Tag Archive for: National Mississippi River Museum

Kudos Affiliates!! Dog Days of Summer 2024

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

Union Station, Kansas City, Inc. (Kansas City, MO) officials announced a grant award on behalf of the Missouri Humanities to support Disney100: The Exhibition speaker series. Topics and presenters featured in the special speaker series will cover fascinating Disney history, animation, design, illustration and more.

The City of Fishers will distribute a $55,000 grant to Conner Prairie (Fishers, IN) through the city’s nonprofit grant program to support educational outreach activities.

The National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium (Dubuque, IA) received a $5,000 grant from Alliant Energy to support the River Discovery Center phase one gallery renovations in the William Woodward Mississippi River Center, including five new exhibits, a refreshed interpretation grounded in environmental history, the integration of living and historic collections, and introduction new species. In addition, the Museum received grant support from Silos & Smokestacks National Heritage Area for a summer intern to assist with the organization’s Watershed Conservation Action through Advocacy, Research and Engagement program. The summer conservation intern will work on a team to develop, deliver, and evaluate new conservation education programs aimed to elevate visitor understanding of—and promote stewardship of—the Upper Mississippi River Watershed.

The Strategic Air Command & Aerospace Museum (Ashland, NE) received a $20,000 grant from Peter Kiewit Foundation. The contribution will boost the museum’s efforts to advance STEM education, focusing on immersive experiences in space and aviation. The museum said the funds will be used for cutting-edge technology, including VR Oculus sets and Pilot Pro Simulators, enabling students to engage in ground school, flight training and other hands-on STEM experiences.

Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum (Baltimore, MD) announced a $500,000 grant from Bank of America to support plans to restore the South Car Works building in the museum. The restoration plan will reconfigure the museum’s layout, with the entrance to be at the South Car Works building, create community-accessible spaces, an amphitheater, and a street-facing cafe, among other changes.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services announced the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico (San Juan, PR) was one of the FY24 recipients of its American Latino Museum Internship and Fellowship Initiative, awarding the museum $343,521. The Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico (MAPR), in partnership with the University of Sagrado Corazon and the University of Puerto Rico, will develop a workplace-based learning and practice immersive experience, featuring the design and implementation of internships that will grow student professional skills in museum studies and the arts, provide work experience in the creative sector, and expand the way students add depth and can incentivize their skills as employable cultural workers. Project funds will support paid mentors for students, a Lunch Box Speaker Series and an Annual Internship Alumni Portfolio. The resulting outcomes will include the production of the MAPR 25th Anniversary Celebration in conjunction with the production of the exhibition Puerto Rico Plural.

The New Hanover County Community Foundation has awarded a $2,140 grant to Cape Fear Museum (Wilmington, NC) to fund an 1898 field trip collaboration with the Bellamy Mansion.

Dr. Anne B. Kerr, President of Florida Southern College, announced a historic gift to the Polk Museum of Art (Lakeland, FL) through a generous donation from the Nicholas and Ashley Barnett Foundation at GiveWell. In tribute to Florida Southern College and Museum Trustee Ashley Gibson Barnett’s deep commitment to the arts, the museum will be renamed The Ashley Gibson Barnett Museum of Art at Florida Southern College, effective July 13, 2024. This gift also establishes an endowment to support world-class exhibitions, operations, community art and educational programs, expanding the Museum’s engagement, accessibility, and influence.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services announced the FY24 recipients of its Museum Grants for African American History and Culture including these Affiliate initiatives:

  • The National Jazz Museum in Harlem (New York, NY) ($99,655) – to create educational videos and provide artist-led educational workshops for students. Educational resources will focus on introducing jazz and improvisation to grade 1-3 students and multimedia workshops for fourth and fifth-grade students. Staff will work with a team of educational consultants to create and post online videos for teachers to show their classes before visiting the museum to prepare students for their visit as well as videos for after students visit the museum to stimulate classroom discussions and reinforce concepts learned at the museum. The main beneficiaries of the project will be Title I New York City public school students.
  • The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center (Cincinnati, OH) ($500,000) – to create a new permanent exhibition examining the historical roots of social justice movements in the United States, from time of the Underground Railroad to the present day. To develop the exhibition, staff will engage three panels of historians, scholars, artists, activists, and community stakeholders over three years. Coinciding with the opening of the exhibition, an accompanying one-day symposium will feature guest scholar speakers.
  • The DuSable Black History Museum & Education Center (Chicago, IL) ($100,000) – to create a digital catalog and finding aid for its collection of over 1,000 boxes of materials related to the history of civic engagement of African Americans in Chicago. For the project, staff will move materials out of storage and rehouse materials in a climate-controlled environment. An archivist consultant will process and catalog archived materials as well as train staff on the maintenance of digital systems. As a result of the project, staff will have increased access to the collection for use in programming and exhibitions, as well as providing increased access for partner academic institutions and the public.

