Springfield History Museum News

The story of State Street, from its Revolutionary War-era origins as the “Boston Post Road,” to its current transformation sparked by construction of the new Federal Courthouse, is being told in the exhibition and documentary The State Street Corridor Project: Road to Renewal. The exhibit will open on Sunday, May 23, with a reception from 3 to 5 p.m. at the new Museum of Springfield History at the Quadrangle. A short preview of the documentary produced by WBGY Public Television for Western New England will accompany the exhibit.

The new Museum of Springfield History will conclude its spring lecture series at 2 p.m. on Sunday, April 25, with a talk titled “Springfield and the California Gold Rush.” The program will be held in the museum’s SIS Hall and is free with the price of museum admission.

The new Museum of Springfield History will continue its spring lecture series at 2 p.m. on Sunday, March 28, with a talk titled “Crystal Products of the Frost King: Ice Harvesting and the Natural Ice Industry in New England.” The program will be held in the museum’s SIS Hall and is free with the price of museum admission.

The new Museum of Springfield History will kick-off its spring lecture series at 2 p.m. on Sunday, March 14, with a talk on "Slavery in the Connecticut River Valley." The program will be held in the museum’s SIS Hall and is free with museum admission.

SPRINGFIELD - Habit makes it easy to misread the decimal point on a colorful “Mobilgas ethyl’’ pump in the Museum of Springfield History. Look closely: It advertises fuel not at $1.59 a gallon but at 15.9 cents. That was a good thing, considering that the 1911 seven-passenger Stevens-Duryea luxury touring car displayed around the corner got only seven miles a gallon.

Monday is the start of Black History Month. On Sunday the Museum of Springfield History unveiled an exhibit tracing the civil rights movement in the city during the 1960s.

In honor of Black History Month, the new Museum of Springfield History will host Freedom through Their Eyes: Fifty Years of Civil Rights Perspectives in Springfield, an exhibition conceived and created by ninety 11th-grade students from the class of 2011 at the Springfield Renaissance School. The exhibit will be on view at the museum from February 2-28, 2010.

The Springfield Museums are pleased to announce that the great hall addition which is part of the new Museum of Springfield History will be named SIS Hall.

The new Museum of Springfield History will open to the public on Saturday, October 10, at 11 a.m. The 40,000-square-foot museum highlights Springfield’s rich history of innovation and entrepreneurship.

At the close of the annual meeting of the Springfield Museums on September 23, Chairman of the Board Richard B. Collins announced a $4.3 million gift from an anonymous donor. The donor has requested that the gift remain anonymous until the spring of 2010, at which time the Museum of Springfield History will be named in the donor’s honor.

The Board of Trustees of the Springfield Museums have voted to proceed with the construction of Phase II of the new Museum of Springfield History.

The National Endowment for the Humanities announced yesterday it awarded $600,000 to the Springfield Museums Association for the construction of a local history museum adjacent to the Quadrangle.

The Springfield Museums are pleased to announce a $150,000 Capital Campaign grant from MassMutual Financial Group for the new Museum of Springfield History.
Construction of the new museum is underway in the former Verizon office building on Edwards Street, adjacent to the Springfield Museums' Quadrangle.

The Springfield Museums Association announced yesterday that it has received a $725,000 grant from the SIS Charitable Fund to be used for renovations of the new Museum of Springfield History.