Museum of the White Mountains
34 Highland St
Plymouth, NH 03264
United States
MWM Main Gallery
May 31 - September 13, 2025
Opening Reception: Friday, May 30, 4:00-6:00pm
The Museum of the White Mountains at Plymouth State University was selected by New Hampshire Humanities as one of three host sites in the state for the Smithsonian’s Museum on Main Street exhibition, Crossroads: Change in Rural America. This exhibition explores pressing questions for rural communities: What does “rural America” mean? What makes these places unique? How do we identify with them? How have rural communities and small towns evolved and changed? Over the course of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, small towns became centers of commerce, trade, local politics, and culture. For some, the crossroads affirmed a new life in a new place. For others, the crossroads meant hard work and hard times. Crossroads aims to allow small towns and rural areas a chance to observe their own paths and to highlight the changes that have affected their trajectories over the past century.
To make this national exhibition more relevant to our local community, we are developing a companion exhibition, The White Mountains: A Crossroads, that explores the same themes of land, community, identity, persistence, and managing change in the context of the western White Mountains. We are doing this in partnership with the historical societies and public libraries in Plymouth, Franconia, Lincoln, Woodstock, and Bethlehem. Using the buildings (a courthouse, a church, a café/store, and a farmhouse) where each group is housed as focal points, the exhibition explores how these five communities developed and continue to evolve.
Special thanks to Marcia Schmidt Blaine for stepping up to help coordinate our efforts.
