YORKLYN, Del.—The Marshall Steam Museum at Auburn Heights Preserve, featuring the world’s largest operating collection of Stanley steam cars, today announced the availability of a highly-engaging audio tour that promotes hands-on exploration and fosters contextual discovery for both kids and adults. The audio tour will be used to enhance the Museum’s newest exhibit, Letting Off Steam: The Stanley Legacy, opening on Sunday, August 7th.
“By introducing an audio tour to our visitors, we’re able to provide them with additional material that we simply couldn’t fit on the labels,” said Susan Randolph, Executive Director of the Marshall Steam Museum at Auburn Heights. “We’re able to offer a deeper narrative and a richer context for the pieces we exhibit. Some of the material on cars and trains can be rather complex, particularly for our younger visitors – so the audio tour will help them to follow along, while providing an entertaining characterization of the innovations they’re observing.”
The audio tour takes visitors on a fascinating journey through the rise, fall, and resurrection of steam-powered vehicles. The narrative ushers visitors through the poignant inflection points in the automotive age and offers thought provoking insights that put the vehicles we drive today into clearer context. For instance, the tour draws a unique parallel between automobile power sources of today, and those used in the early 1900’s – helping visitors to understand how power sources have evolved, and consider how they may continue to shift in the future.
The Marshall Steam Museum constructed the tour using Antenna Direct, a DIY audio tour package developed exclusively for small museums and galleries by Antenna, a leader in digital content design and mobile experiences for historic and cultural institutions. Using this technology, the Museum can make frequent updates to their tour experience, offering repeat visitors a new and unique perspective each time they return.
“The audio tour technology will allows us to try new things – to prototype and experiment with our content – and see how people respond,” Randolph said. “We love the flexibility – and why not use technology to help tell a story about technology?”
“The audio tour assembled by the Marshall Steam Museum utilizes the same technology currently being used by some of the most revered museums in the world,” said [Antenna spokesperson]. “It’s amazing to see what much smaller museums are capable of achieving when provided with the same tools and technical resources.”
On Tuesday, August 2nd from 7-9 pm, the Marshall Steam Museum will host a special open house preview where visitors can experience the new audio tour and explore the exhibit, Letting Off Steam: The Stanley Legacy. For more information, visit http://auburnheights.org.
About Marshall Steam Museum at Auburn Heights Preserve
Less than five minutes from the center of Hockessin, Delaware the Marshall Steam Museum at Auburn Heights Preserve offers visitors a chance to step back in time and experience life at the dawn of the automotive age. The now-museum was built by T. Clarence Marshall in 1947 to house his growing collection of antique automobiles. Today, visitors can enjoy the many treasures at Auburn Heights thanks to the generosity and vision of Clarence’s son, Tom, and his wife, Ruth. In 2008, they gifted to Delaware State Parks the estate land and buildings, including a beautiful 1897 Queen Anne mansion that was the Marshall home, while donating to the Friends of Auburn Heights Preserve, a 501(c)3 charitable organization, the extraordinary vehicles of the Marshall collection. The museum features the world’s largest operating collection of Stanley steam cars, a 1916 electric car, and two 1930s Packards, in addition to the Auburn Valley Railroad with its 1/8th-size coal-fired steam trains that circle the property.
About Antenna ™
Founded in 1984, Antenna ™ is the leading provider of technology, content, and related services to the world’s artistic, historic, and cultural institutions. In partnership with these clients, Antenna delivers an immersive, indelible experience in multiple languages to more than 63 million people across the globe each year. With a proud heritage of award-winning innovation, Antenna enables people to see more clearly, understand more deeply, and appreciate culture more widely using a variety of technologies. For more information, visit www.antennainternational.com or connect with the company on Facebook and Twitter @AntennaIntl.
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