Historic Deerfield Installs Redesigned Exterior Signs

After almost 15 years, Historic Deerfield altered its exterior signs from beige to blue as part of a larger project to redesign and install over 70 exterior signs. The goal of this change was to update information on the signs, improve wayfinding for visitors, increase readability, and strengthen Historic Deerfield's brand identity. 

Historic Deerfield is a museum featuring a collection of 18th and 19th-century houses, offering visitors insights into the diverse people and communities who lived in the site. The houses show a variety of artifacts that include antique furniture, English and Chinese ceramics, rare books and manuscripts, as well as open hearth cooking displayed for visitors to see. In addition to displaying antique visual materials, workshops, exhibitions, and demonstrations are also made available to visitors for more hands-on experience. 

 To balance the historical character of centuries-old houses while ensuring that their structures remain stable, lasting, and appealing to visitors, Historic Deerfield has “used historic preservation practices” as their primary approach, according to Historic Deerfield’s Director of Marketing & Communications, Danae Dincola. Since 2022, the museum has launched multiple successful initiatives. This spring, three new exhibitions centered on the Revolution in Deerfield have opened: Picturing the Revolution, Dressing the Revolution: Fashion and Politics 1760-1789, and A Town Divided: Deerfield in the Age of Revolution.

Regardless of one’s learning style and interests, Historic Deerfield offers a wide range of educational opportunities, “from hands-on activities to historic trades demonstrations (blacksmithing, hearth cooking, metalsmithing, and more), to exhibitions, lectures, and academic forums,” Dincola said. 

Beyond its role as a site offering many archival insights into Deerfield’s past, Historic Deerfield serves as an educational resource on campus. In the senior elective River and Rock, co-taught by English Teacher Mr. Morris and History and Social Science Teacher Mr. McVaugh, students learn to analyze physical landscapes the same way they would with a written text. Mr. Morris integrates Historic Deerfield into the curriculum by treating the site as a primary source. 

“Historic Deerfield is a landscape. It’s a museum structured as a street, and as you walk down it, you clearly encounter unusual landscapes. Since our class is learning to read landscapes, it’s a super convenient place to take a look,” he said.  

Students at Deerfield currently aim to strengthen the connection between the student body and Historic Deerfield by highlighting how the museum offers much information about past events that ultimately influenced modern Deerfield. Gardiner Dietrich ’27, a student who runs the Historic Deerfield club and strives to bridge the gap between the museum and Deerfield students, said: “I created the club because I think the connection between the Academy and Historic Deerfield is very interesting especially with the Frank Boyden and Henry Flint collaboration in the 1920s … many students don’t know that they can go there for free!"