Martha's Vineyard Museum Competitors

Founded in 1799 in Salem, Massachusetts, 15 miles from Boston, the Peabody Essex Museum is the oldest continuously operating museum in the United States. Now among the top 8% of American art museums, PEM is also one of the nation’s fastest growing art museums and operates on a global stage in terms of networks, partners, and patronage. PEM has achieved unprecedented growth over the past two decades. In 2003, PEM completed one of the most striking museum transformations in American history, including exponential growth of the operating budget and the addition of over 250,000 square feet of new and renovated gallery and public spaces. This includes 26,000 square feet of changing exhibition galleries and 55,000 square feet of galleries devoted to collection installations. In 2011, the museum announced a comprehensive and singular advancement campaign for $650M. The campaign focuses on increasing an already healthy endowment to support an expanded exhibition program; programmatic initiatives ranging from the interpretive to the digital and educational; global leadership initiatives; and an institutional culture of creativity, all in concert with fiscal stability and sound management, based on annual budget of $31 million. PEM is adding a 40,000 square-foot wing scheduled to open in summer 2019. It will include 15,000 square feet of galleries for collection installations and additional public and educational spaces. The museum is also developing a 110,000 square-foot offsite collection center for the care and study of the museum’s collection of more than 1 million works. Between 2017 and 2022, PEM will develop new collection installations museum-wide, based on innovative experience, interpretation and design strategies that reflect the museum’s commitment to drawing on multiple fields of inquiry, including neuroscience. Annually, the museum welcomes 250,000 people. It employs 250 staff and engages over 110 docent guides in support of PEM’s educational mission.

Anchored in the story of New Bedford’s whaling industry, the New Bedford Whaling Museum documents and shares the diverse stories of this vibrant maritime region and its people, both bygone and current. Historically, whaling was an essential economic driver for our port communities and also for a rapidly expanding and industrializing society. The wealth and economic capacity generated by whaling fueled the growth and diversity of the SouthCoast region. Founded as the Old Dartmouth Historical Society in 1903, the Museum’s rich history reveals an intimate relationship with the communities it serves. Motivated by civic pride and a desire to preserve the artifacts and narratives of the region, the museum was established by a deeply engaged group of citizens “to create and foster an interest in the history” of the area. Today, the Museum plays a critical role as champions for whale preservation and discovering our heritage. Through our partnerships and our collection, the Museum stands as an institution for learning from, teaching about and reflecting on humans’ collective impact on our waters. As a compelling destination that anchors a national park and vibrant urban seaport, we encourage exploration of our region’s cultural, artistic, historic, and scientific contributions. A keeper of the region’s collective memory, the Museum preserves a communal story of the many who settled in this port and those that keep the light shining brightly. From abolitionists to immigrants, merchants to whalers, seamstresses to fisherman, and artists to environmentalists, the New Bedford Whaling Museum boldly weaves their narratives together, inviting visitors to examine complex and sometime difficult topics that are shaped by our past, remain critical today and inform a sustainable future.