The Nissan Foundation distributed $1.2 million in grants to 44 nonprofits that promote cultural understanding and appreciation of diversity. The recipients are located near Nissan facilities in Southern California, Middle Tennessee, Central Mississippi, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Southeast Michigan, New York City, North Central New Jersey, and Atlanta. Each funded program aligns with the Nissan Foundation’s mission of building community by valuing cultural diversity and promoting the many benefits that diversity brings to society including:

AWARDS & RECOGNITION

The American Association for State and Local History announced the Awards of Excellence recognizing excellence for projects (including civic engagement, special projects, educational programs, exhibits, publications, etc.) and featuring the following Affiliates:

LEADERSHIP

The Putnam Museum and Science Center (Davenport, IA) appointed Cindy Diehl Yang to be the new President and CEO. Cindy is replacing Rachael Mullins, who has served as President and CEO since 2019 and retired earlier this year. Cindy began her role right after the Fourth of July holiday.

Miriam Machado has been appointed Interim Director at the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum at Florida International University (Miami, FL). Miriam has held the position of Director of Education at the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum for over 15 years.

Kudos Affiliates!! November 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

The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded $76.4 million for the inaugural Global Centers Competition including University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Urbana-Champaign, IL) and partner institutions: University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (Boulder, CO) and Arizona State University. These collaborative research centers will apply best practices of broadening participation and community engagement to develop use-inspired research on climate change and clean energy. The centers will also create and promote opportunities for students and early-career researchers to gain education and training in world-class research while enhancing diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. Researchers will be supported by NSF up to $5 million over four to five years.

The Glen and Polly Barton Educational Endowment Fund donated $1 million to the Peoria Riverfront Museum (Peoria, IL) for the museum’s Every Student Initiative. The program brings Peoria Public School students to the museum to expand on topics outside of their classrooms.

Science Museum Oklahoma (Oklahoma City, OK) received a $1.5 million gift from the Chickasaw Nation to support a state-of-the art planetarium scheduled to open in 2024. The multimillion-dollar Love’s Planetarium will provide Oklahoma with an educational venue that will include an optical projector with a digital system that produces 9,500 bright stars and 56 nebulae and clusters for viewing as well as approximately 8 million detailed stars to recreate the Milky Way, all with high-intensity LEDs and fiber-optics. When it’s complete, the planetarium will be the only one of its kind with this combination of projection systems in the Western Hemisphere.

The National Park Service (NPS), in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS), announced $25.7 million in Save America’s Treasures grants from the Historic Preservation Fund to preserve nationally significant sites and collections. Preservation projects receiving a Save America’s Treasures grant from NPS include:

Collections projects receiving a Save America’s Treasures grant from IMLS include:

  • Plimoth Patuxet Museums (Plymouth, MA) ($163,680) to support Preserving Mayflower II: A Project to Ensure the Longevity of a National Icon
  • YIVO Institute for Jewish Research (New York, NY) ($224,007) for the preservation and access of unique historical documents and photographs of the Jewish Labor and Political Archives.
  • Buffalo Bill Center of the West (Cody, WY) ($750,000) to improve and remodel collections storage spaces at the center.

International Museum of Art & Science (McAllen, TX) received three grant awards from the Texas Commission on the Arts for the 2023-24 fiscal year in the following categories:

  • $3,500 – Arts Respond – Public Safety and Criminal Justice– to support Screen It: Youth Identity Through Art which brings at-risk teens and working artists together to learn about the process of screen printing, culminating in a public exhibition.
  • $11,000 – A two-year Arts Create award to advance the creative economy of Texas by investing in the operations of the museum.
  • $74,924 – Cultural District Project award to support Destination McAllen: Art, Culture, IMAS which will attract tourists with public art and high-quality artistic videos featuring McAllen’s Cultural District.

The National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium (Dubuque, IA) received $8,000 in funding from the City of Dubuque’s Arts and Cultural Affairs grant program to support a special 20th-Anniversary exhibit at the museum.

AWARDS & RECOGNITION

UNESCO World Heritage Committee added Ohio’s Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks as the United States’ 25th addition to the World Heritage List. The Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks, which includes five locations managed by the National Park Service and three managed by the Ohio History Connection (Columbus, OH), were built by Native Americans between 1,600 and 2,000 years ago.

The Dubuque County Historical Society, which operates the National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium and the Mathias Ham Historic Site, has been awarded a Top Workplaces 2023 honor by Iowa Top Workplaces.

