DOVER, N.H. (AP) - In 1860, Abraham Lincoln was running for president when he addressed 1,500 people at Dover City Hall. He spoke for more than two hours, standing behind a mahogany podium that is on display at the city’s Woodman Museum.
History can come to life in many places around the Seacoast, but the historical societies and museums that share those resources are in a constant fight not to become history themselves.
While most institutions focus on preserving the past of their cities and towns, the future is at stake for many of them, as changing times and issues of relevancy bring pressure to maintain consistent funding and programming. Some have mastered the transition, while others are only now seeing the consequences of long-time financial issues.
The Exeter Historical Society is one of them. In late February, the society’s trustees announced they would cut funding for the two paid staff positions, one of which was a beloved curator. Members and residents were outraged to hear the society was more than $30,000 in debt, claiming they were never told of the dire funding issues. Ongoing efforts remain to see what members can do to reinstate the staff positions permanently.
The board of trustees said it warned for years that money was an escalating issue. Several trustees said due to inadequate funding they’ve used their own money to put on events that often don’t break even.
But bowling nights and bake sales are not enough, several young people said at an emergency society meeting. Societies and museums are at a crossroads where they must morph themselves into an attraction in order to thrive, or for some, survive, while conveying to the average person that history is crucial for the future, and worth investing in. Many have introduced an entrepreneurial model, incorporating diverse programming with relevant advertising.
“We care a lot and pay attention to what our visitors tell us,” said Stephanie Seacord, director of marketing for Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth. “We’re also part of a bigger group of history museums that watches trends and reports. For example, we look at reports on what household levels of income spend money on travel, so when we set an admission price, we know what will get people in the door.”
Strawbery Banke is “constantly evaluating itself,” Seacord said. Events like Ghosts on the Bank at Halloween, the Candlelight Stroll at Christmas time and the Vintage & Vine Wine and Food Festival cater to different demographics, from children to millennials and a mix of others.
“We try to fill gaps where we see them,” Seacord said. “If we notice the people who are traveling most to a place like Portsmouth are millennials and single people, we do things like Tuesdays on the Terrace in the summer where we have live acoustic music and craft beer and wine. We fill in gaps in the calendar and that’s one of the reasons we created the ice skating rink. December, January and February were times there wasn’t a whole lot going on at Strawbery Banke.”
Seacoard said Strawbery Banke currently has around 1,800 memberships. “It doesn’t just happen, you have to keep tweaking it.”
Elizabeth Dubrulle, director of education and public programs at the New Hampshire Historical Society in Concord, said understanding history is the only way citizens can make good decisions today.
“It also allows us to put our own concerns in perspective, which is particularly true for politics,” she said. “How did the people who came before us deal with these issues? Many of the issues we deal with today are things that we’ve dealt with in the past, like immigration, for example. New Hampshire had millions of immigrants in the past. People were just as afraid about immigration then as they are now. Those kinds of things really help people. They need to understand how things became the way they are.”
Dubrulle said on a local level, the only way societies and museums can survive is if individuals commit to them.
“People seem to think, you come to a museum once every 10 years and then they’re shocked when it closes,” she said. “Well, you never bothered to support it. These are the stories of people. We all go see movies and a lot of movies are history.” Dubrulle said if a new generation doesn’t step up to fill the shoes of those leading the way now, the resources will be gone.
In Newmarket, the historical society goes by the town’s old spelling, New Market. President John Carmichael said they are lucky that when they’ve put out a call for action, membership almost always responds.
“We are much smaller and we’ve never had a paid staff,” Carmichael said. The issue is attracting new people but the society has adapted by offering various exhibits and events to mix things up each year, he said.
“Upstairs at the society, last year we created a series of vignettes.” he said. “We have a store of the 1910s, a small Victorian parlor, an immigrant kitchen of the 1900s, an agricultural area with tools and hunting apparatuses, a school area with original desks and a ladies salon. That sparked an interest in what we were doing. For the past couple of years, we realized we had to do something more than show the same exhibits all of the time.”
To that effect, last year the New Market Historical Society put on a display of local antique, vintage and modern wedding gowns from local people.
“That turned into a much more relevant exhibit to the town and we had a lot of people show up for that,” Carmichael said. “We had a flapper wedding gown, a 1970s gown and a hot pants wedding suit that was worn. It was a combination of everything, and they all had a local connection.”
This past December, the society hosted its first Santa Pub Crawl, which visited seven restaurants in town, drawing around 80 people.
“The older people in town who started the organization in the 1960s are now in their 90s and it’s always difficult to get young people involved,” he said, adding they have some high school students working on posters and programming but “there is a lot of competition for their attention. It’s a whole generational thing.”
The Woodman Museum in Dover underwent a marketing revamp after its centennial celebration. Director Beth Fischer said societies and museums need to “respect the past but understand today’s consumer is looking for a different experience.”
“From (our marketing overhaul), we found people rediscovered us or came in for the first time since they were in third grade,” Fischer said. “Institutions like ours, they need to diversify their volunteer base, listen to new ideas and how the public wants to experience a museum.”
Fischer said the “bells and whistles” are the collection at the Woodman Museum.
“We have the 10-foot polar bear, the largest collection of rocks north of Boston, Victorian dresses,” she said. “It’s a variety of things that people just don’t see anymore. You can’t just be a dusty old building. It’s an ongoing challenge to balance the old with the new.”
The Portsmouth Historical Society, currently celebrating its centennial, expanded its programming beyond the national historic landmark John Paul Jones House when it took over the old Portsmouth Library in 2008 and created Discover Portsmouth, a center that houses museum galleries, lectures, walking tours, a third-grade Portsmouth history program, publishing, their collection and an advocacy program.
“When I arrived last year, one of my first impressions of Discover Portsmouth was that of a general store,” said Cynthia Novotny, museum shop manager. “Beyond coming in for the great exhibitions, people just want to come in, hang out and talk, and that can be about anything ranging from their own family history to where to get the best lobster roll. People get a sense of the Portsmouth community here and are attracted to that.”
Discover Portsmouth Executive Director Kathleen Soldati said the Portsmouth Historical Society is working to grow all of its revenue streams, from booking weddings in the gardens of the John Paul Jones House to publishing and selling books of interest to Portsmouth and the Seacoast. Soldati said the biggest seller in the museum shop is books.
The society has three full-time employees, 10 part-time employees and 55 active volunteers who act as docents, walking tour guides, board members and event producers. They recently partnered with the city to receive funding for Portsmouth’s 400 anniversary celebration.
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Information from: Foster’s Daily Democrat, https://www.fosters.com
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