Fairfield Museum and Keeler Tavern receive NEH grants for colonial-era exhibitions

Two Fairfield County historical centers have received grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities”™ (NEH) “Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan (SHARP)” to further their respective presentations of colonial-era life in Connecticut.

The Fairfield Museum and History Center has received a $125,565 grant that will help the organization resume its pandemic-interrupted on-site programming and install new exhibitions focusing on Black and Native American history in southwestern Connecticut. The grant will be used to hire a curator and provide funding for two current staff, along with contracting for design and fabrication services on the new exhibitions, which are scheduled to be presented in 2022.

Ridgefield”™s Keeler Tavern Preservation Society has received a $50,000 grant for the development of a new interpretive plan to present a more inclusive view of American identity and memory at its Keeler Tavern Museum & History Center.

Three other Connecticut entities ”“ Hartford”™s Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, New London”™s Connecticut College and the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation ”“ also received grants. All told, the NEH awarded 115 SHARP grants nationwide totaling $87.8 million.