Santa Barbara Historical Museum

Public programs: guests explored the museum to visit the galleries and historic adobe courtyards, attend public programming and utilize the gledhill research library. Virtual and in-person public programming included nearly thirty educational events - history lectures, performances, film screenings, exhibitions, and walking tours. Topics included life in early california, conservation, architecture, art, film, agriculture, and other local history topics. The museum provided free after-hours receptions and family friendly activities for the public during "first thursdays", a collaborative art and business promotion, along with playing host to numerous like-minded non-profit organizations. The museum offers four custom onsite programs that fit into the state of california standards for kindergarten through fourth grade. Additionally, many more visited the museum's satellite exhibits at the hill-carrillo adobe, santa barbara airport and cottage hospital.

Collections and library: held in the public trust, the museum's extensive collection includes over 100,000 objects - artwork, furniture, saddles, decorative arts and costumes that represent over 500 years of chumash, mexican, spanish and american history. The gledhill library, located on the museum's downtown campus, provides public access to over 500,000 archival documents, maps, photographs and books for historic research, an invaluable resource to historians and genealogists alike. In addition to the museum's vibrant schedule of events and programming, the museum published scholarly journal noticias, and online publication, "pequenas noticias." in addition to the museum's signature exhibitions, the organization hosted five major educational exhibitions: 1925! Santa barbara earthquake, the chair: storied seats from our collection, don louis perceval: his vision of the west, pop-up history: images of santa barbara c.1900, and project fiesta! Centennial of old spanish days.