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coming up in Affiliateland in May 2019

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Happy Spring!

ILLINOIS
Smithsonian Distinguished Scholar Dr. Richard Kurin will give a talk on the History of America in 101 Objects at the Peoria Riverfront Museum in Peoria, 5.2.

NATIONWIDE
11 Affiliates will collaborate with the National Museum of American History to present a National Youth Summit on Woman Suffrage: The Ballot and Beyond on 5.21. Thanks to the Arab American National Museum (Dearborn, MI); Cerritos Library (Cerritos, CA); Conner Prairie Interactive History Park (Fishers, IN); the Durham Museum (Omaha, NE); Heritage Farm Museum and Village (Huntington, WV); History Colorado (Denver, CO); International Storytelling Center (Jonesborough, TN); Ohio History Connection (Columbus, OH); The Witte Museum (San Antonio, TX); Upcountry History Museum (Greenville, SC); and UTSA Institute of Texan Cultures (San Antonio, TX).

TEXAS
The Frontiers of Flight Museum will open the Art of the Airport Tower exhibition from the National Air and Space Museum in Dallas, 5.13.

Coming up in Affiliateland in March 2019

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Congratulations to Affiliates on these great programs!

NEBRASKA
The Durham Museum opens American Democracy: A Great Leap of Faith, a SITES exhibition, on 3.2. National Museum of American History curator Dr. Barbara Clark Smith will deliver a public talk on her new book about resistance in revolutionary America in Omaha, 3.5.

RHODE ISLAND
National Museum of American History curator Dr. Claire Jerry will present a talk on Woman Suffrage with the Rhode Island Historical Society in Providence, 3.7.

NEW YORK
Mary Elliott, curator at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, will deliver the keynote address at the Long Island Museum‘s day-long symposium, Surviving Slavery on Long Island in Stony Brook, 3.9.

Diana N’Diaye of the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage will give a talk on the Will to Adorn: Stories of African American Dress and Identity project as part of the Questioning Identity lecture series at the Rockwell Museum in Corning, 3.27.

FLORIDA
The Mennello Museum of American Art opens the Art of the Airport Tower exhibition from the National Air and Space Museum, in Orlando, 3.14.

MASSACHUSETTS

photograph

President Kennedy with VonBraun

Dr. Michael Neufeld, curator at the National Air and Space Museum, will present a lecture titled Space Hero or Nazi Villain? The Life of Wernher von Braun as part of the Moon Landing in Context project at Framingham State University in Framingham, 3.28.

Kudos Affiliates! October 2018

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Congratulations to these Affiliates on their recent accomplishments! Do you have kudos to share? Please send potential entries to Aaron Glavas, GlavasC@si.edu.

FUNDING

The Dane G. Hansen Foundation has awarded the Cosmosphere (Hutchinson, KS) a $50,000 grant to bring the science center’s outreach programs to rural schools in Northwest Kansas. Programs supported by the grant will serve students in grades K-12.

Framingham State University (Framingham, MA) is one of 96 colleges and universities in the country to be recognized by by INSIGHT into Diversity, a higher education diversity magazine and website, for its efforts to support diversity and inclusion. The school received the Higher Education Excellence in Diversity, or HEED, Award. Framingham State has received the award three previous times beginning in 2014, more than any other public university in the state.

Bank of America has donated $50,000 to the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture (Baltimore, MD) and is the presenting sponsor of the upcoming exhibit, Romare Bearden: Visionary Artist.

The Japanese American National Museum (Los Angeles, CA) has received grants to support two new projects that will culminate in Summer 2020. The National Park Service, through its Japanese American Confinement Sites (JACS) program, awarded the museum nearly $488,000 and the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program awarded the museum $30,000. The money will support the development and implementation of a virtual and augmented reality exhibition about a Nisei soldier killed in battle during World War II and another exhibition exploring the role of Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts in America’s concentration camps during the war. In addition, the museum received a bequest in excess of $525,000 from the estate of Setsuko Oka, a longtime museum member. The funds will go toward educational initiatives as well as exhibitions and programs focused on Japanese artistic and cultural heritage in the United States, through the soon-to-be-established Setsuko Oka Japanese Heritage Fund.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services announced grant awards totaling $22,899,000 for museums across the nation to improve services to their communities through the agency’s largest competitive grant program, Museums for America, and a special initiative, Museums Empowered. Affiliate recipients include:

Children’s Museum of the Upstate (Greenville, SC)-Award: $50,795
The Children’s Museum of the Upstate will expand its STEAM outreach programming to benefit both teachers and students in the Greenville County Schools.

