Tag Archive for: Putnam Museum

Kudos Affiliates!! July 2019

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 National Atomic Testing Museum (Las Vegas, NV) has received a $1 million matching grant from the state to assist in their search for a larger space in downtown Las Vegas.  The additional room will allow the museum to expand their exhibitions on nuclear testing in Nevada.

IBEW Local 252 and National Electrical Contractors Associated donated $25,200 to the Yankee Air Museum (Belleville, MI) for its Save the Bomber Plant effort. The museum is raising funds for renovation work required to transform the historic WWII Willow Run Bomber Plant into the future home of the Yankee Air Museum.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services recently announced awards totaling $2,231,000 in Museum Grants for African American History and Culture (AAHC) including the following Affiliate projects:

Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (Birmingham, AL)-$167,852.00 award to expand its Legacy Youth Leadership Program for high school students to 20 historic sites in the Alabama African American Civil Rights Heritage Sites Consortium.

Museum of the African Diaspora (San Francisco, CA)-$247,880.00 award to expand ìMoAD in the Classroom, a visual literacy and arts outreach program offered to Title I and under-served third grade students in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The National Jazz Museum in Harlem (New York, NY)-$49,876.00 award to develop a new website that provides public access to its digital collections.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services announced the first grant projects funded through the Inspire! Grants for Small Museums initiative featuring the following Affiliate organization:

Springfield Museum of Art (Springfield, OH)-$38,744.00 award to build its capacity to work with preschool children and teachers by expanding the professional development components of its Artful Play program.

Battelle has awarded $753,000 to fund 19 different out-of-classroom education programs that build skill in Central Ohio students including the Community STEM Center Initiative at The Works by The Works: Ohio Center for History, Art and 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.

Sullivan Museum and History Center (Northfield, VT) will receive part of a $269,000 gift from the TAWANI Foundation to cover the operating expenses of new student activities.

The Peoria Riverfront Museum (Peoria, IL) received a $1 million donation from T. Bondurant “Bon” French and Hollis “Holly” S. French to honor work Bon French’s parents performed for the museum’s predecessor, Lakeview Museum of Arts and Sciences. Some of the donation will endow a fund to support the Center for American Decoys at the museum.

The California Assembly voted to approve a funding bill to allocate $5.8 million for the Columbia Memorial Space Center (Downey, CA). $5 million will be used to construct a second building on the space center grounds. The remaining $800,000 is earmarked to purchase a 3D printer and audio/visual system.

LEADERSHIP

The Putnam Museum & Science Center (Davenport, IA) board of directors announced that community leader and education advocate Rachael Mullins Steiner will become president/CEO of the Putnam effective July 1. Steiner will replace Kim Findlay, who retired from the Putnam after more than a decade of service.

H. Alexander Rich, an assistant professor of art history at Florida Southern College has replaced Claire Orologas as leader of the Polk Museum of Art (Lakeland, FL). Orologas, who became the museum’s executive director in 2012, will become executive director emerita.

Ivy Barsky, who has served as director and CEO at the National Museum of American Jewish History (Philadelphia, PA) since 2012, will be stepping down at the end of June. The museum board has asked Dr. Misha Galperin, a consultant to philanthropic and nonprofit organizations, to serve as interim leader.

Abbe Museum (Bar Harbor, ME) President and CEO Cinnamon Catlin-Legutko will be resigning from the museum at the end of June to accept a post as executive director of the Illinois State Museum in Springfield. The Board of Trustees is in the process of choosing an interim leader for the organization.

Kudos Affiliates!! May 2019

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 Cosmosphere (Hutchinson, KS) received a $500,000 grant from the Sunderland Foundation of Kansas City to fund the CosmoKids Discovery Area of the Hall of Space at the Cosmosphere. CosmoKids Discovery Area is scheduled to open early in 2020 and will include STEM-based interactives and space where families can learn through interacting together.

Science Museum Oklahoma (Oklahoma City,OK) announced that Schlumberger will provide a matching grant of $90,000 to help renovate the museum’s energy exhibit, Energy Quest. Energy Quest will feature more than 2,000 square feet of space and provide an immersive environment to explore the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) associated with energy production in Oklahoma.

Capital improvement funds of $600,000 were released to the Kona Historical Society (Kealakekua, HI) for the construction of The Kona Museum Gallery. The two-story, 1,360 square-foot building has been designed to blend seamlessly into the historic buildings and landscape surrounding it and will include an exhibit area, retail area, storage, and restrooms.

The Center for Jewish History (New York City, NY) received a $2.5 million matching grant from Arcadia, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin, to make photographs, primary documents, and other archival material detailing the history and living legacy of Jews in the Diaspora more accessible to the public.

LEADERSHIP CHANGES

After 12 years of leading the Putnam Museum & Science Center (Davenport, IA) through some major changes, growth, and exhibits, president/CEO Kim Findlay plans to retire June 30. The Putnam’s fiscal year starts July 1, and Findlay hopes to transition with a new CEO in place by mid-June.

