Past Grants Awarded

Exhibit Production Grant to build an interpretive and interactive exhibit on the William Skimmer and Sons Manufacturing Company and their part in the US silk industry, 1850-1962.

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.

Reading and discussion series about Islam.

A reading and discussion series and film/discussion series to accompany an exhibit of American West artifacts.

A videotaped oral history project about the five villages of Montague, produced in honor of Montague's 250th anniversary. The programs will air on a local access television station in late 2004.

The distribution grant will cover the production of a high school teacher's guide to accompany the documentary, design and printing of a poster to promote local screenings, and film festival entry costs.

A series of five "moving lecture" bus tours highlighting Roxbury's history, art and culture, led by experts in their fields.

An oral history project that will utilize interviews with residents of neighborhoods that abut the Concord River in Lowell. The end products will be a lengthy oral history document, a Concord River Greenway brochure, and historical signage.

A one-woman play about Abby Kelley Foster.

The designing of a website for the Royall House, the only home in New England with preserved slave quarters.

A UMass-published anthology containing the articles upon which the lectures for Historic Northampton's lecture series commemorating the 350th anniversary year of the city of Northampton were based.

A 90-minute documentary film on the little known political side of Theodor Seuss Geisal, a Springfield native.

A documentary investigating the culture of debt in America.

A series of educational public programs to enhance the Witch House's role as a center for community involvement and local history. The Witch House is the only historic building in Salem with direct ties to the witchcraft trials of 1692.

A library reading and discussion series.

A series of public presentations focusing on the oral and literary traditions of the Wampanoag people.

Three lectures about the life, work and legacy of Nathaniel Hawthorne during 2004, the bicentennial of his birth.

"Knowledge for Power" sessions for the Project 2050 summer retreat, a yearly ten-day gathering of artists, scholars, and a racially diverse group of 45 Western Massachusetts youth, at which themes connected to the projected demographic shift of 2050--when people of color will become the majority in the US--are explored through artistic and scholastic expression.

A multi-media exhibit that explores the legacies of the Korean war and encourages reflection about the devastation of all wars.

The publication of a revised and expanded version of the African American Heritage Trail book that will include information on more sites on Martha's Vineyard.

A subvention grant for a study of Massachusetts archaeologist Roland Robbins to be published by the University Press of New England in the fall of 2004.

An interdisciplinary summer institute on Islam. The course will explore the development of Islamic religious, social, and political life over time and across several cultures.

Books and transportation for CLTL, an alternative sentencing program for repeat offenders of literature discussions in a college setting.

Public events in conjunction with the annual conference of the Organization of American Historians. The featured topics are the 60th Anniversary of Japanese American draft resistance in WWII, the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education and the 30th anniversary of the Garrity decision on busing.

A local history curriculum for fifth grade students and teachers in the New Bedford public schools consisting of reading, writing, research and interactive activities focused on New Bedford architecture, 19th century social and domestic history and Quakerism. Based on selected primary sources.

A collaborative inquiry into the work of writer Grace Paley, including three work-in-progress performances and a culminating staged reading of A State of Grace, a new play that dramatizes Paley's short stories, essays and poems.

Production costs to cover the design and writing of two 5' by 12' enamel panels to be permanently installed in the Arlington Street T station when it is renovated in the fall of 2003. The panels will tell the story of the 5000-year-old fishweirs that are buried under the Back Bay, alongside the tracks of the Green Line.

Support of the planning phase of an exhibit devoted to the legacy of the Korean War for Korean Americans.

Support of an exhibit of photographs and historical artifacts highlighting Frost's poetry to the city where he spent much of his adolescence and young adulthood, illuminating the public as to how Frost's poems were inspired by a history and culture of the textile-manufacturing city.

A reading and discussion series that examines four autobiographies of people from varying cultural circumstances and ethnicities.

M. Bruchac presents Native American versions of folktales in collaboration with the Wenham Museum's exhibit of the same theme. Two sessions will be held; one for teachers and adults, one for families. The Beverly group Help for Abused Women and Children will transport mothers and children free of charge.

Educational music/theater piece based on the life and work of W.E.B. Du Bois

Two one-day workshops focusing on the historical, cultural, and linguistic background of the Haitian and Capeverdean communities in Boston.

An ongoing project recording the process of restoring the Danvers State Hospital cemetery. The end result will be short, time-lapse film of the last month that the graves remain unmarked.

An oral history project focusing on the experiences of a ninety-six year old expert on machinery used in Massachusetts mills during most of the twentieth century.

A library reading and discussion series.

A free lecture series investigating the various ways artists have been and can be involved in their communities, both socially and politically.

An Eventide Arts Festival drama that poses the question, what would be the nature of a conversation between Rev. Anna Howard Shaw, one of the first female ministers who preached at the Dennis Union Church from 1878-1885 and Harriet Tubman. The dialogue has been informed by Shaw's writing and illuminates attitudes about race that permeated the Cape during the latter part of the nineteenth century.

A multifaceted program on witchcraft that builds on primary documents, historical artifacts, and humanities scholarship to develop public programs and exhibits to enrich K-12 curriculum.