Afternoon at Frankenfest

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Happy Fall, Y’all!

I got to kick off this festive fall season with a little afternoon at a cool family-friendly fall event at the Indiana Medical History Museum. This Frankenfest event was hosted by Indiana Humanities and ran from 12 pm to 12 am. This event was the kick-off for their One State / One Story: Frankenstein statewide reading of Frankenstein, partnered with the Indiana State Library. Here are some highlights from Saturday afternoon.

Though I wasn’t able to stay the entire time (jobs!), I was able to take part in a few fun festivities!

As one of the first 100 in line, so I got this fun FrankenBEERstein. I even got some fancy Ottermelon beer from Central State Brewing to put into later on. I even filled out the five different steps on my “passport” so that I could get a fun button as well!

After that, we got to embark on a self-guided tour through the Indiana Medical History Museum. As much as I love museums, I had NEVER been in there before! On the grounds of the old Central State Hospital, this building is the oldest surviving pathology facility in the U.S.A. The building is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

This room was super cool. Lots of brains and such in jars and skeletons along the other wall.

I was also particularly taken by this image of medical school graduates and how FEW women are in this photo. 1906 was clearly a very long time ago.

This poster was also pretty striking for the sheer reason that some of these schools were called “diploma mills.” Eek! Probably not the best idea for medical education.

As the main part of this event, there was a live reading of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein happening in the old teaching amphitheater. This video was RIGHT before the first reader started up, but we managed to pop in and hear a couple of different readers that day!

There were also cute art projects and lawn games to do. Not to mention that King David Dogs was around with snacks. There was even a really awesome medicinal herb garden with some of the largest herb plants that I’ve ever seen. Indiana Humanities did a great job with this all-ages event – definitely something for everyone!

What are you doing to kick off Fall 2017 in your neck of the woods?