March 28, 2024

Carpenter Museum Receives $5,000 Grant from Bristol County Savings Charitable Foundation for Hands-on History Program

Posted

The Rehoboth Antiquarian Society’s Carpenter Museum has received a $5,000 grant from the Bristol County Savings Charitable Foundation to continue out educational initiative, “Farm-Fresh History: Teaching America’s Past with Locally Grown Collections.”

Through “Farm-Fresh History,” the Museum expands and enriches its connections to students and teachers in the Dighton-Rehoboth school district.

At the Carpenter Museum, we hold that effective history education -- taught by well-trained teachers using rich historical materials -- helps students to build important 21st-century skills, encourages them to feel empathy for others, and instills in them a sense of pride in their community.

While we have proudly served students in the greater Rehoboth area since the Museum’s opening in 1978, our current programming has been focused on 3rd-grade classes who visit the Museum each year for a program that immerses them in activities from the colonial period.

We previously received a grant from the Bristol County Savings Charitable Foundation that allowed us to work with nearly 200 eighth grade students at the Beckwith Middle School in October. Our first program explores the daily life of a Revolutionary War soldier through hands-on activities with our traveling history trunk full of replica Rev. War-era artifacts: a soldier’s overcoat and tri-cornered hat that students could try on, a replica drum at which they all tried their hand, and various other soldier’s supplies and sundries. Students read a letter from a soldier to his wife and children at home, learned some military drum calls, and also had the chance to see a drum from our collection that was used by a Rehoboth teenager, Joseph Pierce, in 1775-76.

With our current grant from the Bristol County Savings Charitable Foundation, the Museum will print and install a new exhibit that explores Rehoboth history over the past four centuries as it intersects with important events in U.S. history; produce traveling history trunks on WWII and Industrialization/Immigration; and continue digitizing archival materials on topics requested by teachers to be freely accessible on the Museum’s website, www.RehobothAntiquarian.org.

About the Rehoboth Antiquarian Society
The Rehoboth Antiquarian Society preserves, promotes, and enhances the significant historical, educational, and cultural assets of Rehoboth, Massachusetts. A non-profit organization, the RAS operates the Carpenter Museum, the Blanding Public Library, and the Arts in the Village music series which takes place in the Library’s Goff Memorial Hall. Learn more at www.RehobothAntiquarian.org.

Comments

No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here

Share!
Truly local news delivered to every home in town