The Concord Museum is unveiling a portion of its newly renovated and redesigned galleries on October 11, 2019. This is the first part of a multi-phased project that traces the lives of the people of Concord for over 10,000 years, beginning with the people of Musketaquid. The new galleries will also chronicle other key moments in Concord’s history –igniting the war for our nation’s independence, the blossoming in the American literary renaissance, and debates over slavery and women’s rights. 

Tom Putnam, Edward W. Kane Executive Director of the Concord Museum, explained, “One of the goals of the New Museum Experience is to demonstrate how the ideas and actions of the people of Concord shaped America, influenced the world, and continue to resonate today.”

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Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women, recorded that this kettle gave her moments of comfort while a nurse in the Civil War.

 | Louisa May Alcott’s Tea Kettle, England, 1830-1850, Copper, Gift of Cummings E. Davis

The newly redesigned Gateway to Concord entranceway, a gift of Concord Museum Board President Ralph Earle and his wife Jane Mendillo, includes a beautifully choreographed media presentation that introduces visitors to the Museum. The Gateway also includes a Museum Shop and orients visitors to other Concord attractions with a map and photographs. 

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Concord’s human history begins with this projectile point.

 | Projectile Point, Concord area, 12,000 years ago, Gift of Al Robichaud, Photo by Jeff Boudreau
The People of Musketaquid gallery highlights the Museum’s extraordinary archaeological collection which chronicles Concord’s human history through the past 10,000 years. The focal point of the new gallery is a dramatic glass wall display of 600 stone artifacts arranged in a Native design. Contemporary works of art by Wampanoag and Nipmuc artists are juxtaposed with 19th century Native crafts from the Museum’s collection.

A new introductory gallery, Concord: At the Center of Revolution, contains fourteen iconic artifacts that allow visitors a rare “brush” with Concord’s compelling history. Each tells a story: Abner Hosmer’s powder horn was with him when he was killed at the North Bridge on April 19, 1775, and Louisa May Alcott’s copper tea kettle gave her comfort while serving as a nurse in the Civil War.

The special exhibition, Concord Collects, in the Wallace Kane Gallery, features twenty remarkable works of art from four Concord private collections – on view to the public for the first time. The first collection features significant painted portraits, including one by John Singleton Copley. Another includes works by some of the most accomplished and influential 19th century American painters. The third concentrates on the detailed painted views of the major ports through which China traded with the world in the 18th and 19th centuries. The final collection features Tang and Song ceramics from the workshops of ancient China. The Presenting Sponsor of Concord Collects is Skinner, Inc. and the Sustaining Sponsor is Middlesex Savings Bank.

Finally, the Gross Family Gallery exhibits some of the most outstanding clocks, furniture, needlework, and silver from the Museum’s collection. 

All images courtesy of the Concord Museum