kudos Affiliates! for June 2017

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Congrats to these Affiliates on their recent accomplishments.

FUNDING

The Pinhead Institute (Telluride, CO) won the first-ever Telluride Foundation Innovation Prize of $50,000 for its Climate Institute idea. The new institute will aim to reduce the area’s carbon footprint by focusing on emissions from the Galloping Goose buses, and eventually, the Telluride Regional Airport.

The Wisconsin Maritime Museum (Manitowoc, WI) has announced a $130,000 bequest from the estate of Robert and Grace Peppard, who were longtime supporters of the museum.

The Works: Ohio Center for History, Art & Technology (Newark, OH) received a $2,625 grant from the Granville Community Foundation in support of the ArtWorks! for Life program. ArtWorks! for Life is designed to expand creativity and enhance the quality of life for seniors in the Granville and Newark communities by offering exceptional engaging art programs.

Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital at St. Vincent will be the presenting sponsor of Conner Prairie’s (Fishers, IN) newest outdoor nature experience, Treetop Outpost; its series of summer day camps for youth ages 8-12; and Headless Horseman. As presenting sponsor, the hospital will financially support the three museum initiatives for one year and have multiple opportunities to interact with and engage Conner Prairie visitors throughout the year.

Pew Charitable Trusts awarded the Hagley Museum and Library (Wilmington, DE)$500,000 over three years to expand services for businesses and trade associations. The initiative will advance research and public knowledge of American invention and entrepreneurship.

 

LEADERSHIP and STAFF CHANGES 

The Museum of Latin American Art (Long Beach, CA) has selected Dr. Lourdes I. Ramos to serve as President and CEO.

Mark Auslander, a sociocultural anthropologist, has been appointed director of the Michigan State University Museum (East Lansing, MI).

The Perot Museum of Nature and Science (Dallas, TX) announced that Linda Abraham-Silver will serve as the museum’s new CEO.

The Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission has promoted the education chief, Patrick C. Morrison to historic site administrator at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania (Strasburg, PA) to oversee the 42-year-old railroading site.

The National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium (Dubuque, IA) announced Kurt Strand as the next President & CEO of the organization.

 

AWARDS

Conner Prairie (Fishers, IN) has received national recognition for the revitalization and reinterpretation of the museum’s longest-running exhibit. The American Alliance of Museums honored the museum with an Excellence in Exhibition award. The award recognizes the design, development and implementation of William Conner House, which reopened to the public last year after new interactive and media experiences were installed.

The Museum of Latin American Art (Long Beach, CA) announced that their exhibition Transformations, curated by Curator of Collections, Carlos Ortega, has received a 2017 Thea Award for Outstanding Achievement for “A Museum Exhibit on a Limited Budget” from the Themed Entertainment Association (TEA).

Coming up in Affiliateland in June 2017

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Summer is heating up in Affiliateland!

CALIFORNIA
The board of the Smithsonian Latino Center will be meeting at the LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes in Los Angeles, 6.4-5.

The National Museum of American History will present Let’s Do History professional development workshop in collaboration with the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, 6.9.

KANSAS
National Air and Space Museum curator Mike Neufeld will give a talk and booksigning on Werner Von Braun at the Cosmosphere  in Hutchinson, 6.8.

Fort Worth Alliance Airport tower

Fort Worth Alliance Airport
Texas, United States
Photo by Carolyn Russo, National Air and Space Museum

INDIANA
Former director of the National Museum of American History Brent Glass will give a talk and booksigning on 50 Great Historical Places at the Indiana Historical Society in Indianapolis, 6.13.

NEBRASKA
National Museum of Natural History director Kirk Johnson will be the keynote speaker at the Ashfall Fossil Beds Dedication ceremony at the University of Nebraska State Museum  in Lincoln, 6.17.

ILLINOIS
The Dusable Museum of African American History will host the Night of 100 Stars gala and honor Lonnie Bunch, director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Chicago, 6.24.

Read all about it! Affiliate’s making headlines this month

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Genomics, special Smithsonian speakers on the road, famous horse skeletons, and air mail…April was a busy month in Affiliateland! Check out the Affiliates making headlines across the network:

A soldier in Vietnam writes a letter.

A soldier in Vietnam writes a letter. (Photo: National Archives)

Yankee Air Museum (Belleville, MI)
Smithsonian’s Mail Call heading to Yankee Air Museum
“We are very pleased to bring Mail Call to southeastern Michigan,’’ said Kevin Walsh, Executive Director of the Yankee Air Museum in a news release. “This is the natural encore to our recent project that assembled and mailed nearly 100 care packages to our troops in the Middle East. Yankee Air Museum proudly joins the past with the present as we look to the future.’’

