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Museum of Madeiran Heritage
- Good for Kids:
- No
2 reviews for Museum of Madeiran Heritage
The name might confuse a bit -- this is decidedly an immigrant museum devoted to documenting the life of Maderian families settling in the New Bedford area. If you're not part of the local Maderian community -- which I'm not -- some of the displays are a bit confusing, but it can be pretty entertaining to look around nonetheless, especially if you have a bit of an anthropology streak in you.
More an immigrant community tribute than a heritage museum, you will learn a lot more about the people living in New Bedford than you will about Madeira \in this museum.
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If you're looking for an "official" type museum like you see elsewhere in New Bedford's historical district, this museum might disappoint. It looks more like a collection of immigrant's private photos, mementos, and artifacts of Portugal and Madeira, with an explanatory display at the front of the museum. The building itself is quite small, but it's beautiful with a really pretty patio/garden area outside, and definitely exudes old European/Mediterranean charm. The displays are a little worse for wear and could use some serious TLC, but you can tell that a lot of people put a lot of time into putting everything up and making it look as nice as they could. If you go for one thing, go for the photographs. Again, they're old and some are faded, but the building is packed full of them, and they're all very nice shots of the beautiful Madeiran landscape.
My travel companion bought one of the Madeiran cookbooks at the front gift case area, which true to the theme of the museum is another tribute to Portuguese immigrants to New Bedford, consisting of people's home cooking Madeiran recipes. I'd recommend this as well if you like to cook and want to make Portuguese food at home without fancy equipment- the ingredients were all pretty simple, and the recipes looked quite delicious.
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