CMEE President to Depart for East Hampton Historical Society

Stephen Long, the president of the Children’s Museum of the East End, will leave the museum December 1 to serve as the next executive director of the East Hampton Historical Society.

Mr. Long has been with CMEE since 2008, and leaves a tenure of expanded community engagement and increased attendance. The children’s museum was founded in 2005, and featured educational exhibits and programming.

“Everything is right for a new director to come to take the museum to the next level,” Mr. Long said in a phone interview.

Mr. Long explained that it was naturally time for CMEE to move to a new leader with a fresh vision after serving for what he described as a long time for a museum director.

“The museum is kind of like my third baby,” Mr. Long said. “After 13 years — let the baby grow up and find its own way.”

He noted that he had not been actively searching for new positions, and that board members of the East Hampton Historical Society reached out to solicit his application for their directorship.

“This is such a great opportunity for [CMEE’s board] to say, ‘What should the new leadership look like,’” Mr. Long said.

In a news release, Jock Percy, co-chair of CMEE’s board, thanked Mr. Long for his service and for developing CMEE.

“[W]e deeply appreciate his tireless dedication and effort to fulfilling our mission and serving our community,” Mr. Percy said in the statement. “This executive transition comes at a positive inflection point for CMEE as we’ve assembled a terrific team ready to build on a rock-solid foundation.”

For Mr. Long, the opportunity to work more closely with the sharing and telling of history has always been a goal, he said.

“What attracted me to the historical society — one, I live in East Hampton, and my background is all in history,” he said.

Mr. Long previously worked as the vice president of collections and education for the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, a national historic landmark that exists to tell the stories of American immigration. He has an undergraduate degree in history from Middlebury College in Vermont, and a master’s degree from New York University.

With The East Hampton Historical Society, he hopes to bring the public into the arena for telling and evoking untold and undertold stories in the region’s history.

“When I was at NYU, one of the areas that really excited me was this idea of public history … how do we make people realize that they need the past [in] the way we need oxygen,” Mr. Long said. He explained that historical agencies — museums, books, and other outlets for exploring history — “can really play a part in making people realize the history of their communities.”

The East Hampton Historical Society operates a range of different historical sites and museums, including Mulford Farm and the East Hampton Town Marine Museum, and 2021 is the centennial anniversary of the society.

Richard Barons served as the director of the Society from 2006 until 2017, when he was replaced by Jill Malusky. According to the society’s website, Mr. Barons is currently the chief curator; the website does not list a current director.

“While we engaged in a nationwide search, in the end we were thrilled to find someone with roots already in the Town of East Hampton,” said Mike Clifford, president of the society’s board, in a news release. “Steve combines a deep commitment to the local community with extensive experience in history and historic preservation.”

In its news release, CMEE leadership wrote that its leaders started a search for a new president, and that Director of Education Liz Bard and Director of Development Lara Sweeney will serve as interim presidents until the board appoints a new leader.