All politics is local — and a lot of Massachusetts museums are, too – The Boston Globe

The Peabody Essex Museum installed “Salem Stories” in September 2020. The exhibition, which has an open-ended run, consists of 26 displays, or “vignettes,” presented in alphabetical order. The accompanying items are drawn from PEM’s permanent collection. All relate to Salem’s history.

“A” is “always for Indigenous,” paying tribute to the original residents of the area. “Z” is for “zoology” and features a very large leatherback turtle. In between come more than 100 objects, ranging from a 19th-century fire bucket to a Monopoly game (Salem was long home to Parker Brothers, which made the game) to a Kiss-o-Meter, once in use at the Willows Park arcade.

PEM isn’t a town or city museum, of course. The 1.3 million objects in its collection literally span the globe, thanks to the city’s storied maritime past. Instead, “Salem Stories” is a nice nod to the museum’s hometown.

There are, however, numerous museums in Massachusetts dedicated to their own hometown. The Lyman and Merrie Wood Museum of Springfield History has not one but two Rolls-Royce roadsters in its collection (who knew that Rolls-Royce ever made roadsters?). The Middleborough Historical Museum has extensive Tom Thumb holdings. The Gardner Museum, in Gardner, is not to be confused with that other Gardner Museum, in Boston.

Places you might expect have their own historical museums: Worcester, Northampton, Lynn, Somerville, Newton. So do places you might not. The Wenham Museum collection includes some 58,000 items, including 21 model trains and 10 working model-train layouts — not bad for a town with a population under 5,000.

What follows is an extensive, if not exhaustive, list of Massachusetts cities and towns with museums devoted to the history of those cities and towns.

Amherst History Museum

Ashfield Historical Society Museum

Auburn Historical Museum

Blackstone Historical Museum

Boylston Historical Society Museum

Brewster Historical Society Museum

Brockton Historical Society

Buckland Historical Society Museum

Burlington Historical Museum

Centerville Historical Museum

Clinton Historical Society Museum

Cohasset Historical Society

Concord Museum

Dedham Museum & Archive

East Brookfield Historical Museum

Fairhaven Historical Society

Fall River Historical Society Museum

Framingham History Center

Freetown Historical Society Museum (Assonet)

The Gardner Museum

Great Barrington Historical Society Museum at the Wheeler Family Farmstead

Groton History Center

Heath Historical Society Museum

Historic Northampton

Historical Society of Phillipston Museum

Jackson Homestead and Museum (Newton)

Leominster Historical Society Museum

Long Plain Museum (Acushnet)

Lynn Museum & Arts Center

Manchester-by-the-Sea Museum

Marblehead Museum

Mattapoisett Museum

Meetinghouse Museum (Orleans)

Mendon Historical Society Museum

Middleborough Historical Museum

Milford Historical Museum

Museum of Lenox History

Lyman and Merrie Wood Museum of Springfield History

Natick History Museum

North Andover Historical Society Museum

Oakham Historical Museum

Orange Historical Society

Pilgrim Hall Museum (Plymouth)

Pilgrim Monument and Provincetown Museum

Quaboag Historical Society (West Brookfield)

Quincy Historical Society

Royalston Historical Society

Sharon Historical Society & Museum

Somerville Museum

Shelburne Historical Society (Shelburne Falls)

Shirley Historical Society Museum

Stoneham Historical Society & Museum

Wakefield Historical Society Museum

Waltham Museum

Warwick Historical Society and Museum

Wellfleet Historical Society & Museum

Wenham Museum

West Bridgewater Historical Museum

Westford Museum

Whately Historical Society Museum

Worcester Historical Museum

Mark Feeney can be reached at mark.feeney@globe.com.