Putting Portsmouth on the Map: Cultural Center, Historic Trail, and Heritage Tourism

FAIN: BP-50094-08

University of New Hampshire (Durham, NH 03824-2620)
David H. Watters (Project Director: January 2008 to September 2010)

Planning of a permanent exhibition of the city's history for a new cultural center, enhancements to the Black Heritage Trail, creation of a new Footsteps of Washington Trail, and a website to include downloadable maps, podcasts, and other pertinent tour materials.

UNH's Center for New England Culture and the Portsmouth Historical Society propose to develop a permanent exhibit of the history of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to revise and enhance the Portsmouth Black Heritage Trail, and to create a new Footsteps of Washington Trail. This plan will facilitate cultural tourism and community interest in history. Portsmouth is a unique site for heritage tourism, since it has been a microcosm of American history over four centuries in which the very fabric of each period is still present, but it needs a comprehensive and new interpretation that will present this history to the public. The proposed exhibit will provide orientation for all the historic sites in Portsmouth. The exhibit and accompanying interpretive media and self-guiding materials will focus on important themes in American history, expecially the Revolutionary and early national eras, and the era of immigration and international conflicts, 1890 - 1920.