Jose Santamaria, former executive director of Tellus Science Museum (Cartersville, GA), was recognized with the Entwisle Award for Lifetime Service in Tourism by Only in Cartersville Bartow Tourism.

Mr. William D. “Bill” Welge, Archivist, Historian, and Author, and former Research Division Director of the Oklahoma Historical Society (Oklahoma City, OK) was inducted into the Oklahoma Historian’s Hall of Fame in March 2023.  His service spanned nearly 44 years beginning in 1977. The OHS archives were renamed the “William D. Welge Archival Collections,” in his honor.

LEADERSHIP

Jose Santamaria announced he will be moving from his executive director position of the Tellus Science Museum to part-time director emeritus. Tellus’ director of development, Adam Wade assumed the executive director role, effective October 1.

Putnam Museum and Science Center (Davenport, IA) President/CEO Rachael Mullins will retire in June 2024. She plans to relocate to the Atlanta area to be closer to family and assist in caring for her mother. A search committee will conduct a professional search to place a new president/CEO by June 1, 2024.

Kudos Affiliates!! October 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

Montana Historical Society (Helena, MT) Director Molly Kruckenberg announced that Montana native Norm Asbjornson has donated $10.4 million for the construction of the new Montana Heritage Center. The donation completes the historical society’s goal of raising $18.8 million for enhancements to the museum’s galleries.

The Denver Museum of Nature & Science (Denver, CO) announced it has been awarded the largest research grant in its history. The collaborative research grant from the National Science Foundation’s Frontier Research in Earth Sciences program totals nearly $3 million. The five-year project will be led by museum’s curator of vertebrate paleontology Dr. Tyler Lyson, to help researchers understand the evolution of many modern plants and animals, as well as provide insights into the biodiversity crisis currently facing the planet, as ancient extinctions can teach about the extinctions happening today.

The Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan and its supporting organizations provided Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS) $100,000 for the Arab American National Museum (Dearborn, MI) and its neighborhood touring program, which explores local communities and their contributions to the region.

Ohio History Connection (Columbus, OH) received a $98,753 grant from the National Park Service to fund the consultation and documentation projects, such as staff travel, consultation meetings and research to support the repatriation process as part of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.

AWARDS & RECOGNITION

The Board of Directors of the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) announced the appointment of six new accreditation commissioners including Norman Burns, President and CEO, Conner Prairie (Fishers, IN).

Kristin Glomstad-Yoon, curator of historic collections for the National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium (Dubuque, IA), is one of two recipients of this year’s the Iowa Museum Association Rising Star Award. The award recognizes people who have worked or volunteered in the Iowa museum field for 3-5 years and have helped their museum broaden its audience through engagement activities.

LEADERSHIP

Rashida Phillips, executive director at the American Jazz Museum (Kansas City, MO) since 2020, is leaving her post to pursue other interests. The museum’s board of directors announced that ethnomusicologist Dina Bennett has been named the museum’s interim executive director, effective Aug. 19.

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!! November 2022

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

Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust awarded the National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium (Dubuque, IA) a $200,000 grant for its Rivers to the Sea Gallery. The grant will support fabrication and installation of the exhibit, which will include new tanks for new animals. The museum also received $21,305 from Resource Enhancement and Protection Conservation Education Program for Rivers to the Sea conservation education, and $5,000 from Andersen Corporate Foundation to support aquatic life in the exhibit.

As part of the North Carolina Science Museums Grant Program, the Schiele Museum of Natural History (Gastonia, NC) ($111,180.63) and Cape Fear Museum of History and Science (Wilmington, NC) ($111,691.76) received funding to support expenditures from 2022 through 2025.

Drs. Nicholas and Dorothy Cummings Center for the History of Psychology (Akron, OH) received a gift of more than $5.9 million from the estate of Drs. R. Allen and Beatrix T. Gardner to support ongoing collections care and programming within their archives and museum. In addition, the Gardners donated an extensive archival collection documenting their groundbreaking work on chimpanzee learning, including the daily logs of chimpanzee learning, images, and film footage of the chimpanzees at play, and paintings created by the chimpanzees.

A $2 million gift commitment from Michigan State University Federal Credit Union to the Michigan State University Museum (East Lansing, MI) will advance the Museum’s new CoLab Studio, which evolved from the museum’s partnership with Science Gallery International. In addition, the Museum has been awarded a grant of $24,000 from the State of Michigan Arts and Culture Council to present the exhibition Sounds of Religion and public programming that explores the myriad ways the sounds of religion permeate our daily lives.

