PEM is pleased to host a range of activities throughout 2026 that celebrate our storied city. Salem 400+ commemorates the city's quadricentennial while acknowledging the preexisting indigenous community and explores the opportunities and connections of Salem’s multifaceted history while crafting a vision for current and future generations.

PEM is actively participating in a number of ways to honor the lesser-known stories, including special projects, presentations, guided learning opportunities and in-school workshops to discuss identity, community-building and collect the stories of today’s youth.

Explore and follow along with #Salem400

From December 2025 through 2026, PEM will implement guided learning opportunities and in-school workshops throughout Salem to discuss identity, community-building and collect the stories of today’s youth. While the workshops will not be public, PEM will be showcasing the students’ written and visual work throughout 2026. PEM workshops will include:

“Where I’m From” – Identity, Place, and Community Across 400 Years of Salem
(90-minute social studies, ELA and arts in-school workshop)
Scaled for elementary, middle and high school-aged learners, participants will explore Salem's historical periods and consider the stories that form a community's identity in this two-part, in-school workshop. Through drawing, each individual will visually express an original poem that connects their personal, familial and community identity to Salem's 400-year history.

Salem 400 Guided Tours (45 min in-gallery tour)
During 2026, PEM will showcase several ongoing exhibitions focused on Salem history, including Salem Stories; The Salem Witch Trials 1692; and a re-installation of PEM’s original exhibition building East India Marine Hall. Across the museum, visitors will find fascinating connections to Salem’s history in its galleries, including the historic partnership between museum director Edward Sylvester Morse and Korean diplomat Yu Kil-Chun, who donated his personal effects to the museum in the 1880s, helping establish the first Korean art collection in the United States. In PEM’s Fashion and Design gallery, a significant rotation of works from the collection will feature direct ties to aspects of Salem’s history and the people who have called the city home. Other fascinating stories of Salem’s past will be featured prominently in PEM’s On This Ground: Being and Belonging in America exhibition as well as its Maritime Art and History and Asian Export art galleries.