Tag Archive for: mississippi river museum

Kudos Affiliates!!! Summer 2023

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

FUNDING

Nissan Foundation awarded $1.2 million to 39 nonprofits, including four Affiliates, that share and celebrate diverse cultural perspectives, experiences, and voices to communities across the country. The grant recipients are based in communities surrounding Nissan facilities in Southern California, Middle Tennessee, Central Mississippi, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Southeast Michigan, New York City, and Atlanta including:

  • The Museum of Us (San Diego, CA) ($15,000) – to offer Race: Are We So Different workshops.

University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (Boulder, CO) wwill receive $91.8 million in funding spread out over the next five years from the National Science Foundation, all of which will go towards designing and building the first Airborne Phase Array Radar (APAR) system for meteorology use. APAR will be looking at the atmosphere at higher resolutions and looking more deeply into clouds and thunderstorms with dual polarization capabilities, which means APAR will be able to differentiate between snowflakes, rain and ice crystals whereas other radars implemented in the past could not, providing a clearer understanding of a storm’s microphysical properties.

Putnam Museum and Science Center (Davenport, IA) received $50,000 from Scott County Regional Authority as part of the spring 2023 grant cycle. The funding will support the Putnam Reimagined strategic initiative.

The National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium (Dubuque, IA) has been awarded $20,000 in operational support as part of the Cultural Leadership Partners (CLP) from the Iowa Arts Council. Funding for fiscal year 2024 will support the Museum’s Interpretive Planning Pre-Work Assessment to gain an increased understanding of visitor knowledge, behaviors, and attitudes, reflect community need and connectivity, inform evaluation practices to best serve community, and creatively integrate the goals of both historic and living collections in exhibits and programs. Funding will also support the Museum’s diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion (DEAI) initiatives and service trainings to provide DEAI-forward solutions to ensure an inclusive visitor experience.

Plimoth Patuxet Museums (Plymouth, MA) announced a $10,000 donation from the Rotary Club of Plymouth in support of its Indigenous Program Building Project that will enable staff to better tell the compelling story of profound change and cultural persistence in the Indigenous homeland in this region.

Dubuque City Council approved a recommendation from the city’s Arts and Cultural Affairs Advisory Commission to allocate a $21,846 operating support grant fund to the Dubuque Museum of Art (Dubuque, IA). In addition, the Commission approved an $8,000 special projects grant to expand the 20-year celebration of the National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium (Dubuque, IA) by helping fund a new initiative that will bring in experts to add perspective on the impacts of immigration and systemic racism, as well as environmental impacts, in the community.

AWARDS & RECOGNITION

Made By Us, an alliance of more than 150 historic sites and museums joining forces to share history, announced the appointment of three distinguished history leaders to its Board of Directors including Norman Burns, President and CEO of Conner Prairie (Fishers, IN) and Natalia Crujeiras, CEO and Executive Director of HistoryMiami Museum (Miami, FL).

Senator John Heinz History Center (Pittsburgh, PA) was voted Pittsburgh Magazine 2023 Readers’ Entertainment & Leisure Museum Poll winner.

The American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) announced History Colorado (Denver, CO), as one of three winners of the History in Progress Award. History Colorado was recognized for the exhibition The Sand Creek Massacre: The Betrayal that Changed Cheyenne and Arapaho People Forever. This exhibit explores the deadliest day in Colorado history, when an 1864 assault by U.S. troops killed more than 230 Cheyenne and Arapaho people, wiped out their tribal leadership, and resulted in them being forcefully expelled from their homelands forever. This project worked to repair relationships and trust between the museum and tribes, foregrounded the voices of Native people in this tragedy, and shared the experiences and enduring cultures of the state’s original landkeepers.

AASLH also presented the Award of Excellence to recognize excellence for projects (including civic engagement, special projects, educational programs, exhibits, publications, etc.), and individual lifetime achievement:

  • History Colorado (Denver, CO) – The Sand Creek Massacre: The Betrayal That Changed Cheyenne and Arapaho People Forever

The East Tennessee Historical Society’s recently presented their Awards of Excellence program recognizing individuals and organizations for significant contributions to the preservation, promotion, and interpretation of the region’s history:

Community History Leadership Awards

Teaching Excellence Awards

Project Excellence Awards

Lifetime Achievement Awards

LEADERSHIP

The National Museum of Nuclear Science & History (Albuquerque, NM) Board of Trustees announced Jennifer J. Hayden has been named president and chief executive officer. Hayden succeeds Jim Walther, who was executive director of the Nuclear Museum for 26 years. Walther retired in March of 2023.

