Museum on Main Street

Here is our May remote M.O.M’s Reading Time! This month's theme is "Here comes the Sun" and with our recent hot days here in Pleasanton, we think the sun has definitely come! We hope you enjoy our three stories and our sun catcher craft. We would love to see pictures of your finished craft so please share some pictures in the comments section of this post. We missed seeing all your faces today and can’t wait for our next in person reading time! Until then stay healthy... and happy!! Special thanks to the Pleasanton Downtown Rotary who help fund this program! Books: Sun by Carol Thompson Sun up, Sun down by Gail Gibbons The Sun is my Favorite Star by Frank Asch

Our newest exhibit "What in the World?" is open both in the Phoebe Hearst Gallery at the Museum and on our website! How many of our unusual objects can you recognize? http://www.museumonmain.org/what-in-the-world.html

We are working on our "What in the World" exhibit, opening May 5th, and this artifact even has us stumped! We have several of them and they were part of a box from the old Jackson Perkins office. Anybody know what this is/ was used for?

Here is our April remote M.O.M’s Reading Time! In conjunction with our current exhibit, "The Newest Americans" we are celebrating immigration stories in our Welcome to America themed preschool reading time. We hope you enjoy our three stories and our suitcase craft. We would love to see pictures of your finished craft so please share some pictures in the comments section of this post. We missed seeing all your faces today and can’t wait for our next in person reading time! U...ntil then stay healthy and happy!! Special thanks to the Pleasanton Downtown Rotary who help fund this program! Books: We Came To America by Faith Ringgold I'm New Here Anne Sibley O'Brien My Favorite Memories by Sepideh Sarihi

Can you imagine using this bathhouse? How clean do you think those hop workers really got using an in-creek bathhouse? This image is new to our photography archive, a donation from the Virginia Bennett Collection. If you have images from Pleasanton's past in your family collection, please consider donating either physical copies or digital scans to our photo archive. We would be happy to scan your images here at the museum. Your donations will help the museum document and preserve our town's history for generations to come.

April Fools! This is a cool picture of Pleasanton, but not our Pleasanton. Pictured is the First National Bank of Pleasanton, Texas. Pleasanton, circa 1880s! How cool is this picture?!

With the new Shelter-in-Place rules, it does not look like we will be able to open again before our current exhibit, The Pleasanton Ones, photography by Tao Guan, closes on January 9th. We have been so fortunate to have Tao as our partner in this exhibit as we navigate new ways to bring his work to the public virtually. He has graciously created a slide show of the photographs in the exhibit for the community to enjoy on his YouTube channel. https://youtu.be/FJYgMPtyCl8 You can see other slide shows of Tao Guan’s work on our website. http://www.museumonmain.org/exhibits.html

For our final remote M.O.M’s Reading Time in 2020, we are learning about Hanukkah, which begins tomorrow night! Today is a particularly special virtual reading time because we have a guest reader, preschool teacher Jenelle Lopez from Congregation Beth Emek! Mrs. Lopez tells us all about Hanukkah, shows us how to play dreidel, reads two stories about Hanukkah, and shares a beautiful menorah craft! We would love to see pictures of your menorahs, so when you can, please share so...me pictures in the comments section of this post. To those who celebrate, we want to wish you a very Happy Hanukkah! To everyone, we missed seeing your faces this year and can’t wait for our next in person reading time! Please check out the 2021 MoM’s Reading Time schedule on our website. For the foreseeable future the program will remain virtual. We hope you all have a very healthy, happy, and safe holiday season! Special thanks to Congregation Beth Emek, Guest Reader Jenelle Lopez, and the Rotary Club of Pleasanton, CA who help fund this program! Books: The Story of Hanukkah; The festival of light and dedication. Sammy Spider's First Hanukkah By: Sylvia A. Rouss

Update: False! The name was Tulare Lake. It was also known as the Bolsa or Lagoon (see update picture). If you like this image, consider purchasing the whole map in puzzle form. It makes a great present!!! Click to purchase: http://www.museumonmain.org//1880_Map_from_archives_of_Mus Its Test Your Knowledge Tuesday! Today we have a true or false question for you. The body of water that was drained in the 1880s the lake to reclaim twenty-five hundred acres of farmland was kno...wn as Lake Pacheco. (note: the image has been altered so it does not reveal the answer) Answer posted tomorrow at 10am!

Happy Main Street Monday! Did you watch the virtual Christmas tree lighting this weekend? If not, follow the link to watch it on Tri-Valley TV (TV30). In honor of the festively lit tree outside the museum, we wanted to share this picture of the City's tree from the 1930s! http://www.tri-valleytv.org/

Don't forget to join us tonight at 7pm to see Tao Guan's beautiful documentary photographs of the Pleasanton Community. We will sharing his work and speaking to him live on our YouTube Channel. See you there! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCD_ZxavKgHZlT4WW2Spbyhg

In the final installment of our interviews with Tao Guan, photographer of the Pleasanton Ones featured in the museum's current exhibit, Tao discusses more about his work during the last seven months of the pandemic and his new book, "Shelter in Place in Pleasanton." This is part four of a four part series leading up to tomorrow's A Discussion with... Tao Guan at 7pm on our YouTube Live Channel. For more information about our A Disscussion with.. program, click the following link. http://www.museumonmain.org/a-discussion-with.html We hope to see you all tomorrow night to see all the images in the exhibit and talk more with Tao Guan!