Tag Archive for: Buffalo Bill Historical Center

kudos Affiliates! September 2013

/1 Comment/in , , , /by

Summer 2013 is winding down but continues to be a hot one for our Affiliates!

Funding

neh_at_logo   
     

The National Endowment for the Humanities recently announced the recipients of $33 million in grants for 173 humanities projects, including the following Affiliate projects:

– Mystic Seaport Museum (Mystic, CT)-$164,280
Project: “The American Maritime People” NEH Summer Institute 2014
Project Description: Implementing a five-week summer institute for twenty college and university faculty to examine recent social, cultural, and ecological approaches to American maritime studies.

– Mystic Seaport Museum (Mystic, CT)-$450,000
Project: Voyaging in the Wake of the Whalers: The 38th Voyage of the Charles W. Morgan
Project Description: Implementing a long-term exhibition, a website, and public programs at the Mystic Seaport Museum that examine the broad economic, social, and cultural impact of whaling. 

– Abbe Museum (Bar Harbor, ME)-$220,000
Project: Implementing Sustainability Strategies for the Abbe Museum’s Collections Environment
Project Description: The implementation of environmental improvements, consisting of upgrades to the climate control and lighting systems, for a museum that collects, preserves, and exhibits ethnographic and historic material relating to the four tribes of central Maine,  collectively known as the Wabanaki.

– Montana Historical Society (Helena, MT)-$300,000
Project: Montana Digital Newspaper Project
Project Description: Digitization 100,000 pages of Montana newspapers dating from 1836 to 1922, as part of the state’s continuing participation in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP).

– Ohio Historical Society (Columbus, OH)-$40,000
Project: Ohio’s Ten Tribes
Project Description: Planning for a five-thousand-square-foot permanent exhibition, a website, and educational materials examining the forced removal of ten Native American tribes from Ohio in the early 19th century and the historical and contemporary impact on these tribes.

– Oklahoma Historical Society (Oklahoma City, OK)-$300,000
Project: Oklahoma Newspaper Digitization Project
Project Description: Digitization of 100,000 pages of Oklahoma newspapers issued between 1836 and 1922, as part of the state’s continuing participation in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP).

– National Museum of American Jewish History (Philadelphia, PA)-$300,000
Project: Chasing Dreams: Baseball and Jews in America
Project Description: Implementation of an artifact-based traveling exhibition, a smaller panel version to be displayed in baseball parks, a catalogue, a website, and related public programs.

– Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience (Seattle, WA)-$179,914
Project: Asian Pacific American Immigrants in the Pacific Northwest: Transforming the Nation
Project Description: Two one-week Landmarks workshops for eighty school teachers to explore the history and culture of Asian immigrant groups in the Pacific Northwest and their significance to the nation.

– Buffalo Bill Historical Center (Cody, WY)-$200,000
Project: The Papers of William F. Cody: Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and the European Frontier
Project Description: Preparation for publication of materials related to the tours by Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show of Great Britain and Germany in 1887-1906.

IMLS_Logo_2c

 

 

The Institute of Museum and Library Services recently announced recipients of its grants for African American History and Culture, including the following Affiliates:

– Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (Birmingham, AL)-$74,277 to implement the Collection Storage Improvement Project, the goal of which is to safeguard its archival and fine arts collections to ensure that they will be available for use by current and future staff, scholars, and researchers.

– The Underground Railroad Freedom Center (Cincinnati, OH)-$150,000 for an apprentice program, recruiting recent talented graduates from colleges and universities across the country, with a focus on those from HBCUs.
 

The Montana Historical Society (Helena, MT) is going a little Hollywood with its historic collection of films and still photographs that will help tell the story of Sen. Lee Metcalf and his contributions to what he helped make “The Last Best Place.” A two-year grant from the private sector Council on Library and Information Resources will allow them to arrange, preserve and describe the Metcalf photographs and film. The grant provides the resources necessary to spend time researching, identifying and preserving all of the materials in the collections.

Plimoth Plantation (Plymouth, MA) received a $200,000 grant from the Plymouth Industrial Development Corporation (PIDC) to support the renovation and expansion of the Museum’s Craft Center, providing essential visitor services like climate control and additional area for demonstrations and hands-on activities. The Museum also plans to construct a bakery in the Craft Center, where guests can view demonstrations of 17th-century baking techniques and learn how to make bread.

Leadership

Patricia Wilson Aden has been named the new President & CEO of the African American Museum in Philadelphia. 

The International Storytelling Center (Jonesborough, TN) has hired Kiran Singh Sirah, a prominent folklorist, as its new Executive Director.

