Founded in 1902 as the Peterborough Historical Society, the Monadnock Center for History and Culture has preserved, shared, and celebrated the history of Peterborough and the Monadnock Region for over a century. From its first meeting held in the bank building at 14 Grove Street, the society collected furniture, books, documents, manuscripts, and artifacts so that the future historian would have the materials at hand to know the community as it was in the past.
The newly formed society focused its early efforts on publishing. These publications included Historical Sketches of Peterborough, New Hampshire and Peterborough, New Hampshire in the American Revolution by Jonathan Smith. Later, society president George A. Morison wrote, The History of Peterborough, New Hampshire (1954), a highly regarded town history.
A decade after the society’s founding, Clara Foster Bass proposed building a permanent home to house the growing collections. In 1917 the cornerstone was laid for the Monadnock Center’s building on Grove Street. The center’s beautiful assembly hall is named in her honor. The Historical Society led the celebration of the U.S. Centennial in 1926 and began an annual tradition of raising the flag and reading the Declaration of Independence on the morning of July 4, a ceremony that has been held every year since 1926.
In the early years, the society was exclusive and rarely open to the public. A vote of the membership was required to admit new members. This practice prevailed until 1976 when the society rewrote its by-laws and opened membership to anyone upon payment of annual dues. This democratization of the membership coincided with a period of growth and community outreach. Under the leadership of President Charlotte S. Derby, the society adopted modern museum practices and expanded its community programs. In the 1970s, the society began offering education programs to the local schools and a series of popular historical travel trips for adults. During the 1960s and 1970s, the society hired its first employees, a part-time curator and an executive secretary. In the 1980s a series of grants allowed the society to professionally organize its archives. The museum adopted year-round open hours. In 1987, the society hired its first executive director, Ellen Derby. Derby had directed school programs starting in 1980.
Following Peterborough’s Bicentennial in 1989, the society embarked on a new publication project to update the town’s history. In 1996, the society published Our Changing Town: Peterborough 1939-1989. The American Association of State and Local History recognized the book with an Award of Merit in 1997.
Since that time, the society’s programs and scope have grown to embrace a robust schedule of rotating exhibitions, walking tours, concerts, community discussions, living history presentations, and historical talks. In 2013, to reflect the society’s expansiveness, the Board of Directors voted to adopt the name Monadnock Center for History and Culture. In recent years, the Monadnock Center has undertaken two important collections and research projects. The center launched, with the Historical Society of Cheshire County, the Recovering Black History Project, a multi-year research initiative in 2019. The project seeks to uncover the primary source documents that record the histories of BIPOC residents of the Monadnock Region. In 2022, the Monadnock Center accepted The Nora S. Unwin Collection, a collection of 1,600 prints, woodblocks, paintings and drawings created by wood engraver and illustrator Nora Unwin (1907-1982).