Leon Natker has been named the next director of the Oklahoma History Center (Oklahoma City, OK). He previously worked as the director for institutional advancement at the First Americans Museum in Oklahoma City.

Kudos Affiliates! August 2018

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

Funding

Global Fridays logoThe Nissan Foundation awarded $730,000 in grants to 29 nonprofit organizations for its 2018 grant cycle including a $10,000 award to the Arab American National Museum (Dearborn, MI) for its Global Fridays series. Since 2005, the multicultural performance series has offered high-quality presentations for fans of traditional and modern global performing arts and those with adventurous cultural appetites.

Framingham State University (Framingham, MA) will launch a five-year project to help students from underrepresented backgrounds succeed in high-tech fields using a major grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The 64-year-old nonprofit, dedicated to advancing biomedical research and science education, will provide $1 million to the University to help the school redevelop its science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) programs. The University will use the money to fund a long-term effort aimed at increasing the academic success and persistence of first-generation and underrepresented students in STEM fields.

Snug Harbor Cultural Center’s Connie Gretz Secret Garden (Staten Island, NY) is getting some much needed repairs, thanks to New York Building Foundation’s first-ever community grant of $10,000. The money will be used to stabilize and beautify the entrance of the garden, provide the area with a cleaned-up interior with new plantings and interpretive signage, and improve the pathways in the hedge maze.

Carlo A. Scissura, President of New York Building Foundation; Aileen Fuchs, President and CEO of Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Garden and Joe Ferrara, Principal of BFC Partners and Snug Harbor Board Member outside the Connie Gretz Secret Garden. (Courtesy of Michael Papagianakis)

The National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium (Dubuque, IA) has been given a $5,000 donation from the American Protein Corporation, an LGI Company, to support its Wyoming Toad conservation efforts. The money will be used to buy a brumation chamber for the toads that the Museum & Aquarium has been propagating since 2007. The Museum & Aquarium expects the chamber to improve their success rates in the future.

The Michigan State University Museum (East Lansing, MI) was awarded $150,000 from the MSU Federal Credit Union, to be the first university to house a Science on a Sphere. Developed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Science on a Sphere, or SOS, displays the earth’s four quadrants in 3D and enables visitors to experience atmospheric events on earth. Additionally, SOS shows the galaxy’s other planets and moons in real-time. MSU Museum aims to open the SOS gallery in October 2019.

Battelle awarded $607,500 to fund 14 out-of-classroom learning activities in Central Ohio including The Works STEM After School Initiative, a project of The Works: Ohio Center for History, Art & Technology (Newark, OH). Partnering with middle schools in Licking County, The Works will build on activities from previous years, supporting teachers through professional learning and cross-district mentorship and collaboration while expanding student access to creative out-of-school learning opportunities to explore STEM concepts and careers.

Mystic Seaport Museum (Mystic, CT) announced that it has received a $735,000 grant from the Henry Luce Foundation. The funding will allow the museum to curate and develop three new art installations from its extensive collections and related public programming. The art installations and associated research and public programs are designed to encourage new scholarship around the themes of The Sea as Muse, a window into the world of immigrant craftsmanship and decorative arts; The Sea as Studio for folk art such as scrimshaw; and The Sea as Commons, through a curatorial investigation by contemporary artist Mary Mattingly.

The Deadwood City Commission approved awarding eight grants to entities with historic preservation project goals from across the state in round two of the Outside of Deadwood Grant program for 2018. South Dakota State Historical Society (Pierre, SD) received $15,000 for the digitization of maps in collection, which include highway maps, cemetery maps, quadrangle maps, land survey maps, county, city, railroad, water and irrigation maps and many others.

Leadership

Children’s Museum of the Upstate (Greenville, SC) announced Nancy Halverson has resigned from her position as CEO. Halverson is moving to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, following the retirement of her husband, Dr. Bruce Halverson. Her new position will be as executive director of Levitt Shell Sioux Falls. Halverson’s successor has not yet been named, and she will continue advising the museum in a consultant role until the position is filled.