Carrie M. Heinonen has been named President and Director of the Musical Instrument Museum (Phoenix, AZ)

coming up in affiliateland in may 2013

/in , , , , /by

May is a busy time in Affiliateland! 

CALIFORNIA
The Japanese American National Museum will open SITES’ American Heroes: Japanese American WWII Nisei Soldiers and the Congressional Gold Medal, 5.4. The museum will also host the National Portrait Gallery’s traveling exhibition Portraiture Now: Asian American Portraits in Los Angeles, 5.11.

bbhc

Detail of a historic firearm to be displayed in Cody, Wyoming.

WYOMING
64 artifacts from the National Museum of American History’s firearm collection go on display at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, 5.4.

FLORIDA
The Polk Museum of Art will host the Mayfaire Arts Festival. Beverly K. Cox, formerly Exhibits Coordinator for the National Portrait Gallery, will serve as the jurist for the museum’s annual two-day arts festival in Lakeland, 5.10. 

St. Augustine Lighthouse & Museum will host a public program on the Art of Boatbuilding, featuring curator Douglas Herman from the National Museum of the American Indian. He will present a public  demonstration on boatbuilding by Pacific Islanders in St. Augustine, 5.18.

NORTH CAROLINA
The Schiele Museum of Natural History and Lynn Planetarium will open an exhibition entitled Mammal Safari, featuring 25 mounted specimens on loan from the National Museum of Natural History, in Gastonia, 5.18.

MARYLAND
College Park Aviation Museum will host their second Youth Capture the Colorful Cosmos workshop in College Park, 5.19.

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Museum hosts a reception for all Affiliate staff during the American Alliance of Museums annual meeting in Baltimore, 5.21.

ramp

Native skateboard culture is headed to Connecticut

CONNECTICUT
The Mashantucket Pequot Museum & Research Center hosts SITES’s Ramp it Up: Skateboard Culture in Native America in Mashantucket, 5.25.

TEXAS
Fort Worth Museum of Science and History is hosting SITES’ Elvis at 21, featuring 40 Smithsonian artifacts in Fort Worth, 5.23.

MAINE
Abbe Museum opens SITES’ IndiVisible: African-Native American Lives in the Americas, in Bar Harbor  5.23.

 

 

 

 

 

 

what’s an SA-Q?

/in , , /by

question-markLast year, the Smithsonian launched its first-ever advertising campaign, Seriously Amazing.  As part of the effort, seriouslyamazing.org asked a number of fun “SI-Q” – questions designed to peak your interest in our collections, research and exhibitions.

Affiliations staff has decided to start asking our own intriguing questions – SA-Q – that seek to expose all the treasures embedded in the Affiliate network.  Each month in our e-newsletter, you’ll see a new feature, posing a question that will expose all the ways that Affiliates contribute to the diffusion of knowledge.  First to email a right answer wins a prize!

January’s SA-Q asked: It’s inauguration time! Which Affiliate has presidential-related exhibits or artifacts on view?

The winner was Janet Hedrick, Eastern Regional Development Manager at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, who pointed to the Booth Western Art Museum, an Affiliate in Cartersville, Georgia, and their presidential exhibit.  Do you know of other Affiliates with presidential-related exhibits or artifacts on view?  Let us know!  Comment here, or drop us a note at affiliates@si.edu.

February’s SA-Q will be related to Black History Month, so put on your thinking caps!

kudos Affiliates! may 2012

/in , , , , /by

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) $17 million in grants for 208 humanities projects, including the following Affiliates:

  • City of Las Cruces Museum System (Las Cruces, New Mexico) received $1,000 to host the NEH traveling exhibition Bison.
  •  Long Island Museum of American Art, History, and Carriages (Long Island, New York) was awarded $286,014 for the installation and interpretation of the exhibitions-Carriage Museum’s Streets of New York and Carriages for Sport and Pleasure-about the social and economic history of horse-drawn transportation in New York City circa 1900.
  •  Ellen Noel Art Museum of the Permian Basin (Odessa, Texas) will receive $1,000 to host the NEH traveling exhibition Grass Roots.
  •  Buffalo Bill Historical Center (Cody, Wyoming) was awarded $40,000 to develop a traveling exhibition- Enduring Legacies of the Great Plains: The Paul Dyck Collection- a view on Plains Indian cultures as documented in a collection of materials from the pre-reservation and early reservation periods.

The Grammy Foundation has awarded a $20,000 grant to the Oklahoma Historical Society (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma) to restore and preserve about 600 hours of Bob Wills’ music recorded in the 1940s.