The Bishop Museum of Science and Nature (Bradenton, FL) has secured a state funded grant for $718,700 to be used in the expansion of its manatee care and rehabilitation program. The funds appropriated through the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) will provide supplementary assets for manatee rescue and rehabilitation. Upgrades include emergency transportation, veterinary lab equipment, and renovation of a newly leased facility in Myakka City, formerly used as a sea lion conservation center.

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) announced $31.5 million in grants including these Affiliate projects:

The Dennos Museum Center (Traverse City, MI) ($8,717) for the purchase of four new flat file storage units and three flat file bases to rehouse the permanent collection of works on paper and photographs.

YIVO Institute for Jewish Research (New York, NY) ($9,417) to acquire folders to rehouse YIVO’s Jewish Political and Labor Movement Archives, which consist of 900 linear feet of materials documenting the activities of the Jewish Labor Bund in Europe, as well as other labor and political movements and organizations in the United States from 1870 to 1992.

Drs. Nicholas and Dorothy Cummings Center for the History of Psychology (Akron, OH) ($10,000) to support a 3-day onsite assessment of their facility’s mechanical systems and a subsequent report of the findings. This is the first step in enabling the Center to match the mechanical capabilities in the building with the environmental needs of its historical collections for improved long-term care.

Museum of Flight (Seattle, WA) ($10,000) for digital preservation consultation that will result in a digital
collection development policy, a digital preservation plan, and staff training in best practices for digital preservation.

Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience (Seattle, WA) ($189,410) to host workshops for 72 K–12 educators to learn about the histories of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders in the Pacific Northwest.

Kudos Affiliates!! June 2022

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

Greenville City Council has allocated almost $2 million in accomodations tax funds a number of local organizations including The Children’s Museum of the Upstate (Greenville, SC) ($25,000) for exhibitions and Upcountry History Museum (Greenville, SC) ($10,000) for general operating expenses.

Plimoth Patuxet Museums (Plymouth, MA) announced a $1 million donation from the Safe Family Foundation for the Museum’s endowment. The gift will help support the educational mission of Mayflower II.

 The Maryland state delegation from Baltimore announces $166 million in state funding to revitalize the downtown and Inner Harbor areas including $5.5 million to the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture (Baltimore, MD) for maintenance and general operating expenses.

Gov. Tom Wolf announced a $753,397 redevelopment grant was awarded to Historic Bethlehem Museums and Sites (Bethlehem, PA) to repair the historic Grist Miller House. The project involves structural repairs including electrical and plumbing; and interior and exterior restoration/preservation work.

Putnam Museum and Science Center (Davenport, IA) received $125,000 for their Putnam Reimagined project. The funding was one of 77 community grants approved by the Regional Development Authority Board to support area nonprofit, civic, and governmental organizations.

The Kansas City Council appropriated $1,233,850 from the Neighborhood Tourist Development Fund (NTDF) to 131 nonprofit organizations to promote neighborhood, cultural and entertainment events throughout Kansas City. American Jazz Museum (Kansas City, MO) was allocated $27,000 to support the 25th Anniversary Concert Series.

The National Endowment for the Humanities announced $33.17 million in grants for 245 humanities projects across the country featuring the following Affiliates:

History Colorado (Denver, CO) ($40,000) for the reinterpretation of Fort Garland Museum, an 1850s U.S. Army fort in south-central Colorado.

History Colorado (Denver, CO) ($360,938) to produce Season 4 of Lost Highways, a podcast series about the history of the Rocky Mountain West.

Florida International University (Miami, FL) ($50,000) to enhance access to the papers of Dana A. Dorsey, Miami’s first Black millionaire, who developed the city’s Colored Town (present day Overtown) in the early twentieth century. This work will include transcription, georeferencing, and creating tabular data from the 291 records and 620 pages of legal documents that constitute the collection.

Michigan State University Museum (East Lansing, MI) ($346,206) for the expansion of the African American, African, and African Diaspora Studies Digital Resource Quilt Index to include nearly 3,900 new quilts, 100 pieces of ephemera, 54 oral histories, and expanded metadata representing African American, African, and African Diasporic quilt history, as well as the development of up to 18 related resources, such as essays, lesson plans, and exhibits.

Center for Jewish History (New York, New York) ($350,000) to support the arrangement and description of 1,475 linear feet of Connection and Community: Documenting 20th-century American Jewish Philanthropy and Public Service records dating from 1916 to 1999, as well as the digitization of 5,000 items selected from the collection.

AWARDS & RECOGNITION

The Iowa Tourism Office presented National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium (Dubuque, IA) with the Outstanding Attraction award recognizing excellence in the tourism industry during the 2022 Iowa Tourism Conference.