Denver Museum of Nature and Science (Denver, CO)-
Award: $249,500
The Denver Museum of Nature and Science will create two mobile museum experiences to engage underrepresented audiences in nature and science by going outside the museum’s physical location. The museum will fabricate an expandable vehicle similar to an RV and a smaller, pop-up truck.

Award: $142,836
The Denver Museum of Nature & Science will implement a professional development plan for its cross-departmental data team to leverage insights from existing data sets and identify new data sources to support its mission, increase relevance, and better serve its community.

International Museum of the Horse (Lexington, KY)-Award: $225,983
The International Museum of the Horse will document and archive the history of African Americans in the horse industry and make it accessible through an online interactive website.

Abbe Museum (Bar Harbor, ME)-Award: $169,070
The staff of the Abbe Museum will continue to decolonize its museum practice, informed by native Wabanaki people, and develop the Museum Decolonization Institute to share its process and understanding with others.

Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture (Seattle,WA)-Award: $250000
The Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture will ensure the long-term care, conservation, and access to its ethnology textile collections by rehousing them in its new facility in a storage system that meets accepted professional standards.

Virginia Museum of Natural History (Martinsville, VA)-Award: $97,637
The Virginia Museum of Natural History will improve the care and accessibility of its Triassic and Paleozoic geologic rock core from the Virginia Piedmont by moving it to a new storage facility.

Durham Museum (Omaha, NE)-Award: $214,965
The Durham Museum will improve intellectual and physical control over its collection in response to a series of recommendations from its participation in the Collections Assessment for Preservation (CAP) program.

Arizona State Museum (Tucson, AZ)-Award: $230,716
The Arizona State Museum will continue its ongoing work to stabilize its basketry collections which represent its highest institutional conservation priority.

Wisconsin Maritime Museum (Manitowoc, WI)-Award: $24,586
The Wisconsin Maritime Museum will develop a collections move and consolidation plan to evaluate space and facility requirements and the future composition of its collection.

Museum of History and Industry (Seattle, WA)-Award: $31,368
The Museum of History and Industry will increase staff cultural competency and provide clear objectives and accountability for moving forward as a more inclusive organization in order to build its capacity to serve the diverse communities of Seattle and King County.

Kentucky Historical Society (Frankfort, KY)-Award: $243,604
The Kentucky Historical Society will embark on a three-year project to reshape its institutional culture to prioritize diversity and inclusion in all facets of its work.

High Desert Museum (Bend, OR)-Award: $73,534
The High Desert Museum will embed evaluative thinking into organizational practices by building staff competencies in evaluation. The project will include a mixture of skill building workshops and guided studies designed to build staff skills and confidence in evaluation processes.

Air Zoo (Portage, MI)-Award: $21,542
The Air Zoo will expand its ongoing program of diversity and inclusion training for its staff and volunteers. As one of 14 nationwide sites to be selected to participate in the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation initiative, the museum will continue its commitment to becoming a more culturally-competent, diverse, and inclusive community organization.

Rhode Island Historical Society (Providence, RI)-Award: $22,306
The Rhode Island Historical Society will implement a comprehensive professional development program for its staff and volunteers to build their knowledge and practice in using dialogue facilitation with different audiences and improve their readiness to work on re-interpreting programming, exhibitions, and collections practices.

