Unrestricted contributions to the Museum are often the best gift you can make. They allow the Museum's staff and board members to allot the money based on current needs. Cullen Murphy, Editor-at-Large for Vanity Fair magazine and a member of the Museum’s Board of Governors, explains the importance of annual fund support to achieving the Museum’s mission and goals.

Dear Friend:

Have you driven down Amherst’s Main Street lately? A veil of overgrowth has been lifted from the Emily Dickinson Museum, and there’s a new focal point in the town of Amherst. The restored fence and gateposts draw the eye—and lift the spirit. When I walk alongside the fence, I think of each of its 2,600 pickets as a token of possibility. One day the Museum will have that many friends to sustain it—and more. Meanwhile, we’re deeply grateful for the friends we have, and for their continued support.

“A Deed knocks first at Thought—And then—it knocks at Will”: it is hard to think of a better evocation of the Emily Dickinson Museum’s short history. The Museum’s resources may be limited, but the reserves of ideas and willpower are boundless. And those reserves have held us in good stead during what has been a difficult year for the American economy. Yes, like cultural institutions everywhere, the Museum has been affected by the recession in serious ways. But it has stood its ground—and, as the new hedge and fence attest, it has even made advances. I’d single out three areas for special attention:

Greeting the visitors. Americans may have scaled back their travel plans—giving rise to the unhappy term “staycation”—but the numbers signing up for paid tours of the house and grounds remain robust. The Museum continues to provide a transformative tour for a stable audience.

Launching the Web site. For countless people in distant places, our Web site is the gateway to Emily Dickinson and her world. Despite constraints of time and money, it has been redesigned from top to bottom, making it easier to navigate and more content-rich than ever before. Take a look at www.EmilyDickinsonMuseum.org.

Teaching the teachers. Thanks to a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Museum this year hosted some 80 high school teachers from around the country for weeklong professional-development workshops. This kind of intensive outreach pays big dividends—for awareness of Dickinson’s poetry, and for thousands of young lives. Here is a typical comment from a teacher who attended:

 “While I always appreciated Dickinson's poetry, I had no concept at all of the pivotal role her family, friends, and home played in her life. The poet is an enigma, but many mysteries have been unravelled for me. I created a lesson plan that I'm enormously proud of, and I look forward to sharing my newly-gained knowledge with my students.”

My thoughts keep coming back to the fence—and to the fact that Amherst’s two greatest poets had definite views about fences. One of them, Robert Frost, saw fences as dividers. The other, Emily Dickinson, saw them as enticements: “Over the fence—I could climb—if I tried, I know.” The Emily Dickinson Museum has enjoyed a remarkable year in precarious times—above all in the way it has brought people in and then sent them back out.

Once again we seek your help to sustain the work of the Emily Dickinson Museum. Keep the words “over the fence” in mind. Like the poet herself: we can climb—we know.

Sincerely,

Cullen Murphy
Board of Governors