The Children’s Museum of the Upstate (Greenville, SC) has named Hillary Spencer as its new President and CEO. Spencer was a former director of operations for global business development at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Spencer will take over the position on May 1, replacing interim CEO Michelle Shain, who has served the museum since July 2018 after then CEO Nancy Halverson announced she was leaving TCMU.

Kudos Affiliates! November 2018

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 National Park Service, in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Endowment for the Arts, awarded $4.8 million in Save America’s Treasures grants to help fund 16 projects in 12 states. Mystic Seaport Museum (Mystic, CT) received two separate grants totaling $736,167 to support the restoration of the L.A. Dunton fishing schooner and critical preservation work for the Rosenfeld Collection of Maritime Photography. Rehabilitation work will ensure it keeps its watertight integrity and structural stability. This project will repair deck beams, hull planking, the stern, and interior ceiling of the ship.

The Putnam Museum (Davenport, IA) received a $10,000 grant from Humanities Iowa, a state affiliate of the National Endowment of the Humanities, for “Literary Heroines: Their Times, Their Fashions.” Apparel and accessories from the Putnam’s collection dating back to the early 1800s will be staged in various vignette displays that tell the story of several heroines. The exhibit will look at the wardrobes and interests of memorable characters such as Hermione Granger of the Harry Potter books, Laura Ingalls from the “Little House on the Prairie” series and Jo March from “Little Women.”

Space Center Houston raised $300,000 for its fall luncheon To the Moon and Beyond honoring legendary flight director Gene Kranz and supporting the campaign to restore Historic Mission Control. Proceeds from the luncheon benefited Space Center Houston’s $5 million campaign, On a Mission, in support of the restoration of NASA Johnson Space Center’s historic Mission Operations Control Room. The restoration will accurately portray how the area looked the moment the Moon landing took place on July 20, 1969.

coming up in Affiliateland in February 2014

It may be chilly across the country, but the temperature is not stopping Affiliates from offering great programming in February!

NATIONWIDEnational_youth_summit
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Freedom Summer, 12 Affiliates will join the National Museum of American History to hold a National Youth Summit, linking high school students across the U.S. in an engaging program on the history and legacy of the 1964 youth-led effort for voting rights and education, 2.5.

Participating Affiliates include:
African American Museum & National Museum of American Jewish History, Philadelphia, PA
American Jazz Museum, Kansas City, MO
Arab American National Museum, Dearborn, MI
History Colorado  Center, Denver, CO
Institute of Texan Cultures, San Antonio, TX
Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles, CA
National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, Cincinnati, OH
Oklahoma History Center, Oklahoma City, OK
Senator John Heinz History Center, Pittsburgh, PA
Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, OH
North Carolina Museum of History, Raleigh, NC

NEBRASKA

The Durham Museum opens The 1968 Exhibit featuring three Apollo 8 artifacts from the National Air and Space Museum, in Omaha, 2.8.

snakeThe University of Nebraska State Museum opens the Titanoboa: Monster Snake exhibition (SITES) in Lincoln, 2.22.
IOWA
The Putnam Museum opens Bittersweet Harvest: The Bracero Program, 1942-1964 (SITES) in Davenport, 2.15.

it may be cold outside…

But it’s warm at these Affiliates! While you’re on winter break, check out the Smithsonian in your neighborhood: 

The Smithsonian Community Coral Reef is on view at the Putnam Museum in Davenport, Iowa. The coral reef, composed of thousands of crocheted natural forms, creates a version of the Great Barrier Reef with loopy “kelps,” fringed “anemones,” crenellated “sea slugs,” and curlicue “corals.” On loan from the National Museum of Natural History

Photo credit: Putnam Museum

Photo credit: Putnam Museum

Imagine you too are standing on a sun-dappled lawn picking wildflowers just like the figure in Dear Fay, one of several painted ceramic sculptures on loan to the Springfield Museum of Art in Springfield, Ohio, for their exhibition Jack Earl: A Modern Master- A Retrospective. On loan from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, through January 6, 2013.  

Photo credit: Smithsonian American Art Museum

Photo credit: Smithsonian American Art Museum

Native Words, Native Warriors tells the remarkable story of Indian soldiers from more than a dozen tribes who used their Native languages in the service of the U.S. military. On view at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona, through March 2013. Organized for travel by the Smithsonian Traveling Exhibition Service

Courtesy U.S. Marine Corps

Courtesy U.S. Marine Corps

Sick of dreary white, winter days? Head to the Polk Museum of Art in Lakeland, Florida, for Vibrant Color: Vintage Celebrity Portraits from the Harry Warnecke Studio, a collection of color photographs of celebrities who rose to fame at a time when color photography was in its infancy. Organized by the National Portrait Gallery, the exhibition is on view until January 12, 2013. 

Photo credit: Harry Warnecke Studio for The Daily News/National Portrait Gallery

Photo credit: Harry Warnecke Studio for The Daily News/National Portrait Gallery

While you’re in Florida, stop by the Frost Art Museum in Miami. On view until January 13, 2013 is Reflections Across Time: Seminole Portraits, a collaboration with fellow Affiliate Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum in Clewiston, Florida. Showing more than 150 years of portraits of Seminole leaders and tribal members, the exhibition features works of art from the National Museum of the American Indian, National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.  