To read the full descriptions of each award, click here

Conner Prairie received a $70,000 grant from the Duke Energy Foundation to help support its goal of bringing interdisciplinary education directly to elementary-age students in Indiana. The grant will allow Conner Prairie to bring its unique approach of integrating history and STEM to classrooms through education programs inspired by its Create. Connect exhibit, which blends stories of Indiana history with science experimentation, problem-solving, and critical thinking. The new Prairie Mobile will travel to elementary schools in Duke Energy’s Indiana service area with the aim of inspiring curiosity and fostering learning through history and STEM-related education and hands-on activities.

The National Park Service announced $1,657,000 in Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act grants to return ancestral remains and cultural items to Indian tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations. The 16 repatriation grants will fund transportation and reburial of 243 ancestors and 2,268 cultural items including:

Denver Museum of Nature and Science (Denver, CO)-$85,000
To study a large collection of artifacts and human remains that was excavated in New Mexico from sites that range in age from about 700 years old to 1,700 years old.

History Colorado (Denver, CO)-$14,700
To give back 222 funerary objects taken from tribes between the late 1880s, up until as late as the 1980s.

Other recipients include:

San Diego Museum of Man (San Diego, CA)-$89,793

Cincinnati Museum Center (Cincinnati, OH)-$90,000

Ohio History Connection (Columbus, OH)-$88,248

The “tails” side of the new Lowell quarter (Courtesy of the U.S. Mint)

RECOGNITION AND AWARDS

A “mill girl” working at a power loom in Lowell will soon be depicted on a new quarter, the U.S. Mint announced this week. The new 25-cent piece is part of the Mint’s America the Beautiful Quarters Program, in which quarters represent a national park or other site in each state and U.S. territory. Including the Massachusetts quarter and four others, 2019 will be the 10th year of the program. According to the Mint, the design for the Lowell National Historical Park (Lowell, MA) quarter “depicts a mill girl working at a power loom with its prominent circular bobbin battery. A view of Lowell, including the Boott Mill clock tower, is seen through the window.”

 

Coming up in Affiliateland in February 2018

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Happy new year! We may still feel cold, but events are heating up at Affiliates across the country.

NATIONWIDE
Five Affiliates will host (via videoconference) the Smithsonian Secretary’s Youth Advisory Council meeting. Thank you to the Arab American National Museum, Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, the Upcountry History Museum and the Rockwell Museum for sharing their students and spaces for this important dialogue happening in Washington, 2.7.

Eight Affiliates will host screenings of The Lost Tapes: Malcolm X , a new film from the Smithsonian Channel as part of their Black History Month programming. Thanks to the following Affiliates for sharing the film with your audiences!
2.1 – Reginald F. Lewis Museum in Baltimore, MD
2.6 – Museum of History & Industry in Seattle, WA
2.7 – Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh, PA
2.8 – African American Museum in Philadelphia, PA
2.12 – History Colorado in Denver, CO
2.22 – California African American Museum in Los Angeles
2.23 – Mennello Museum of American Art/Orlando Museum of Art, FL
2.26 – Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas, TX

CALIFORNIA
The Riverside Metropolitan Museum presents the Uncovering Ancient Mexico: The Mystery of Tlatilco exhibition, exploring an ancient society in central Mexico that flourished 3000 years ago. The exhibition features 9 artifacts from the collections of the National Museum of the American Indian and opens in Riverside, 2.3

WASHINGTON
The Whatcom Museum opens Jeweled Objects of Desire featuring over 50 artifacts on loan from the National Museum of Natural History’s gem and mineral collection in Bellingham, 2.3.

FLORIDA
The Orange County Regional History Center opens the SITES’ exhibition Things Come Apart in Orlando, 2.10.

Take it Apart! A fun contest in Orlando for the Things Come Apart exhibition.

PENNSYLVANIA
A ‘rum runner’ ship model on loan from the National Museum of American History will be on view at the Heinz History Center as part of their American Spirits: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition exhibition in Pittsburgh, 2.10.

OHIO
With a grant from the Ohio Arts Council, educators from the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Accessibility Program will lead three workshops for teachers in collaboration with the Springfield Museum of Art on strategies for using art to reach students with multiple disabilities, in Springfield, 2.15-16.

