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.

More Voices, More Votes

With support from Mass Humanities and Local Cultural Councils, we are offering additional democracy-related events from December 2025 through December 2026. Some are still in the planning stages (there may be additions!), but most are confirmed! All events are free and open to the public.

We kicked off the year in December 2025 by remembering the Boston Tea Party with a talk by Emily Dickinson Museum director Jane Wald. Wald touched on the social functions of tea in 19th-century America (and at the end of the 18th century with the Boston Tea Party) and showed photographs of tea paraphernalia in the museum’s collection.

This event was co-sponsored by the Friends of the Tyler Memorial Library, with support from Mass Humanities and the Charlemont-Hawley Arts Council.

Coming Up in 2026:

Friday, May 15, at 1 p.m.

We will host a program about William Apess, Native American autobiographer (and Colrain son), with artist Deborah Spears Moorehead and scholar Drew Lopenzina in the school library. Moorehead is donating a portrait of Apess to the school, and Lopenzina is a noted Apess scholar.

Thursday, May 21, at 6 p.m.

Political Trivia Night with the League of Women Voters. This was a huge hit with multiple generations last year and will return to the school library by popular demand.

Thursday, June 4, at 7 p.m.

MoMS and the Charlemont Forum will present Austin Sarat, of Amherst College for a lecture and questions about the Future of Democracy in the school library.

Thursday, October 29, time and place TBA

Reading Frederick Douglass Together

Students and guests will take turns reading “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July.” (This date is still tentative; the school has not yet set its schedule for the next academic year.)

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, and Plainfield), the Charlemont Forum, the Mary Lyon Foundation, the League of Women Voters, and our project partner, the Town of Hawley.

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.