Implementation of a new interpretive plan for Plimoth Plantation to reflect the full spectrum of experiences within the world of 17th-century New England.

Plimoth Plantation requests a Chairman’s Special Award in implementation support for Along the Shores of Change, a multi-year and Museum-wide reinterpretation initiative that transforms the techniques and broadens the stories that Plimoth Plantation uses to communicate Plymouth Colony’s seminal role in shaping America. This new approach explores the Native transnational and pan-European nature of the human landscape in 17th-century New England. With NEH support, the project will organize Plimoth Plantation’s education programs, craft preservation efforts, living history exhibits, and staff training around the Museum’s first comprehensive interpretive plan. Funding would enable the re-installation of galleries and living history sites, development of new multicultural scenarios and hands-on programs, re-examination of educational services, and advancement of a 4-year course of study that transforms staff from interpreters and guides to multi-skilled living history educators.

Endowment (with bridge funding) for research staff and graduate fellowships.

A National Endowment for the Humanities Challenge Grant in the amount of $650,000 for endowment support will advance the museum's fundamental research role to a significant and timely new level. Through the lens of 17th-century Wampanoag and European colonial living history interpretation-in a setting perceived by many Americans to be the place where U.S. history began-Plimoth Plantation currently offers a powerful story with a unique perspective that contributes toward global understanding of how differing cultures have become inextricably entwined throughout history. The museum hopes to strengthen its ability (through increased research capacity) to weave a new and expanded interpretive thread through its upcoming Environmental History Initiative (EHI) that will offer visitors more relevant understanding of the evolution of the Wampanoag, who have lived on this land for thousands of years, and the European settlers (Pilgrims) who established Plymouth Colony in the 1600s. The EHI initiative will be a significant step forward in our efforts (already underway) to leverage an additional $2,600,000 in nonfederal matching funds-for a total grant of $3,250,000. Once established, endowment earnings will enable the museum to build and sustain a new and intellectually redirected research team to further enhance Plimoth Plantation's mission: To offer the public powerful personal experiences of history, built upon thorough research of the Pilgrim and Wampanoag communities. Plimoth Plantation offers multiple learning opportunities to provide a deeper understanding of the relationship of historical events to modern America.

To support development by the staff of the Plimoth Plantation and local elementary schools of living history curriculum materials on Native American and Anglo-American cultures in 17th-century Massachusetts to be used independently or in conjunction with workshops and classroom visits by Plantation staff.

A two-week, residential institute for 25 K-12 teachers on the history of Indigenous peoples in southern New England.

Ancient Stories, New Neighbors is a Level I, two-week, in-person summer institute for 25 elementary, middle, and high school teachers hosted by Plimoth Patuxet Museums (PPM) and offered 7/24-8/6/2022 on PPM’s campus in Plymouth, MA. It brings together innovative thought leaders from the nation’s classrooms, dig sites, archives, and museums in the place Mayflower’s arrival accelerated a series of events that permanently changed an already-existing, complex network of Indigenous communities, each with its own rich cultural traditions, politics and aspirations. The Institute will use Mourt’s Relation, a 1622 English pamphlet, as a case study in decolonizing historical narratives and recentering Indigenous voices by employing a range of related primary sources including archaeology, landscape, material culture, oral history, and written documents. The Institute will reveal how an Indigenous-colonial regional landscape was built and evolved through collaboration and conflict in the 1600s.

Development of an interpretive plan for all the living history sites at Plimoth Plantation for the 400th Anniversary of the Mayflower voyage in 2020.

As the 400th anniversaries of the Mayflower voyage and the First Thanksgiving approach in 2020 and 2021, the Museum must reassess Plimoth Plantation's current interpretive strategy. Though highly accurate and painstaking, it is not the product of a thoughtful study of how to address these issues; rather, it is an informal amalgamation of decades of interpretation, scholarship and institutional tradition. In a changing world with technology at visitors' fingertips and always in their pockets, the Museum must address how to remain relevant and present the larger story of 17th-century New England. There is more to it than "two peoples, one story." Developing an interpretive plan that encompasses all of the Museum's living history sites--Mayflower II, the Wampanoag Homesite, and the 17th-Century English Village as well as the Plimoth Grist Mill and Craft Center--is an essential and timely step in advance of the 400th anniversaries.

To support planning and redesign of living-history programs and exhibits aboard the Mayflower II -- a replica of the type of ship used to bring Pilgrimsto Plymouth in 1620. Costumed interpreters will use the first-person technique to tell the early part of the Pilgrim story, 1606-1621.

To produce an audio-visual program orienting visitors to the living history program at this recreated 17th-Century Pilgrim Village.

To support the research and preparation of interpretive materials for Plimoth Plantation, an outdoor living history museum interpreting the lives of the Eng-lish settlers who established Plymouth Colony during the 1620's.

To support planning for interpretive programming that will re-create a 17th-century farm and ordinary (alehouse) at Plimoth Plantation.

Implementation of an exhibition, catalog, two traveling exhibitions, website, dramatic performance, children's publications, public programs, and teacher workshops on the changing perceptions of the 1621 harvest feast over time.

An assessment of the collections and buildings at Plimoth Plantation, which has extensive collections of archaeological artifacts, fine and decorative art, and archival materials. Plimoth Plantation was the nation’s first living history museum, and it explores seventeenth-century New England, focusing on the voyage of the Mayflower, the lives of early English settlers, and Wampanoag culture.

Plimoth Plantation proposes to create a collections care plan that properly preserves and increases accessibility to the Museum’s extensive collections of archaeological artifacts, fine and decorative art, and archival materials. These collections are a highly-valued resource for scholars studying the 17th-century Atlantic world and inform the Museum’s interpretation of 17th-century New England. Their preservation and accessibility are vital for future scholarship. Despite their significance, the Museum’s collections are urgently in need of risk management assessment and protection. The dangers to the collection vary widely in terms of general housing, pest management, UV infiltration, climate control, moisture, and security, among other issues. This project will identify and articulate a plan for renovating collections storage to provide safe, secure housing that allows for improved disaster preparedness and pest mitigation; ensuring the collections' well being for future generations.

Hiring a consultant to conduct a general preservation survey of the library and archival materials, and the purchase of environmental monitoring equipment as recommended by the consultant. The library collection consists of rare books, maps, periodicals, and reference materials that serve as a resource for researching 17th-century life, and audiovisual collections that document Plimoth Plantation's 60-year history. Particularly notable is the documentation of the changing image and perception of the Pilgrims and Wampanoag over those decades.

Plimoth Plantation requests a grant of $5,197.13 to survey the museum's library and its audio/visual archive. The grant will support a consultant's single-day visit to survey the storage conditions, policies and practices surrounding these collections. It will also support four days of time to write a report on those conditions with recommendations for improvement. The report will be used to help with long-range planning. Additionally the grant will fund the purchase of three dataloggers and software to record temperature and relative humidity in the storage areas.