The McAllen City Commission approved plans for a nearly $277,000 facelift for the International Museum of Art and Science (McAllen, Texas). Under the plan, McAllen would re-orient the museum’s loading docks, build a new steel-and-concrete walkway and install blue lights to illuminate the building at night.

A collection of early textile machines at the American Textile History Museum (Lowell, Massachusetts) has been recognized by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) for its historic significance to 19th century engineering and technology.

 

Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Warriors at the Smithsonian Affiliations Conference

/in , , , , , /by

Michelle Delaney signs her book at the exhibition. Photos by Ashley and Aaron Davis of Happy Heart , LLC

In 2006, Michelle Delaney, the director of the Smithsonian’s new Consortium for Understanding the American Experience and a curator of photography at the National Museum of American History, first visited the Buffalo Bill Historical Center (BBHC). She traveled to this Smithsonian Affiliate in Cody, Wyoming, to research her book, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Warriors: A Photographic History by Gertrude Kasëbier. The potential to collaborate was immediately apparent to both the BBHC and the Smithsonian. In 2009, Delaney received a fellowship to research a companion exhibition, which  debuted in Cody at the BBHC in April of 2010.  Now the exhibition has come to the Smithsonian’s International Gallery – just in time for the 2011 Affiliations National Conference!

The exhibition displays photographer Gertrude Kasëbier’s (1852-1934) work which was inspired by a grand parade of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West troupe en route to New York City’s Madison Square Garden.  Kasëbier decided to document the participants and began a project to photograph Sioux Indians traveling with the show. On view are approximately 60 images from her work and artifacts on loan from the Buffalo Bill Historical Center’s collections.

An image from the exhibition by photographer Gertrude Kasebier, National Museum of American History

As part of the Smithsonian Affiliations National Conference, we’re pleased to have Michelle Delaney speak about the exhibition and join us for a tour on Tuesday afternoon, June 14. We hope to see you there!

For information on the Smithsonian Affiliations National Conference, and to register, click here.

Smithsonian Affiliate staff member helps in Haiti recovery project

/1 Comment/in , , , /by

Special thanks to Beverly N. Perkins, conservator at Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming, for this guest post. 

AIC-CERT members, Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough and Under Secretary for History, Art and Culture, Richard Kurin, the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities, and CRCH members meeting to discuss recovery projects. Photo by Beverly Perkins.

Three American Institute for Conservation-Collections Emergency Response Team (AIC-CERT) members were asked to join the Smithsonian Haiti Cultural Recovery Project on July 4th, 2010.  Beverly Perkins, Karen Pavelka, and David Goist spent some time with the staff of the Centre de Sauvetage de Biens Culturels(CRCH) helping to set up the CRCH labs so that they can be used for conservation treatments and to train Haitians in the recovery of cultural collections.  Under the supervision of Project Manager, Stephanie Hornbeck, the visiting conservators also carried out conservation projects and helped to guide tours of the labs.  

Conservation projects at work in the lab. Photo by Beverly Perkins.

A project I worked on involved conserving ceramics and building elements as they began to come in to the lab from various sites in Haiti.  Some of the ceramics had been clumsily reassembled at some point in their past, prior to being brought to the conservation center.  One group ceramics from a nativity scene were considered to be more decorative than historical, and so the losses were filled and shaped to replicate the pieces that had been lost.  These new elements were then toned with paints to make the ceramic appear to be whole again.  All of the treatments are documented with written notes and photographs so that in the future our work may be easily distinguished from the original ceramic.

Richard Kurin and guests at a reception at the President and Mrs. Preval's home. Photo by Beverly Perkins.

Also during our stay, the United States President’s Committee for the Arts and Humanities visited Haiti, along with dignitaries from the Smithsonian and The Broadway League. The meetings held with Haitian cultural leaders helped to strengthen the determination to salvage cultural collections and train Haitians in that salvage effort.  The visiting dignitaries, AIC-CERT volunteers, and the staff of the CRCH were treated to an evening of Haitian song and dance at President and Mrs. Preval’s lovely home. 

The ten days I spent away from the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, a Smithsonian Affiliate, were donated in the spirit of good will from the Museum’s board and staff and the people of Cody, Wyoming to the people of Haiti.  Upon my return from Haiti, the Museum’s director, Bruce Eldredge asked how we could further be of assistance to the people of Haiti.  He developed a plan to offer training for one or two Haitians in the conservation laboratory of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center. He further offered to provide support following those months of training.

This project is in the process of being formed, and so the story continues…

Devastation to a cathedral in Haiti. Photo by Beverly Perkins.