Sheffield — The 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence is not far around the corner, and Deena Caswell, library director of the Bushnell-Sage Library in Sheffield since 2020, is playing a key role in event planning. Mass Humanities Executive Director Brian Boyles invited her to serve as the Massachusetts library representative in a national forum to plan community programming to mark the “semiquincentennial.”
That was a word Caswell is proud to have learned at the March 7–8 forum in Washington, D.C., hosted by the Federation of State Humanities Councils. Working under a grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services, the federation is moving into the implementation phase, and funding opportunities will soon open up nationally for libraries and other groups to host these conversations and programs around the Declaration of Independence.
Caswell was excited to convene with so many people “who think deeply about the humanities, about their communities,” knowing that they will “push beyond a basic patriotic celebration of the 250th” to think more deeply about what it means. At the forum, they pondered the first lines of the Declaration of Independence, what equality meant then, and what it might mean now to the concept of America. She spoke of how much Sheffield values its local history, not just as the oldest place in the Berkshires, but “breaking past the bounds of what we think of as traditional history and looking at who’s been here, what they were doing, what struggles they faced, knowing that equality does not mean the same thing to everyone.”
She cited Stockbridge and other local organizations trying to reconnect with the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohicans, as well as the work the Sheffield Historical Society has done to look at Black families in Sheffield and Elizabeth Freeman. It was enlightening, recounts Caswell, talking to representatives from all different states and U.S. territories, everyone coming with different perspectives. She could share how Shay’s Rebellion took place right down the road, while, as Arizona representatives pointed out, the history of their land from 1776 spans a lot of time before gaining statehood.
Caswell, originally from the Philadelphia area, has a lot of experience in creating community conversations since her previous library work in Cherry Hill, N.J., in partnership with New Jersey Council for the Humanities. As Sheffield’s librarian, she worked with Mass Humanities as one of six sites statewide to receive a grant for the “Crossroads: Change in Rural America” project last year. It brought a Smithsonian exhibit to the library for six weeks and implemented over a dozen programs with other local organizations.
Because the community-conversation piece was part of the grant requirements of hosting “Crossroads,” Bushnell-Sage received extensive training in how to run those conversations. In year two of the Mass Humanities grant, the library continues to host those conversations at Dewey Hall, around topics like housing and food.
So Caswell feels very prepared to have conversations around equality when the 250th anniversary arrives. “What does the Declaration mean to you? How is America living its values; what do we think American values are? It’s a topic where people have a lot of very personal connections, family stories to be told,” she says, while also thinking about the future of our country, beyond the 250th, and what we would like to see moving forward.
“It’s really valuable to me to have places like Dewey Hall and all of the fabulous libraries in Berkshire County being public spaces that people can feel comfortable in, where we’re able to meet with our communities, engage with each other face to face, in a real way where we can hopefully have some level of civility even when we disagree,” says Caswell.
The planning is still in process, but everyone feels optimistic about the next steps in this grant, Caswell says. The importance of the historic moment gives Berkshire County libraries and historical societies an opportunity “to really think about this upcoming anniversary and how we can talk with each other about it.” She envisions towns, libraries, and other community organizations partnering with each other as applications open up. “And hopefully we see this all across the state, all across the country.”