Reinterpreting a Late 19th-Century Collection for New Audiences and a New Century

FAIN: GE-50596-12

Springfield Library and Museums Association (Springfield, MA 01103-1733)
Kay Simpson (Project Director: August 2011 to March 2014)

Planning for the reinstallation of its core collections to illustrate how this museum exemplifies Gilded Age America's ideas about civic philanthropy and museums as engines of democratic education.

The Springfield Museums request a $75,000 planning grant to support the development of an Interpretation Plan for the historic 19th-century George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum in Springfield, Mass. Using new scholarship that demonstrates the importance of the museum and its collections as an expression of civic philanthropy and the museum movement in Gilded Age America, the Interpretation Plan will lay the foundation for the development of thematic exhibitions, technological interpretation and humanities programming that make the museum meaningful for diverse audiences of the 21st century.