Presenting a More Complete Picture of Southwestern CT’s Diverse Colonial History

FAIN: ZPA-283371-22

Fairfield Historical Society (Fairfield, CT 06824-6639)
Michael A. Jehle (Project Director: May 2021 to November 2021)
Heather Maxson (Project Director: November 2021 to September 2022)
Michelle Cheng (Project Director: September 2022 to September 2023)

The hiring of a curator and funding for two current staff, along with contracting for design and fabrication services, to install a long-term exhibition that explores the diversity of southwestern Connecticut’s seventeenth and eighteenth-century history.

Fairfield Historical Society (DBA Fairfield Museum / FMHC) seeks $125,565 to create a new long-term exhibition exploring CT’s diverse and complex 17th and 18th c. history. The exhibit will include new research and archeological discoveries on pre-colonial Native American history, the English subjugation of those Native communities, the role of African Americans in CT’s early economy, and how regional dynamics of race and class influenced early social and political life. The proposed exhibition will provide vital context for FMHC’s school and community programs planned to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 2026 by presenting a more complete historical look at how race, gender, and class dynamics influenced the establishment of colonial Connecticut, how those forces continue to reverberate in contemporary society, and how citizens today can draw from those perspectives to help create a more just, inclusive and sustainable society for the future.