North Carolina Museum of History (Raleigh, NC)
Historical immersion
The N.C. Museum of History, which is a Smithsonian affiliate, has a uniform worn by North Carolina aviator Kiffin Rockwell on loan from the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Rockwell grew up in Asheville and was the first American pilot to shoot down an enemy aircraft in WWI.

International Museum of the Horse (Lexington, KY)
Beyond The Derby, Meet Lexington Kentucky’s Great Thoroughbreds — Past And Present
Making a name for himself not only through his racing but also as the most successful sire of the second half of the 19th century, Lexington’s remains were kept at the Smithsonian for decades before finally coming back to his namesake. You can now find his bones on display at the International Museum of the Horse.

Numerous Wild West Personnel with Deadwood stagecoach, ca. 1889. Buffalo Bill stands in front of the smaller wagon wheel with Major Burke behind his right shoulder. (Photo: Buffalo Bill Center of the West)

Buffalo Bill Center of the West (Cody, WY)
Wild West PR man mounts comeback, 100 years after death
In suitably Burke-like promotion, historians and descendants of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West P.R. man, a rotund fellow dubbed “Major,” gather at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, April 12, at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Washington, DC, to “right a historical wrong,” according to event organizers. … Haynes, Fuqua and his sister and cousin, along with their families, plan to attend the Wednesday ceremony. Guest speakers include Dr. Jeremy Johnston, Curator of the Buffalo Bill Museum at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyoming, and Managing Editor of the Papers of William F. Cody; Steve Friesen, Director of the Buffalo Bill Museum and Grave in Golden, Colorado; and Dr. Michelle Delaney, Senior Program Officer for History and Culture at the Smithsonian Institution, whose forthcoming book, Art and Advertising in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, is scheduled for release in 2019.

Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture (Baltimore, MD)
Lewis Museum Expects Bright Future Under New Management
As the museum continues to reorganize and redevelop, their partnership with the Smithsonian [Institution]’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., has had a positive influence on their progress. Draper said that the Lewis Museum has had a long history with the Smithsonian and the museum is also a Smithsonian affiliate. “We do things with them now,” Draper said. “We premiere their movies in this market, Smithsonian channel movies, and we’re looking at sharing some objects.”

seated guests

Guests at the Rockwell Museum for Smithsonian Speakers Series.

The Rockwell Museum (Corning, NY)
Rockwell Wraps Up Smithsonian Speaker Series This Week
“Eduardo is going to bring his area of expertise which is working in the Latino community,” Rockwell Programs and Events Manager Brett Smith said. “In particular for this program he’s going to be discussing how the Smithsonian is actively insuring that the Latino voice is maintaining a presence throughout the Smithsonian network.”

Peoria Riverfront Museum (Peoria, IL)
Smithsonian’s ‘Genome’ exhibit at the Peoria Riverfront Museum
The “Genome” exhibition will reveal the revolutionary nature of genomic science and unravel the mystery behind it. … The exhibit was developed and produced by the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History and the National Institutes for Health’s National Human Genome Research Institute in association with Science North.

Did we miss something? Or do you have a clipping you’d like to submit? Email Elizabeth Bugbee (BugbeeE@si.edu). All clippings must have a Smithsonian connection, cover significant research or staff changes. 

Coming Up in Affiliateland in May 2017

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Flowers (and programs) are sprouting up all over the Affiliate network in May. Welcome spring!

CONNECTICUT

Visitors enjoy The Jazz Age: American Style in the 1920s at Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City.

The Decorative Arts Society of the Connecticut Historical Society will be touring The Jazz Age: American Style in the 1920s exhibition and touring behind the scenes at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City, 5.2.17.

Connecticut Historical Society will host a lecture by Damion Thomas, curator at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, on the Museum’s sports galleries, in Hartford, 5.22.17.

NEW YORK

The Long Island Museum opens Midnight Rum: Long Island and Prohibition, an exhibition that will feature a loan from the Hirshhorn Museum, John Sloane’s McSorley’s Saturday Night, in Stony Brook, 5.5.17.

MICHIGAN

The Yankee Air Museum will open SITES’ Mail Call exhibition in Belleville, 5.6.17.

OREGON

The Rice Northwest Museum of Rocks and Minerals will host a lecture by Jeff Post, curator from the National Museum of Natural History in Hillsboro, 5.6.17.

FLORIDA

A science program in collaboration with the Smithsonian Latino Center helps to open the Frost Museum of Science in Miami.

The Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Science will host their grand opening, including 5 objects on loan from the National Air and Space Museum in Miami, 5.8.17. The will also host Descubra! Meet the Science Expert, a program focusing on Latino achievement in science in collaboration with the Smithsonian Latino Center, in Miami, 5.13.17.

