A New Direction for Fanshawe Pioneer Village Part 1

Posted on: July 27, 2011 by Sheila Johnson Subscribe

Fanshawe Pioneer Village tells the unique story of the founding and settlement of this region of Southwestern Ontario. The immigrant story told in the Village of moving to a new home in a strange land is not unique to the 19th century. New immigrants are settling in London at a faster rate than any other city in Southwestern Ontario. When they visit Fanshawe Pioneer Village to explore the history of their new home, they can relate to the settlement experience.

Dominion Day is a good example of this. On July 1st, Fanshawe Pioneer Village hosted a Citizenship Ceremony for 42 new Canadians from over 30 different countries. The Miller Barn was the location of this moving ceremony and these new citizens and their families spent the rest of the day enjoying the festivities at Fanshawe Pioneer Village. We all had a great day!

The primary purpose of museums is to involve the visitor in the exploration of the past by linking to their personal experience. The face of London and Middlesex County is rapidly changing with new immigrants from around the world. Fanshawe Pioneer Village has the opportunity to link the immigrant experience of the past with recent immigration to this region through feature exhibitions in the Trillium Community Gallery in the new Spriet Family Visitor Centre to be constructed in 2012.

The top five ethnic origins of Londoners are English, Scotttish, Canadian, Irish and German. The first four are refective of the ethnic groups that migrated here in the 19th century to establish a new home. The last group emigrated here in great numbers during the late 19th and first ½ of the 20th century due to world events. The history of these ethnic groups are told in the historic Village which demonstrates the founding and development of this region from 1820 to 1920. These groups are well established and many have constucted community halls for the celebration of their culture.

However, the London and Middlesex County region has changed with the coming of the 21st century. Today, 11% of the population is made up of visible minorities. The top five groups are Arab/West Asian, Black, south Asian, Chinese and Latin American. These ethnic groups form an increasing proportion of our casual visitors and school audiences and yet their stories are not reflected in the exhibits and interpretation of the Historic Village. Because these groups are new communities, they have difficulty accessing public spaces for celebration of their culture and comunicating their stories to Londoners.

In 2005, as part of the Master Development and Business Plan for Fanshawe Pioneer Village, the London and Middlesex Heritage Museum launched a capital Campaign. The purpose of the BIG on HISTORY! Capital Campiagn is threefold:

A)  To repair and restore the historic infrastructure in the Pioneer Village

B)  To increase the size of the endowment for future sustainabliity and

C)  To build the Spriet Family Visitor Centre.

Goals A and B have been realized with the raising of $3.3 million from primarly private and corporate sources. The final project of this campiagn is the construction of the Spriet Family Visitor Centre, a 12,000 square foot new building styled after a 1910 Middlesex County barn.

The primary purpose of the Spriet Family Visitor Centre is to provide the facilities necessary for the delivery of a successful community museum program in the 21st century. To do that, adaquate space is needed for the storage of 24,000 artifacts to ensure their long term care and a new public space for community events and exhibits.

While the historic Village tells the story of the founding and settlement London and Middlesex through two generations from 1820 to 1920, the Spriet Centre brings that history to the present with a changing exhibition program and events that tell the stories of current visible minoritiy populations. The immigrant story told in the historic Village, of leaving home, of leaving behind, the trials of travel and the making of a new home in a strange land are repeated again in the 21st century by immigrants from different parts of the world. Dicovering their history is important to understanding the unique history of this region.

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