Past Grants Awarded

Audio-taped interviews with fishermen and others whose work and lives are linked to the New Bedford/Fairhaven port. This oral history project will be done in conjunction with the second annual "Working Waterfront Festival."

A public event honoring Eleanor Roosevelt featuring, a dramatic portrayal of Eleanor Roosevelt, a book talk by author/historian Dr. Cathy D. Knepper, and a concert of big-band music from the 40s.

A gallery brochure and public programs for youth and adults in conjunction with an upcoming exhibition, Afterburn-Willie Cole: Selected works 1997-2004.

A collaboration with Discovering Justice and the Actors' Shakespeare Project to produce matinees in the courtroom of the Moakley US Courthouse for 9th-12th graders.

90-minute tv documentary on Madame Helena Rubenstein and Miss Elizabeth Arden, two entrepreneurial women from different parts of the world, who pursued the American Dream by creating new industries in the time of a rising consumer culture.

Library reading and discussion series.

"Clustering Memories of Clara" - Developing an interpretive plan that tells the complete story of Clara Barton - the child, the woman, the humanitarian, the inspiration.

Tor Court in Context: Impact of the Gilded Age on the economic and physical development in Pittsfield.

Research aimed to deep understanding and interpretation of the servants that lived on the property of Stonehurst.

Documentation and cataloguing of representative selection of both unusual and typical sculpture, gravestones and monuments by "anonymous" or little-known carvers which mark 19th century family burial lots.

Free public lecture/demonstrations on the historical and cultural aspects of the Renaissance that helped shape the drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries.

Revised and expanded booklet that will serve as a primary text for a Summer 2005 African American studies colloquium and for subsequent curriculum development in public school districts.

Annual gathering of readers, writers, scholars, editors, publishers and independent journals and presses.

Symposium bringing together journalists, filmmakers, etc. who use documentation of violations with scholars who approach it from theoretical perspectives.

Exhibit and lecture series in Boston, the theme of which is how a Middle East community, the Assyrians, has been emigrating throughout the 20th century and adjusting to the United States.

Exhibition planning grant to research the lives of the estimated 10-15% of CONSTITUTION'S crew who were free African Americans.

A one-hour documentary for Public Television that explores and life and ideas of Erik H. Erikson - the psychoanalyst who developed the concept of identity and, most famously, the identity crisis.

The planning phase for a new Native American exhibition focusing on and in collaboration with many New England tribes.

An exhibit, symposium on the African American heritage of the Berkshires and a celebration of the life of Elizabeth Freeman.

A study of the families of wealth and prestige who came to Falmouth in the 1880-1920's and who left behind graceful mansions and their family names on the streets, ponds and landmarks.

Comprehensive inventory of the Devotion House, the headquarters of the Brookline Historical Society.

Inventory of the Brockton Shoe Museum collection.

A study of the collections related to the second generation of the Phillips family culminating in a public lecture: From Sail to Rail: The Phillips Family After Salem's Golden Age of Sail and a written body of research material.

Reckoning with the Parkers: Three Generations of Artisan Trade in Colonial and Early Republic Lexington.

Support for transportation costs for 10 performances of the interactive historical drama, The Trial of Anthony Burns, in collaboration with the Revere Public Schools. Funds will offset costs so that 500 students in grades 9-12 can visit Orchard House and experience this program.

Production grant as partial funding for a two-hour national public television documentary about the social history of the banjo. MFH funds will be used for the Massachusetts-based topics in the program.

Pre-production grant for a series of ten films about women in the American past.

Funds to support the pre-production of Spirit of Providence, a documentary television program about the Sisters of Providence, a small order of Catholic Sisters from Holyoke, MA, who have made a great impact in establishing non-profit healthcare institutions and social services in their communities.

Funds for the research, production and editing of a documentary film examining social change at Saint Patrick's, a working-class Catholic parish in Lawrence, MA experiencing dramatic changes as immigrants from Latin America and Asia move to the neighborhood.

Humanities portion of the 8th annual African American Festival in Worcester, MA, including an exhibition at the Worcester Public Library, lectures and a panel discussion.

Exhibition using the 150th anniversary of Frederick Douglass' My Bondage and My Freedom and Melville's Benito Cereno as a starting point for exploring concerns such as the reach and limits of democracy, the nature of freedom, the role of race in the America and the place of the U.S. in the world.

Exhibit on Eugene O'Neill in Provincetown.

Lecture and discussion series investigating the political and artistic issues raised by MASS MoCA's exhibition Cai Guo-Qiang: Inopportune.

Reading and discussion program about Islam (formerly a council conducted program).

Reading and book discussion group examining mystery novels.

Funds to develop a plan for exhibits and related activities, as well as a strategy for obtaining funding for the Roxbury Center for the Arts at Hibernian Hall - a product of the overall rehabilitation of Hibernian Hall in Dudley Square, which has served as a center for community culture in Roxbury and Greater Boston.

Development of a social studies curriculum material to present the flourishing trade that Massachusetts ports had with different ports of India for public schools.

Two-part symposium open to the public on Jews and the Culture of the Tango, focusing on the tango as a rich repository of the worldview and social situation of Yiddish-speaking Jews in the first half of the 20th century, both in Argentina and Eastern Europe.

Development of an interpretive exhibit that will give insight into the culture of the people whose livelihood depended upon the Vincie N., a commercial fishing boat built in 1936 and fished by the same Gloucester family for over 50 years.

Exhibit of artifacts and oral histories telling the story of the emergence of social service policy and delivery in Lawrence, Massachusetts.