Project Overview
Like many small rural towns, New Lebanon, New York, has seen its share of economic challenges: houses sunk into disrepair; farms gone to weed; businesses shuttered. In response, Behold! New Lebanon was conceived as a model for place-based development, showing how rural ingenuity can be tapped to ignite a fresh sense of cultural and economic opportunity. Employing residents who present their stories, skills, and knowledge to visitors as “rural guides”—including farm-dog trainers, printing artisans, and bog ecologists—the project launched a “living museum of contemporary rural life,” attracting hundreds of tourists from nearby metropolitan centers. With dozens of residents participating each season (and guides earning a professional wage), Behold! posited that if visitors understand the contribution made by rural places to the national good, they’ll be more likely to work to preserve them—and, in turn, nurture a new future for rural America. In 2018, following several seasons in New Lebanon, founder Ruth J. Abram retired from Behold!, and the organization’s programming was absorbed by the Shaker Museum | Mount Lebanon, whose educational activities sought to celebrate the kindred values of New Lebanon’s contemporary rural guides and the original Shakers.
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