NEMA Conference 2024: Toward a More Perfect Vision for our Changing World
Earlier this month, Vermont Historical Society staff ventured down to Newport, Rhode Island for the 2024 New England Museum Association (NEMA) Conference. This year's theme, "We the Museum: Toward a ‘More Perfect’ Vision for our Changing World," dovetailed with much of our ongoing work at VHS around America's 250th anniversary. We reflected on the origin of America’s museums and historical organizations, and considered the field not only in its current state, but where it has grown from the past, and what it can be in the future.
Together, with more than 850 museum professionals across the region, we gathered for three days of insightful panels, interactive sessions, and inspiring workshops. These ranged from sessions on climate resilience, engaging in complex histories, and accessibility in our physical spaces, to how we tell our ever evolving story and foster partnerships within our communities. The conference also provided ample opportunity to learn from and connect with our counterparts from all over New England, including others from museums across Vermont. We also enjoyed the chance to explore the history and museum work happening in Rhode Island and Goat Island, which served as the host site for the conference.
This year, TD Bank provided sponsorship for four VHS staff members to attend NEMA. We would like to extend our heartfelt thanks for their generous support, which allowed several staff to experience this conference for the first time. Now back in Vermont, we return to VHS with renewed energy, ready to take the lessons learned and bring them into our daily work to preserve and share Vermont's story.
Enjoy a few photos from our time there and learn a little more about the conference sessions and activities below.
This session, "Decolonizing the Colonial Trifecta," called on the museum community to use the anniversaries of three significant turns in the colonial history of the Northeast’s Native nations—the 500th anniversary of Verrazano’s voyage (2024), the 350th anniversaries of King Philip’s War’s start (2025) and end (2026), and also the American Revolution’s 250th anniversary (2026)—to reassess our collections and work collaboratively with New England’s Native communities to integrate their full 13,500-year history into our missions.
This session, titled "Who Needs Museums?", challenged attendees to think about people who may not (yet) be part of our primary constituencies and consider how our organization can partner with undervalued communities to address issues of inequality.
Some of our staff joined in for the industrial history tour of Newport. This tour was hosted by Industrial History New England. You can learn more about their work here and explore their index of historic sites and museums celebrating our local and regional industrial heritage and history here. This index includes a number of Vermont museums, from the Estey Organ Museum in Brattleboro to the Heritage Winooski Mill Museum in Winooski.
The Breakers is a Gilded Age mansion built between 1893 and 1895. It served as a summer residence for Cornelius Vanderbilt II. The Preservation Society of Newport County now protects, preserves, and presents this property and its social history and offered free admission to fellow NEMA attendees. Learn more about The Breakers here.
