Concord: At the Center of Revolution

FAIN: GI-269678-20

Concord Museum (Concord, MA 01742-3701)
Thomas J. Putnam (Project Director: August 2019 to October 2022)

Implementation of a new permanent, 6,000-square-foot exhibition, education materials, and public programs exploring the history of Concord in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. 

The Concord Museum requests a $400,000 Public Humanities implementation grant to support the design, fabrication, and installation of a new permanent 6,000 sq. ft. exhibition, "Concord: At the Center of Revolution", and the development of dynamic related educational programming. This new interpretation addresses the NEH’s special encouragement to “consider the impact – both immediate and long term – of the momentous events of 1776” and to “advance civic education and knowledge of America’s core principles of government.” Grounded in new humanities scholarship, the exhibition will increase the Museum’s capacity to engage a range of adult visitors, families, and K-12 audiences with Concord’s history and its relevance to the present.

Media Coverage

Congressowman Lori Trahan and Officials Mark Reopening of Concord Museum (Media Coverage)
Author(s): Carol Thistle
Publication: Concord Journal
Date: 8/10/2020
Abstract: Press coverage of Congresswoman Lori Trahan's visit to the Concord Museum to announce NEH grant award and mark the Museum's re-opening after closure due to Covid.
URL: https://concord.wickedlocal.com/news/20200810/congresswoman-lori-trahan-and-officials-mark-reopening-of-concord-museum

Concord Museum's Reopening: August 6, 2020 (Media Coverage)
Author(s): Carol Thistle
Publication: Minuteman Media Network
Date: 8/6/2020
Abstract: Local TV coverage of the Museum's reopening press conference with Lori Trahan, at which she highlighted the Museum's NEH award.
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KPpDo5frz0

With $16 million museum renovation, Concord’s history is retold for the 21st century (Review)
Author(s): Nancy Shohet West
Publication: Boston Globe
Date: 9/2/2021
URL: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/09/02/metro/reimagining-revolution-with-16-million-museum-renovation-concords-history-is-retold-21st-century/

The newly renovated Concord Museum, is a hidden gem! (Media Coverage)
Publication: Chronicle 5 WCVB
Date: 11/9/2021
Abstract: Coverage of New Museum Experience on local news channel 5, part of the ongoing news series Chronicle.
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7c8VeFBYdSU

Celebrating Concord: Reimagined Concord Museum tells tale of a tremendous town. (Review)
Author(s): Kaitlin Mulkerin
Publication: Lowell Sun
Date: 10/14/2021
Abstract: Coverage and review of New Museum Experience galleries in the Lowell Sun newspaper.
URL: https://www.lowellsun.com/2021/10/14/concord-museum-reimagined-after-multiyear-16-million-renovation/

Concord Museum Renovation Highlights Revolutionary Culture (Media Coverage)
Author(s): Christen Kelley
Publication: Wicked Local
Date: 9/13/2021
Abstract: Concord Journal feature article about Concord Museum’s Renovation with quotes from Tom Putnam, David Wood, and Erica Lome posted to Wicked Local news website.
URL: https://www.wickedlocal.com/story/concord-journal/2021/09/13/renovation-concord-museum-highlights-past-modern-way/5685594001/

With a gallery revamp, Concord Museum summons forgotten voices of 1775 (Media Coverage)
Author(s): Cate McQuaid
Publication: Boston Globe
Date: 4/16/2021
Abstract: Call it the flint that sparked the Revolutionary War. April 19, 1775, the Battle of Lexington and Concord. The Concord Museum is home to more artifacts from that battle than any other institution
URL: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/04/16/arts/with-gallery-revamp-concord-museum-summons-forgotten-voices-1775/

Associated Products

April 19, 1775/Phase 2 (Exhibition)
Title: April 19, 1775/Phase 2
Curator: David Wood
Abstract: On November 12, 2020 the Concord Museum debuted three new permanent galleries chronicling the events of April 19, 1775 and their revolutionary effect on American history. The oft-told story of the battle at Concord’s North Bridge comes to life in dramatic new and more inclusive ways to recount the fateful moment when the first shots were fired and the American Revolution began. Visitors encounter the eight day clock which ticked away the hours in Lexington’s Buckman Tavern as the town’s militia mustered on the Common; the powder horn of Amos Barrett, who wrote a vivid account of his experience at the North Bridge; a sword abandoned by a British officer during the Regulars’ bloody return to Boston and the only surviving lantern which hung in the belfry of North Church, signaling to alarm the riders that the British Regulars were coming. Bookending this dynamic experience are two “Focus Galleries” that will showcase, respectively, the situation in Concord that precipitated the bloody battle and how the town commemorated these historic events 100 years later. These two galleries will also feature iconic documents, furniture, and a reduced scale replica of Daniel Chester French’s Concord Minute Man of 1775 sculpture which not only brings this history to life but unveils lesser known stories and provides a more complete narrative.
Year: 2020

