Interpretation of the Jeremiah Lee Estate’s Mansion House and Brick Kitchen & Slave Quarters

FAIN: BP-290726-23

Marblehead Museum and Historical Society, The (Marblehead, MA 01945-3340)
Lauren M. McCormack (Project Director: August 2022 to present)

Development of an exhibition examining slavery in New England and an interpretive plan integrating that story into tours of the Jeremiah Lee Mansion.

The Marblehead Museum seeks to develop an interpretative and exhibit plan for the 1768 Jeremiah Lee Mansion House and Brick Kitchen & Slave Quarters that incorporates both structures and the surrounding landscape into a cohesive whole to provide visitors of all ages with a rich, multi-faceted picture of the enslaved communities of coastal New England while highlighting individual stories that reflect enslaved people’s persistent quest to forge and maintain their humanity via resistance, control, and various forms of agency. Through exhibits, recreated spaces, and guided interpretation, the project will allow the Museum to tell an often overlooked, misunderstood, and misrepresented regional history with national implications for understanding how the history of slavery in the northeast continues to impact our communities today.