Changing Visions:
The new Southborough History and Arts center is an undertaking of the Southborough Historical Society. Founded in 1965, the Society’s original mission was “to educate, study, collect and preserve historical records and antiquities relating to the history of Southborough and its people; to preserve items of current events that may have historical interest in the future; to interest and unite the townspeople through programming that reveals the history of our town and its neighboring communities.”
However, as the decades passed, it became clear that the model that our Society was founded on, like many other similar organizations, was becoming increasingly untenable.
Firstly, membership was based on the premise of large numbers of stay-at-home individuals available to volunteer and socialize during the day—a population which entirely evaporated as most households began to rely on dual earners.
Secondly, over the last few decades, the entire concept of what constitutes “history” has been vastly expanded. Historical societies can no longer be just a dusty collection of curios and expect an active membership. To stay relevant, historical organizations like ours need to embrace a much broader spectrum of cultural programming in order to fulfill another of our primary goals — “increasing a sense of community and place among the townsfolk.”
That is not to say we are abandoning historical education or our preservation advocacy—far from it. We are, however, going to bring historical instruction into the 21st century by emphasizing its arts and culture components. If you take a ballroom dance class with us, for instance, you are going to learn about the origins of 20th century jazz. A still-life painting class might focus on the women of the Boston School, like our own Helen Sears. A genealogy class may reveal the hardships of Catholic immigrants moving to places like protestant Southborough. Wreath-making? The home factory system so prevalent in Southborough in the Civil War Era. Everything we do will have an historical aspect, and we believe this unique blending of history and the arts will set us distinctly apart from any other organization in this area.
The sina qua non to all this, however, is an appropriate facility. One has not existed in Southborough—until now.
Making Vision REALITY:
In the autumn of 2022, the Southborough Historical Society acquired and began renovating the historic 1911 Fayville Village Hall as our town’s new home for history and arts education. The hall, originally built to house municipal offices and to provide meeting space for Fayville residents, had over the years become exceedingly run down, and was sold by the town in 2017 on the proviso that the exterior be substantially retained. The Society remaine faithful to that charge, and embarked on an ambitious plan to entirely re-imagine the gutted interior—ready to reopen to the public in September of 2025.