Kris Hoellen headshot

Kris Hoellen, B&O Railroad Museum

David Myers, the president and CEO of Center for Jewish History (New York, NY) has decided to step down from his position at the end of August in order to move back to Los Angeles, where he teaches at UCLA.

The B&O Railroad Museum (Baltimore, MD) announced the selection of Kris Hoellen as its new Executive Director.  Ms. Hoellen, a Senior Vice President at the National Aquarium, will assume her new position in September 2018.

affiliates in the news: week of september 20

Congratulations to these Affiliates making headlines this week!

Museum of American Finance (New York, NY)
The Museum of American Finance will unveil the display of an 18-karat solid gold Monopoly set covered with hundreds of precious gemstones, on loan from the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History. READ MORE

Museum of American Finance To Display Jeweled Monopoly Set and Host Tournament. READ MORE

Polk Museum of Art (Lakeland, FL)
Polk Museum of Art is pleased to announce that it has been accepted into the Smithsonian Affiliations Program. READ MORE 

Polk Museum Gets Affiliation With Smithsonian. READ MORE

Lakeview Museum of Arts and Sciences (Peoria, IL)
Lakeview Museum of Arts and Sciences has been awarded a $10,000 Arts Education Invitational Grants Initiative grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to digitize the Picture Person Program educational kits. READ MORE

Hunt Hill Farm (New Milford, CT)
. The Smithsonian curator who got the ball rolling was Rayna Green, curator and director of the American Indian Program, Division of Home and Community Life, who will present “In Julia’s Kitchen”. READ MORE

The Long Island Museum of American Art, History & Carriages (Stony Brook, NY)
The Long Island Museum in Stony Brook announced Thursday it has received accreditation from the American Association of Museums, the highest honor awarded by the national organization. READ MORE

The American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar (Richmond, VA)
Richmond visitors have a new starting point for the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War and the end of slavery: Historic Tredegar. READ MORE

Historic Tredegar: The Region’s Gateway to the Civil War. READ MORE

National Museum of American Jewish History (Philadelphia, PA)
On November 12th, the National Museum of American Jewish History will reopen in its new location at Independence Mall. The weekend of celebration will feature performances by Jerry Seinfeld and Bette Midler. READ MORE

Two of the country’s most famous Jewish performers will highlight the opening of one of the most ambitious Jewish museum projects in years. READ MORE

North Carolina Museum of History (Raleigh, NC)
Exhibit in North Carolina Shows the Real George Washington. READ MORE

National Mississippi River Museum (Dubuque, IA)
Foundation awards river museum $1 million grant for river center. READ MORE

Smithsonian Magazine Museum Day
Everybody loves a freebie and this Saturday, September 25, marks Smithsonian magazine’s 6th Annual Museum Day, when more than 1,500 museum and cultural venues across the United States will honor Smithsonian.com’s special get-in-free ticket for two. READ MORE

August at an Affiliate near you!

It’s August! Here are a few things you can see at a Smithsonian Affiliate in your neighborhood this month:

Alabama
Let Your Motto Be Resistance, a Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) exhibition, opens at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (Birmingham) on August 28.

Anacostia's (then Uniontown) Birney Public School children lined up with a teacher behind the Kennebec Ice horse-drawn wagon as the ice man shows them large chunk of ice suspended by tongs. Photograph by Frances Benjamin Johnston, Courtesy of the Library of Congress, circa 1899

District of Columbia
The Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum’s exhibition East of the River is on view at the Historical Society of Washington, D.C. until January 2011.

Georgia
You can see another SITES exhibition, The Working White House: Two Centuries of Traditions and Memories, at The Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History (Kennesaw) until August 29.

Iowa
The new expansion at The National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium (Dubuque) features artifacts from the National Museum of Natural History in its new immersive galleries.

Kentucky
Opening this month at the Headley-Whitney Museum (Lexington) is The Horse in Decorative Arts, including artifacts from the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Museum of American History, on view through December 2010.

A visitor to the "Native Words, Native Warriors" exhibit at Montana Historical Society. Photo courtesy Montana Office of Governor Brian Schweitzer

Montana
Montana Historical Society (Helena)- Native Words, Native Warriors.  This exhibition organized in collaboration with the National Museum of the American Indian will travel to Native American reservations across Montana through December.

