Boston Stories

For many years, there has been tremendous interest in the Boston Children’s Museum within the blossoming children’s museum community, more broadly across the museum field, and among everyone interested in getting a handle on self-directed learning experiences and new forms of nonprofit organizations. There was something going on at the museum in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s that made people take notice, and it was reinforced by the research on organizational leadership that...
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For many years, there has been tremendous interest in the Boston Children’s Museum within the blossoming children’s museum community, more broadly across the museum field, and among everyone interested in getting a handle on self-directed learning experiences and new forms of nonprofit organizations. There was something going on at the museum in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s that made people take notice, and it was reinforced by the research on organizational leadership that has come to light thirty years later. Boston Stories is not an exercise in nostalgia. It is a resource for today’s generation of educators and museum practitioners, as well as leaders of other mission-driven, nonprofit organizations. Faculties of business and management schools, museum studies programs and organizers of volunteer training, staff brown-bag seminars, Webinars, and dialogs can selectively use this case study material as grist for the discussion of issues of leadership, values, decision-making, and management. Begun in 2004 and led by former Boston Children’s Museum director Michael Spock, Boston Stories has been produced by a team of more than 100 contributors—former and current staff, board members, community leaders, stakeholders, funders, writers, technicians, and advisors.