Scout Out The Rest Is Not Just History
THE REST IS NOT JUST HISTORY BEHIND A MODEST BRICK FACADE IN SPRING HILL, STORIES OF THE PAST REST ALONGSIDE THE SPIRIT OF OUR FUTURE. By JM Lindsay Photos by Emily Cassel
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eatly tucked away off Central Street between Summer Street and Highland Avenue, the Somerville Museum may not have the obvious and imposing grandeur of other area museums. It’s not as modern and spacious as the Seaport’s Institute of Contemporary Art, and it’s not nearly as palatial as Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum— where, coincidentally, the Somerville Museum’s Board of Trustees president, Barbara Mangum, once worked as chief conservator. But those museums, beautiful as they are, house worldly collections geared towards tourists and discerning art historians. The Somerville Museum, founded in 1897 as the Somerville Historical Society, has an entirely different purpose. It’s a mission that shines through its current exhibit, Charan Devereaux’s “Union Square at Work,” and upcoming events, like the always popular “Union Square Open Studios,” headquartered at the museum from April 29 through May 1. For a long time, the museum ran simply as a historical society, according to Mangum, an art conservator who hails from Alabama. “These were incredible people who wanted to get together and keep the history of Somerville alive as they knew it, because Somerville had undergone such huge change already” by the turn of the 20th century, Mangum says. Historical Society members wanted to
Union Square at Work: photographer Charan Devereaux leads a tour of the Somerville Museum 38 March | April 2016
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