By: The New England Times
The museums listed below have been chosen from each of the Southern New England states. Each is primarily historical in nature and each offers a wealth of information about their core topics.
The Barnum Museum in Bridgeport, Connecticut, offers a remarkable collection that P. T. Barnum picked up around the world.
Phineas Taylor Barnum, was arguably the greatest showman of all time. He had a knack for finding and exhibiting people, animals and a range of oddities, some of them hoaxes, such as the Feejee Mermaid. While the Barnum & Bailey Circus continues as a living testament to his talent for promotion, he was also a politician and journalist and enormously influential both here in the U.S. and in Europe during the 19th century.
Barnum’s own fascination with curiosities strange and bizarre convinced him that his contemporaries of the era were likewise captivated and he set out to make collecting and displaying same his career.
Much of what he collected, the story of his life and the stories of other museums he’s started appear in this remarkable museum.
The Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Nature Center, located in Mashantucket, Connecticut, has collected, cataloged and meticulously chronicled bygone cultures, giving new life to a tribe that struggled hard against extinction. In fact, it offers more resources and learning opportunities vis-a-vis all Native Americans than does even the Smithsonian.
There's great and reverent balance at The Plimoth Plantation in Plymouth, Massachusetts. It's not just about the English Colonists (Pilgrims), the first Massachusetts settlement or The First Thanksgiving.
The curators have taken great care to place emphasis on the important role the Wampanoag Native People played in the opening scene of American history.
The site comprises six major attractions: The 1627 Pilgrim Village; Hobbamock's Homesite; The Mayflower II; Nye Barn; Thanksgiving: Memory, Myth & Meaning, a special exhibit; and the Crafts Center.
The 1627 Pilgrim Village has been recreated in minute detail and the staff, in period dress, goes about their daily activities as if the Plantation was still the epicenter of the New World.
Likewise a historical site, Old Sturbridge Village, in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, brings the early to mid 1800s to life vividly, with considerable detail and historical accuracy. Here one can learn about the emphasis on the agrarian lifestyle that characterized much of the nation during the period. Each building was brought to the site from around the region to make up a village typical of the period in rural New England.
Much more than a museum or historical site, Sturbridge Village is quintessentially New England in its essence and character. It can deliver a powerful learning experience at the old village, provide a wonderfully romantic weekend or fully satisfy the insatiable curiosity of an ardent site seer.
To some people, freedom comes in the form of an automobile or airplane, but to sailors, sitting at the helm of a sailboat, be it a sailing dinghy or 12-meter, the freedom involved trumps that provided by cars and any other form of transportation going away. If sailing were a religion, then The Herreshoff Marine Museum in Bristol, Rhode Island, is Jerusalem, the Vatican and Mecca combined.
The name Herreshoff is synonymous with sailing in many circles by virtue of the designs the family has conceived. It's a name that equates to excellence in sailing vessels and generations have sailed and raced Herreshoff boats.
While boats, model boats, designs, history and sailing are the focus of the museum; it's also the repository of all things relating to the America's Cup.
Finally, if you're in Newport, Rhode Island, taking a stroll along Cliff Walk is a must. It will take you along a path that snakes between some of the biggest and most beautiful mansions in the world, and the ocean.
The Vanderbilts, who built their fortune in the railroad industry, were icons in Newport society and prodigious builders in the city.
Frederick W. Vanderbilt built Rough Point, an enormous English Manorial house in 1889 on one of the choicest pieces of real estate on the East coast. It's on a windswept promontory whose rocky shore juts into the Atlantic.
James B. Duke, who made two fortunes, one in electric power and the other in tobacco, was the benefactor of Duke University. He purchased Rough Point in 1922, but died in 1925 after bequeathing much of his enormous financial empire and Rough Point to his daughter Doris, a twelve-year-old and only child.
She lived at Rough Point periodically throughout her life. But, instead of living extravagantly, blissfully unaware of the needs of others, Doris became an enormously generous philanthropist.
At just 21 years of age, she established Independent Aid, which became the Doris Duke Foundation. Throughout her life she supported medical research and was a child welfare advocate. By some estimates, she donated as much as $400 million dollars to worthy causes, often anonymously.
Rough Point is a trip back in time to the Gilded Age with a remarkably divergent art collection and is well worth a visit.