New Museum Experience/Phase 3 (Exhibition)
Title: New Museum Experience/Phase 3
Curator: David Wood
Abstract: In September 2021, the Concord Museum celebrated the completion of the New Museum Experience initiative which has involved designing and fabricating nine new permanent galleries. Featuring the finest and most significant objects from the Museum’s collection. These new galleries provide a comprehensive accounting of the land once known as Musketaquid and incorporated in 1635 as Concord. Over ten years in the making, the new galleries pay tribute to the everyday men and women, sometimes forgotten to history, who lived in Concord and participated in its growing agricultural and artisan community, as well as their revolutionary contributions to American society. Phase 3 of the new installation (opened September 2021) covers over 250 years of Concord’s history, featuring stories drawn from the Museum’s nationally significant collection—from 17th century embroidery to Henry David Thoreau’s humble green desk which is celebrated with a beautiful media presentation. Visitors can also engage with Ralph Waldo Emerson’s study through a new multi-media interactive and watch a video of historian Laura Walls put Thoreau and Emerson’s lives and friendship in perspective. The new galleries convey the story of those who lived and sustained themselves on the land they called Musketquid; they recount the trials of the first colonists who brought their custom of privately owned lands with them; they pay tribute to those who then worked the fields and milldams, free and enslaved, heirs to the first European families or recent immigrants.
Year: 2021

The Shot Heard Round the World (Web Resource)
Title: The Shot Heard Round the World
Author: Richard Lewis Media Group
Abstract: The Concord Museum’s ‘Shot Heard Round the World’ virtual exhibit transports visitors back in time through eye-witness artifacts, including one of the two Lanterns that signaled Paul Revere to begin his ride, and multi-media animations that bring this pivotal moment in our nation’s history to life.
Year: 2020
Primary URL: https://shotheardroundworld.org/#1
Primary URL Description: This microsite takes visitors through the events of April 19, 1775 hour by hour, guided by witness accounts and artifacts.

Military Powder Horns in the Concord Museum Collection (Article)
Title: Military Powder Horns in the Concord Museum Collection
Author: David Wood
Abstract: A recent reinstallation of the Concord Museum’s collection of objects associated with April 19, 1775, the first battle of the Revolutionary War, has brought renewed attention to the museum’s powder horns. Made of cow horn trimmed, scraped, and fitted with a fixed wooden plug at one end and a removable stopper at the other, powder horns were a ubiquitous element in the kit of the colonial citizen-soldiers who provided support for the professional soldiers (Regulars) fighting Great Britain’s dynastic and imperial wars in the New World. Militia service was required of all adult males in the British colonies, and in contrast to the regular army, militiamen armed and equipped themselves. The powder horns, then, were personal items, and no regulation prohibited their embellishment. Over the second half of the eighteenth century the decoration of military powder horns in America developed into a distinctive art form, then all but disappeared.
Year: 2021
Primary URL: http://https://www.incollect.com/articles/military-powder-horns-in-the-concord-museum-collection
Access Model: Open Access
Format: Magazine
Periodical Title: Antiques & Fine Art magazine
Publisher: Antiques & Fine Art magazine

A New Museum Experience (Article)
Title: A New Museum Experience
Author: Erica Lome
Abstract: Museums do not often get to reinvent themselves, but the Concord Museum seized this once-in-a-generation opportunity after renovating their main building and constructing a new Education Center in 2018. Years in the making, the curatorial team took advantage of over a dozen empty galleries and a world-class collection and embarked on a major project that would transform the Concord Museum and visitor experience. This September, that exciting and challenging process concluded with the opening of nine new permanent galleries.
Year: 2021
Primary URL: https://discoverconcordma.com/fall-2021-issue
Primary URL Description: Link to the Fall 2021 issue of Discover Concord
Access Model: Subscription Only
Format: Magazine
Periodical Title: Discover Concord
Publisher: Discover Concord

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