtown Art…

Meet Laura Cagaoan, Visitor Services Manager 

By Meghan E. Gattignolo  Laura Cagaoan is a lifetime resident of Clarksville, TN. She holds a master’s degree in education and is a hardworking mother of three. Laura is a quick study and is great at learning new skills in order to create new opportunities for herself and those around her. If Laura had to pick…

Homeschool Field Trips at the Museum 

By Meghan E. Gattignolo  Homeschooled students and their families are taking over the Museum one day a month during the school year! On November 7, the Customs House Museum & Cultural Center hosted a Homeschool Field Trip Day, only the second in a new series of programming offered and hosted by the Museum’s Education Department….

Veterans Day: Remembering a Tennessee WWI Hero  

By Meghan E. Gattignolo Today is Veterans Day. Significantly observed on November 11th, Veterans Day was originally known as Armistice Day – and is still recognized as such in many other countries. Armistice Day was meant to commemorate the events of November 11, 1918, when Germany agreed to stop fighting, and the Great War came to an…

Jacob Lawrence: Painting History 

By Meghan E. Gattignolo   November is here, and the Customs House Museum & Cultural Center has a new and exciting exhibit ready for Museum guests to enjoy.   Jacob Lawrence is an important artist to come out of the Harlem Renaissance. Born in 1917 and a young man during the height of the cultural movement,…

Scary Stories: 4 Reasons Why We Love Them 

By Meghan E. Gattignolo  One of my favorite things to do in the autumn around Halloween is to immerse myself in spooky stories. Edgar Allan Poe was a favorite author of mine as a young teen. Nothing gives me the exciting chill of dread quite like a Poe story.   I know I’m not alone. On television…

The Fatal Ultimatum: Trick-or-Treating’s Spooky Backstory 

By Meghan E. Gattignolo  Getting in costume and going door-to-door asking for candy on Halloween night has become such a time-honored childhood rite of passage, it’s almost treated as sacred. For such a long-standing tradition, the practice seems like it has always existed. However, like all human customs, trick-or-treating had to start somewhere.     Medieval souling and…

So Toxic: Everyday Dangers of the 19th Century  

By Meghan E. Gattignolo  Thanks to the Industrial Revolution, the 19th century was a time of extraordinary change.  Industrialization changed the way everything was made. Manufactured objects and food products went from being made almost entirely inside homes or by a single person to being made in factories. Ingredients and substances were outsourced, creating an…

Eleanor Williams: A Woman for All Seasons

By Jane Slate  Prominent Tennessee historian Eleanor S. Williams is no longer with us, though her decades of outstanding scholarship, community commitment and leadership leave a legacy that lives on.  Eleanor’s 30 years of service as the Montgomery County historian, among many other activities, leave a rich and copious archive for future historians to build…