In 2020, New Englanders will celebrate the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower landing, but the event doubles as a tourism booster statewide. Dartmouth is already partaking in the action, and will host a traveling exhibit come March.

As part of Plymouth 400 — a campaign to rev up interest in the colonial period and celebrate both the Mayflower landing and Plymouth's founding — town officials are hosting events such as the Illuminate Thanksgiving and a traveling Wampanoag exhibit to connect tourists with local history.

"[The exhibit] talks about the Wampanoag perspective, from when they met up with the Pilgrims," said event organizer Cyndi Marland. She introduced the exhibit to the Select Board on December 5, showing off the interactive panels that will soon live in the Southworth Library for a month.

The exhibit is set to open on March 2, and will stay through March 30, at the 732 Dartmouth Street location.

"One side is a professional exhibit, and the other side is going to be projects that school children have either written or drawn, or done with clay," said Marland, who is currently working with school officials to make this happen.

Marland, who has already seen the exhibit, said it's very impressive, and will supplement the school curriculum.

"I think it will be more impressive to the students. It's all museum quality," she said. However, residents will also be able to enjoy the exhibit, she said. "The great thing about the library is it'll be open on weekends [so residents can stop in too]. It's quite a beautiful exhibit."

Marland said that Dartmouth shares strong ties with the Wampanoag tribe, as quite a few members still reside in town.

"It's definitely part of the Dartmouth culture, from even before the 350th [anniversary of Dartmouth] came about," she said. "The Wampanoags had a great deal to do with the founding of Dartmouth."

The exhibit will also come along with a curriculum guide — to be approved first by the Wampanoag tribe — that will be shared with teachers, said Marland.