The Tomaquag Museum will receive $444,282 in federal funding to construct a new permanent home for at the University of Rhode Island’s Kingston Campus.
The funding, announced on Tuesday, will be administered by the National Endowment for the Humanities and will support the relocation and expansion of the museum, which is currently located in Exeter.
“The Tomaquag Museum is the only museum in the state operated by Native people and one of the best small museums in the entire country,” said U.S. Senator Jack Reed, a senior Appropriations Committee member, overseeing NEH funding. “They have an incredibly diverse collection of artifacts old and new and a tremendously talented, dedicated staff that highlights Southern New England Indigenous traditions, heritage, history and culture. The Tomaquag Museum is a place where history comes alive and so it’s fitting that it continues to expand and grow and reach wider audiences.”
The new building will be able to host more than 150,000 visitors annually. It will showcase the museum’s unique collection of thousands of cultural belongings along with hundreds of thousands of archival materials focusing on the Indigenous peoples of Southern New England.
“The Tomaquag Museum plays an important role educating the public and honoring local Indigenous communities,” said Senator Whitehouse, who successfully nominated the Tomaquag Museum for the National Medal for Museum and Library Service in 2016. “I am very pleased that this funding will help support the relocation and expansion of the Tomaqaug Museum so more Rhode Islanders can learn about our state’s cultural heritage and the contributions of the Narragansett Tribe.”
Generative artificial intelligence (AI) assisted a What’sUpNewp journalist with the reporting included in this story.