Nebraska
Lasting Light: 125 Years of Grand Canyon Photography is on view until September 2010 at the Durham Museum (Omaha), organized for travel by SITES.

Ohio
The Archives of the History of American Psychology (Akron) will celebrate the opening of their new building on August 28.

Toroweap overlook in morning light. Part of the exhibition "Lasting Light: 125 Years of Grand Canyon Photography" at the Durham Museum. Photo by Jack Dykinga

Pennsylvania
The Senator John Heinz History Center (Pittsburgh) welcomes Smithsonian conservator Don Williams for their Hidden Treasures event on August 29.

Texas
Twenty black and white photographs from the National Air and Space Museum are featured in the exhibition Dreams of Flight: A Journey through Air and Space at The Women’s Museum: An Institute for the Future (Dallas) through October 2010.

Wyoming
Last chance to see Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Warriors: Photographs by Gertrude Käsebier at Buffalo Bill Historical Center (Cody). On view until August 8, the exhibition includes photographs from the Photographic History Collection in the National Museum of American History.

Click here to find a Smithsonian Affiliate in your neighborhood!

affiliates in the news!

Congratulations to these Affiliates making headlines this week!

Buffalo Bill Historical Center (Cody, WY)
As many as 38 Wyoming cultural and heritage projects and sponsoring organizations will benefit from $542,017 in grant awards from the Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund…MORE

Birthplace of Country Music Alliance (Bristol, TN)
… the Tennessee Arts Commission announced its grant recipients for fiscal 2010-11…MORE

Heard Museum (Phoenix, AZ)
…there are a number of locations around the country that look to preserve these for future generations. One of these is the Heard Museum of Native Cultures and Art in Phoenix, Arizona…MORE

Louisiana State Exhibit Museum (Shreveport, LA)
State Rep. Wayne Waddell will take the helm as director of Louisiana State Exhibit Museum on Aug. 2… MORE
Director retires
Museum Director Retires

National Museum of Dentistry (Baltimore, MD)
…The annual celebration honors supporters and friends who help the Museum, a Smithsonian Affiliate, in its mission to celebrate the history the dentistry and to raise awareness of the importance of good oral health in a healthy life…MORE

 

Exterior of the new $40 million expansion of the National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium in Dubuque.

The National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium(Dubuque, IA)
…”Dubuque’s already on the map,” said Jerry Enzler, executive director of the facility, “but this really puts us on the global map”…MORE
River museum gets bigger, better

American Jazz Museum (Kansas City, MO)
Greg Carroll is CEO of the American Jazz Museum in Kansas City. In collaboration with the Consulate of Mexico in Kansas City and the Mattie Rhodes Center, the museum is holding an exhibition of large-scale photographs and artifacts that reveals cultural connections between Africa and Latin America…MORE

The Center for Jewish History
(New York, NY)
The Center for Jewish History, dedicated to the preservation and presentation of Jewish history, culture and experience across countries and generations, has received an $860,092 grant from the Leon Levy Foundation…MORE

Ellen Noël Art Museum
(Odessa , TX)
The Ellen Noël Art Museum has been accepted as an Affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution…MORE

Agua Caliente Cultural Museum (Palm Springs, CA)
Since the 1970s, the Agua Caliente Band and the city have been partners in the economic development of Palm Springs…also is the site of the future Agua Caliente Cultural Museum…MORE

affiliates in the news: week of May 24

Congratulations to Affiliates making news this week!

 

The National Jazz Museum in Harlem (NY, NY)
NYC seeks developer to build new home for National Jazz Museum in Harlem

City looking to build Jazz Museum in Harlem

Charlotte Museum of History (Charlotte, NC)
Charlotte Museum of History announces new president & CEO

History museum names new leader

Buffalo Bill Historical Center (Cody, WY)
Buffalo Bill Museum finally gets its turn

Cody tourism looks good in 2010

National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium (Dubuque, IA)
MUSEUM & AQUARIUM EXPANSION TO OPEN JUNE 26, 2010

 

Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center (Hutchinson, KS)
Hutchinson, Kansas – Salt Mines and Space Museum

New York State Museum (Albany, NY)
Researchers learn about role of bees in tropical ecosystems using radio transmitters

First radio tracking of tropical orchid bees