The religious group known as the Shakers is today best known for its distinctive furniture and egalitarian beliefs. In the mid-nineteenth century, Shaker communities existed throughout the Northeast United States, Kentucky, and Ohio; today, many of those communities have transformed their Shaker-constructed buildings to become museums. One of these institutions, the Enfield Shaker Museum in Enfield, New Hampshire, is using a 2020 NEH CARES grant to develop online programs and resources that further its commitment to Shaker ideals of collaboration and community during a pandemic.
“The NEH allowed us to be pushed and not to fall. It made people think differently about what was possible.”
–Shirley Wajda, director
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Since its founding in 1986, the museum’s philosophy has centered on building the institution through collaboration with its surrounding community. In 2020, NEH funding allowed the museum to digitize its collection and create a series of smartphone tours and other online programming. In addition to drastically broadening access to the museum and its collection, museum staff intend these projects as a way to “bring people into the process of doing history,” said Shirley Wajda, the museum’s director. “The point is to engage people in not just reception, but creation.” For example, the goal of putting collections online is not simply to increase the public’s exposure to Shaker history but to invite comment and ultimately improve the museum’s interpretation of Shaker life. Innovative online programming also allowed the museum to connect in more ways to local communities. For example, the museum’s “All at Home: A Taste of History” program paired online talks about local specialties with food baskets, which were sourced from local vendors and available for purchase. Each talk ended with a slideshow of items from the museum’s collection that related to the topic at hand.
The NEH has made these efforts possible most significantly by allowing the museum to weather the pandemic. NEH salary support allowed all six full-time staff to remain employed, though not all of the positions were directly funded. NEH funding also validated the work that the museum was already doing and spurred staff to dream bigger about the future. “The NEH allowed us to be pushed and not to fall,” said Wajda. “It made people think differently about what was possible.”