Mass Humanities recognized the Framingham History Center (FHC) with the 2024 Mass History Commendation award at the Mass History Conference in early June.
Founded in 1888, Framingham History Center’s mission is to preserve and share Framingham’s history in order to encourage connection to community. The center encompasses three historic buildings on the Framingham Center Common. Critically for this commendation, in 2022 Framingham History Center adopted a Community Engagement Plan to assert its “commitment to serving diverse populations that call Framingham home, and to ensure that all the people of Framingham remain at the center of our future operations.” At the center of that plan was the value of co-creation and a recognition that Framingham is a multi-lingual, multicultural community, and that therefore the work of the history center would also be multi-vocal.
Through the Expand Massachusetts Stories grant program, Mass Humanities was honored to support an important step in achieving that plan. In 2022 FHC was awarded a grant for “Collective Journeys: Stories of Immigration 1960-Present;” this year FHC opened its first multilingual exhibit in the center’s 136 years. It is also multi-sensory and multimodal, enabling Framingham residents to shape the exhibit content through “reflection days” and add their stories to the walls through drawing, word magnets, and their own writing. Framingham History Center’s recent work demonstrates that committing to change is a collective journey.
Photo: Anna Tucker, executive director of Framingham History Center, receives the 2024 Mass Commendation award from Katherine Stevens, Director of Grants and Operations at Mass Humanities.