HAWAII

John Troutman, curator of music at the National Museum of American History, will give a talk and booksigning at the Lyman Museum in Hilo, 5.8.17 and at the Kona Historical Society in Kona, 5.9.17.

MASSACHUSETTS

Framingham State University will host a community-based Latinos and Baseball event, with participation by curator Margaret Salazar-Porzio of the National Museum of American History in Framingham, 5.13.17.

Jeweler Sidney Mobell will give a talk on objects he created that are part of the Jeweled Objects of Desire exhibition, currently on loan from the National Museum of Natural History at the Springfield Museums, 5.21.17.

RHODE ISLAND

Affiliations director Harold Closter will give remarks at the ceremony announcing the Smithsonian’s new affiliation with the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, 5.17.17.

NORTH CAROLINA

The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences will sign a formal collaboration agreement with the Smithsonian Science Education Center at an event in Raleigh, 5.17.17.

OHIO

SITES’ Rebel, Jedi, Princess, Queen: Star Wars™ and the Power of Costume exhibition opens at the Cincinnati Museum Center, 5.25.17.

 

 

 

Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage wants your stories

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Special thanks for this guest post to Angelica Aboulhosn, Public Affairs Specialist with the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.

The Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage invites partners, artists, and others from across the Smithsonian Affiliations network to showcase their work on the new CFCH digital magazine, Folklife. In doing so, contributors can spotlight their work, as well as the work of those individuals and communities they interpret or champion, to a combined audience of over one million viewers.

2011 Heritage Fellows

Photo credit: Roy (left) and PJ Hirabayashi, 2011 NEA National Heritage Fellows. Photo by Tom Pich, National Endowment for the Arts

The website, which launched last month, tells unforgettable stories of music, food, crafts, and culture that help us explore where we have come from and where we are going. Folklife showcases stories of place, history, language and cultural identity as well as the complex lives of individuals and communities—all with focus on the animating questions at the center of contemporary life, such as: How and when do we come together at a time when so much history and so many issues pull us apart? The Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage encompasses the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, and a series of cultural sustainability and research projects that together promote greater understanding and sustainability of cultural heritage across the United States and around the world.

Folklife features include short- and long-form pieces, which range in length from 500 to 1,500 words. Short-form work tends to personal, essay-style pieces, while our longer-form features explores a single issue in depth, often drawing connections between media of various kinds. Folklife also features photo and video essays, in case that better aligns with your work. Ours is an educated, culturally attuned audience looking for authentic, first-person perspectives rather than academic pieces. For the time being, all contributions are unpaid, but if your piece is accepted, it will be posted to the Folklife site and cross-promoted on our web and social media channels.

Turquoise Mountain calligrapher

Over half of Turquoise Mountain’s calligraphy and jewelry students are women, as the organization is committed to provided them with a sustainable source of income. Photo courtesy of Turquoise Mountain

Featured work can include a link to relevant museum websites, online exhibitions, and more. That said, these pieces are distinct from press releases in that they focus squarely on artists, communities, and the stories they have to tell, rather than on the details of one exhibition or another, thereby extending the life of the piece online.

We encourage you to reach out to Charlie Weber (WeberC@si.edu) on our editorial team with any new story ideas. For more information, see the examples below.

Long-form example: Radio Jarochelo: Connecting Communities
Short-form example: On Ink, Tradition, and the Handwritten Word: Learning Chinese Calligraphy

Coming Up in Affiliateland in April 2017

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Smithsonian activity is popping up across the country this spring!

NEW YORK

Director of the Smithsonian Latino Center Eduardo Diaz will present the final talk in the Diversity in America lecture series at the Rockwell Museum in Corning, 4.6.

Susan Evans McClure, director of the Food program at the National Museum of American History, will talk about Food at the Nation’s History Museum to complement the Long Island Museum’s Edible Eden exhibition in Stony Brook, 4.23.

MASSACHUSETTS

Rapper and writer Chee Malabar, native of Kerala, performs at the Queens Museum of Art, Flushing, New York. The photograph by Preston Merchant is part of the exhibition Beyond Bollywood.

Historian and horticulturalist Cindy Brown from Smithsonian Gardens will give a talk on the history of American gardens as part of the Festival of Flowers at the Springfield Museums in Springfield, 4.6.

RHODE ISLAND

Susan Evans McClure, director of the Food program at the National Museum of American History, will talk about Food at the Nation’s History Museum as part of the Rhode Island Historical Society’s Relishing Rhode Island initiative in Providence, 4.19.

WASHINGTON

Smithsonian Acting Provost Richard Kurin will present a talk at the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture in Spokane, 4.29.

SOUTH CAROLINA

The South Carolina State Museum will open SITES’ Beyond Bollywood: Indian Americans Shape the Nation exhibition in Columbia, 4.29.