Enchanted Isle: The Story of Martha's Vineyard: Land, Sea, and People

FAIN: GE-50056-08

Martha's Vineyard Museum (Vineyard Haven, MA 02568-5515)
Keith P. Gorman (Project Director: January 2008 to September 2009)
David Nathans (Project Director: September 2009 to November 2011)

Planning for a permanent exhibition and related educational and public programs exploring how the history and culture of Martha's Vineyard was shaped by its island location.

This proposal is a request for a planning grant to develop the permanent exhibit of the new Martha?s Vineyard Museum, scheduled to open in 2012. The exhibit will define how closely the Vineyard is connected to the seaways of the world and the historical dependency of its people to it. It will reveal the Vineyard?s varied landscape and geological formation and flora and fauna through centuries of human habitation and cultivation. This exhibit, through multi-media presentation, oral histories, and three-dimensional artifacts dating from pre-history to the present, will interpret to the visitor the Vineyard?s rich, diverse cultural history. Above all, the exhibit will demonstrate the multiple connections between the Vineyard and the world; on the local stage and across the broad reach of national and international affairs.