The New Hampshire Historical Society, a private nonprofit – not a governmental agency – was founded in 1823.
It is home to artifacts such as the first eagle to top the State House, an Abenaki dugout canoe and an early Snowmobile.
The society began to collect written materials immediately upon its founding, began to collect artifacts in 1825 and began to exhibit its artifact collections in 1831. It opened in its current location in 1911; publishes a journal, Historical New Hampshire; and made its collections available digitally starting in 2013.
The society has saved and preserved the most extensive collection of archives, objects, books, and research resources related to New Hampshire history that can be found anywhere, and hundreds of additional items are acquired each year. The collections include 33,000 museum objects, 50,000 printed volumes, 2 million pages of manuscripts, 800,000 pages of newspapers, 250,000 photographic images, 5,000 broadsides, 3,000 maps, and thousands of ephemera items. Ranging in date from pre-contact to the present day, the Society’s holdings reflect broadly the state’s economic, political, social, and cultural history.
Current exhibits include Discovering New Hampshire, Signs of the Times and White Mountains in the Parlor: The Art of Bringing Nature Indoors.
On Friday at noon, you can take a guided tour of the gallery as part of your visit. Docent staff will help you find out more about New Hampshire’s “Temple of History” and tell stories about the objects on display. Guided gallery tours are 45 minutes long and are appropriate for visitors of all ages. The tour is included in the price of admission for adult and family audiences.
On Saturday, Feb. 29, at 2 p.m., there will be an interpretive lecture, “Abby Hutchinson’s Sweet Freedom Songs: Songs and Stories of the Struggle for Abolition and Women’s Suffrage.” Deborah Anne Goss appears as Abby Hutchinson Patton, recalling mid-19th-century U.S. and New Hampshire history and performing rousing anthems, heartfelt ballads, and humorous ditties sung during the struggles against antislavery and for early women’s rights. In the 1840s and 1850s the Hutchinson Family Singers strongly influenced the opinions of the era with their popular songs, promoting healthy living and social justice, most prominently the abolition of slavery. Participants are encouraged to join in the singing of the choruses or to read aloud a poem or political diatribe of the time. This is a free presentation as part of the Humanities to Go program, made possible with the help of New Hampshire Humanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The New Hampshire Historical Society is located at 30 Park St., Concord.
General admission is $7 for adults, children 18 and younger and members are free, as are full-time students and military with ID.
For more information, visit nhhistory.org or call 228-6688.
