PEABODY — The Peabody Leatherworkers Museum hopes to use its newfound status as a nonprofit to better preserve the city’s past as the world’s leather capital.
The museum was granted nonprofit status about two weeks ago, allowing the site to apply for more grants and turn to other sources of funding for special projects. It will continue to be partially funded by the city, museum Director Dick St. Pierre said.
A new advisory group made up of past members of the leather industry and those who have family ties to it will work to secure new funds. Already, the museum is seeing support from several leather companies and leatherworker organizations from around the country.
“We’re trying to branch out,” he said.
Located next to the George Peabody House Museum on Washington Street, which St. Pierre also oversees, the museum features artifacts and photographs from Peabody tanneries that have long since closed.
On display are machines and the leather goods they produced, and samples of what leather looks like throughout the leathermaking process. There’s also records, signs and posters from local tanneries showing the familiar names of families who came up through the industry years ago.
Through new funding sources, St. Pierre hopes to start a speaker series featuring former Peabody leatherworkers and to digitize the museum’s records of tanneries and leather transactions, some of which are well over 100 years old.
“People don’t realize that leatherworking in Peabody goes back to 1635 in farmers’ homes,” he said. “If we don’t work to preserve that local history, it’s going to be lost.”
The museum, which first opened in 2001, aims to celebrate the people of this industry, too.
On Saturday, the museum will host its second annual open house from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. A rain date is set for Oct. 5.
The event will feature speakers from the city’s leather industry and food from Greece, Poland, Portugal, Italy and other cultures that made up a notable amount of the leathermaking workforce in the area.
Tina Manolakos and her family were Greek immigrants working in Peabody’s tanneries decades ago. Today, she runs an education program for the city’s fourth-graders at the museum that was introduced last year.
Manolakos takes students through the leathermaking process when they come to the museum on field trips. They watch a film that shows footage of former tanneries when they were still in business, and the kids can see, smell and feel the leather products that helped Peabody grow into what it is today.
“I want them to know that this was an international effort,” she said, pointing to strings of different countries’ flags on display outside of the museum. “That’s why we have our flags here, to represent the different nationalities that made this happen.”
Students of all ages are encouraged to attend Saturday’s open house, St. Pierre said. The event will have activities for families, including a caricaturist on site to draw visitors, in addition to access to the museum.
For more information about the Peabody Leatherworkers Museum, visit https://peabodymuseums.com/peabody-leatherworkers-museum/.
Contact Caroline Enos at CEnos@northofboston.com