The Smithsonian Institution’s Museum on Main Street Exhibit
Mohawk Trail Regional School (MTRS) is proud to have been a host site for the 2025–2026 Smithsonian Institution’s Voices and Votes: Democracy In America tour.
From April 19, 2025, through May 29, 2025, we enjoyed having this small but mighty exhibit in the Mohawk Trail Regional High School library where it greeted, engaged, and informed guests and groups.
Related Events
We hosted a number of free events that encouraged engagement and contributed perspectives from our rural community.
- Thursday, April 17, 4:30 to 6:00 p.m.: Exhibit Opening Night; followed by MTRS spring concert on the theme of protest
- Saturday, April 26, noon to midnight: The Art Garden’s Hilltown Draw Around at Cowell Gymnasium; Respond creatively to “Voices and Votes” by attending the Hilltown Draw-Around in Shelburne Falls. There one of the community art-making prompts will focus on questions the exhibit explores. Draw, doodle, color, collage, and get creative with other community members. Pay what you can; draw what you want.
- Thursday, May 1, 5:30 p.m.: Becoming an American; event co-hosted by Center for New Americans
- Thursday, May 8, 7:00 p.m.: The Charlemont Forum: A Republic … If You Can Keep It: Why Your Vote Still Matters: Why American democracy is most responsive to the wealthiest and most powerful participants, and the importance of getting involved through voting, organizing, protesting, and speaking.
- Thursday, May 15, 5:30 p.m.: Food for Thought
- Thursday, May 22, 6:00 p.m.: Trivia Night hosted by the League of Women Voters in the MTRS cafeteria
- Thursday, May 29, 4:00 to 6:00 p.m.: Exhibit Closing Night with political music; followed by MTRS senior awards night
About This Program
Mass Humanities believes everyone deserves access to quality museum exhibitions. That’s why they partner with small towns to bring the Smithsonian’s Museum on Main Street (MoMs) to Massachusetts, with the goal of engaging small town audiences and revitalizing attention to rural communities.
Through This Program, You Can:
- Attend free public events featuring exhibits curated by the Smithsonian and local historians.
- Revitalize civic discourse in rural communities.
- Spark local storytelling, history, and conversation with friends and neighbors.
- Create exhibits, programs, and events that put local history in conversation with national history.
Thank you To Our Partners
With generous funding from Mass Humanities, our rural perspective is paired with national, historic content that helps us better understand the present through the past. We offer thanks to Mass Humanities, local cultural councils – Buckland, Charlemont-Hawley, Colrain, Heath, Plainfield, and Shelburne – the Charlemont Forum, the Mary Lyon Foundation, and our project partner, the Town of Hawley.