Photo credit: Frost Art Museum

Photo credit: Frost Art Museum

In 1898, New York photographer Gertrude Käsebier watched the grand parade of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, on its way to Madison Square Garden. Inspired by what she saw, she photographed the Lakota (Sioux) travelling with the show in her 5th Ave studio. The result was a set of prints that are among the most compelling of Käsebier’s celebrated body of work. See Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Warriors: Photographs by Gertrude Käsebier at the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture in Spokane, Washington, through February 9, 2013. On loan from the National Museum of American History and includes artifacts from fellow Affiliate, Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming.

Photo credit: Dean Davis

Photo credit: Dean Davis Photography

Mittens, boots, puffy jacket and scarf may work in our winter weather, but imagine what astronauts had to prepare for when venturing into space! Suited for Space, an exhibition from the Smithsonian Traveling Exhibition Service and the National Air and Space Museum, explores the evolution of spacesuit development from the first quarter of the 20th century until the dawn of the shuttle era. On view at the American Textile History Museum in Lowell, Massachusetts, until March 3, 2013.

Phot credit:Sun/Bob Whitaker

Phot credit:Sun/Bob Whitaker

Is the Smithsonian in YOUR neighborhood? Find an Affiliate here.

kudos! december 2011 – january 2012

Congratulations Affiliates on ending the year so strong!

Two Affiliates received SITES’ Smithsonian Community Grants, supported by MetLife Foundation:

        The Orange County Regional History Center (Orlando, Florida) received $5,000 to fund honoraria, travel, materials and marketing for three programs related to the themes of Beyond Baseball: The Life of Roberto Clemente.    

        The Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture (Baltimore, Maryland) received $3,310 to fund a panel, “Clemente in Context/Clemente en Contexto,” to provide museum visitors with some historical and cultural context about Afro-Latino populations in the Caribbean and in the United States. All programming relate to the themes of Beyond Baseball: The Life of Roberto Clemente and IndiVisible: African-Natives Lives in the Americas.

 Chabot Space and Science Center (Oakland, California) received $200,000 to fund the Redwoods overnight environmental education center from the Pacific Forest and Watershed Lands Stewardship Council which promotes programs and projects to bring young people in touch with the environment. 

The Center for Jewish History (New York, New York), announce the expansion of its international fellowship program to include senior scholars, early career scholars and emerging artists and writers through a new five-year, $750,000 grant from The Vivian G. Prins Foundation. The grant will support fellowships for those who seek permanent teaching and research positions in North America. 

Senator John Heinz History Center (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) received a $5 million gift from the estate of the late William S. Dietrich II to turn a vacant building into an artifacts storage facility and conservation center. The Center also received a $2 million grant from UPMC to support educational programs and operations at the museum, where the library and archives will be renamed for Thomas and Katherine Detre.

Three Affiliates received Art Works grant awards from the
National Endowment for the Arts:

     Michigan State University Museum (East Lansing, Michigan) will receive a $40,000 grant to support the 2012 Great Lakes Folk Festival. In collaboration with the City of East Lansing, the university will produce a festival that showcases the traditional music, dance, foodways, and other cultural expressions of the nation’s Upper Midwest using an innovative approach, highlighting the cultural sustainability and adaptive reuse (recycling) inherent in traditional culture in conjunction with modern technology (a solar powered stage).

     Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art (Biloxi, Mississippi) will receive $34,000 to support the exhibition, George Edgar Ohr: Apostle of Individuality. Designed to be installed in the Knight Gallery, the exhibition will include works by Mississippi ceramic artist George Ohr.

     Whatcom Museum (Bellingham, Washington) will receive $34,000 to support the exhibition, Vanishing Ice: Alpine and Polar Landscapes in Art, 1775-2012. The exhibition will examine the artistic legacy of the planet’s frozen frontiers — glaciers, icebergs, and fields of ice– now jeopardized by climate change through the presentation of 75 works.

Science Museum Oklahoma (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma) received a $1 million donation from Love’s Travel Stops to help kick off a capital campaign and $30 million renovation for the museum entrance and the addition of a permanent exhibit aimed at introducing young children to science.

Putnam Museum and IMAX Theatre (Davenport, Iowa) received $5,000 award from the Community Foundation of the Great River Bend to support the Putnam Power Mission video production. 

Plimoth Plantation (Plymouth, Massachusetts) will receive a $235,000 grant from the state’s Cultural Facilities Fund to fund repairs, improvements, and expansions. 

The Coca-Cola Foundation awarded $50,000 to the North Carolina Museum of History (Raleigh, North Carolina) for the development and implementation of the initiative “Educational Outreach Programs for North Carolina Students.”

Two Affiliates were recipients of the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) 2011 Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives awards:

     Center for Jewish History (New York, New York) received $229,600 to fund Illuminating Hidden Collections at the Center for Jewish History.

     San Diego Museum of Man (San Diego, California) received $115,200 to fund Capturing History: Cataloging the San Diego Museum of Man’s Photographic Collection.