Why Concord? History Galleries

Why Concord? — a six-gallery permanent exhibition, film and interpretive program at the ConcordMuseum — explores the making of Concord as a particular community and as a New England and American symbol.  The town of Concord, Massachusetts has played a significant part in the history of New England and the nation.  Founded by English settlers in 1635, it was the first inland town in Massachusetts, an advanced outpost of Puritan civilization in an area occupied by Native Americans for centuries.  Over a century later, as the site of the battle of April 19, 1775 between Minutemen and Redcoats at the NorthBridge, Concord was the birthplace of the Revolutionary War.  In the mid-nineteenth century, the community became the center of an intellectual revolution that remade American literature and thought.  Concord was the site of Henry D. Thoreau’s experiment in independent living at Walden Pond and the base from which Ralph Waldo Emerson preached his philosophy of self-reliance.  Thanks to these associations, Concord has assumed a special place in the American imagination. Included free with Museum admission.