MARYLAND
Annmarie Garden opens Big Fun Art, an exhibition of local and national artists juried by Jennifer Brundage, Smithsonian Affiliations National Outreach Manager, that explores playfulness, dynamism and joy, in Solomons, 2.16.

ARIZONA
Dr. Richard Kurin will be speaking on and signing his book The Smithsonian’s History of America in 101 Objects at the Desert Caballeros Western Museum in Wickenburg, 2.20.

TEXAS
The Asian American Resource Center will host a teacher workshop in collaboration with the Smithsonian Center for Learning and Digital Access entitled Teacher Creativity Studios: Asian Pacific America Cultural Presence in the Classroom in Austin, 2.21.

NEBRASKA
The Durham Museum will host a lecture by Dr. Krewasky Salter, Guest Associate Curator at the National Museum of African American History and Culture on Double Victory: The African American Military Experience in Omaha, 2.27.

 

  

Kudos Affiliates! March 2017 edition

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Congrats to these Affiliates on their recent accomplishments.

FUNDING

The Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania (Strasburg, PA) has met a $50,000 matching grant challenge by the Pennsylvania Railroad Technical & Historical Society, with funds designated for the preservation of five historic Pennsylvania Railroad steam locomotives. 

The National Park Service (NPS) announced funding for 39 projects in over 20 states that will preserve and highlight the sites and stories associated with the Civil Rights Movement and the African American experience, including the following Affiliate organizations:

  • Ohio History Connection (Columbus, OH) $50,000                              
    20th Century African American Civil Rights Movement in Ohio: Evaluating and Nominating Historic Properties
  • Rhode Island Historical Society (Providence, RI)  $49,557        
    African-American Struggle for Civil Rights in Rhode Island: The 20th Century
  • Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (Birmingham, AL)  $47,000              
    Preserving History, Building Community” project.  This project will focus on the A.G. Gaston Motel as a case study for preservationists and the community to work in partnership to preserve and revitalize a historic civil rights site.

Lowell National Historical Park (Lowell, MA) in partnership with Lowell Community Health Center, Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association, City of Lowell Senior Center, Lowell Middlesex Academy Charter School, and YWCA of Lowell has been selected to receive a 2017 Active Trails grant from the National Park Foundation, the official charity of America’s national parks. The Discover Lowell’s Urban Trails initiative will offer new outdoor recreational programming to Lowell’s canalway trails and will be targeted toward non-users in adjacent neighborhoods.

The Kenosha Community Foundation has awarded 26 grants totaling over $51,000 to 22 non-profit organizations and projects serving Kenosha County residents including funding to the Kenosha Public Museum Foundation (Kenosha, WI) to support its upcoming “Re-Riding History:  From the Southern Plains to Matanzas Bay” exhibit, which features how contemporary art retraces the historical experiences of American Indian communities.

Former cable TV mogul John Sie and his wife Anna have donated $12 million for the construction of a new welcome center at the Denver Art Museum (Denver, CO). The new welcome center is part of the museum’s plans to renovate the North Building. When it’s completed, the new welcome center will include a restaurant, café, ticketing and orientation space, event space, underground art storage and the museum’s conservation lab. 

 

16th Street Baptist Church near the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, part of a new Civil Rights National Monument in Alabama

AWARDS AND RECOGNITION

The Durham Museum (Omaha, NE) housed in Omaha’s Union Station was designated as one of 24 new National Historic Landmarks by the Department of Interior.

Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (Birmingham, AL) was recently designated by Former President Barack Obama as part of a new Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument.  Along with BCRI, other sites designated as the monument include the A. G. Gaston Motel, 16th Street Baptist Church, Kelly Ingram Park, and Bethel Baptist Church.

The Hawaii State House of Representatives presented Kona Historical Society (Kona, HI) with a certificate of honor on its 40th anniversary for efforts to preserve local history and share Kona’s culture with residents and visitors.

California African American Museum (Los Angeles, CA) deputy director Naima J. Keith has been named the winner of the High Museum of Art’s David C. Driskell Prize, which is awarded annually to a scholar or artist who has made a major contribution to African American art history. 

 

Congratulations all!