Past Grants Awarded

A community reading and discussion of Douglass's speech on the meaning of the 4th of July.

Development of a tour focused on the life, writing, and activism of Robert Roberts, a leader in Boston's free black community and a servant at Gore Place. The tour emphasizes the value of labor over the denigration of service and explores the relationship between work, life, and activism, and the challenge of trying to change the world while also surviving in it.

For research and writing of a revised history of the first encounter between Pilgrim settlers and Native people that will be used as the basis for web-content and programming leading up to 400th anniversary commemorations in 2020. Project programs will make the public narrative newly relevant by connecting it to crises and challenges faced by Cape residents today.

Funding to host a traveling exhibit created by the Chinese Historical Society of America Museum and Stanford University in addition to public programs refocusing commemorating the transcontinental railroad on the experience of Chinese workers who did much of the labor.

Support for BPS and BHCC students to engage in the history and culture of Boston's Roxbury neighborhood through researching, rehearsing, performing, and leading community discussions of "Roxbury Strong," a play based on archival research and oral histories with residents.

Funding for a project engaging the island in cross-cultural conversations, with a thematic focus on the experiences of immigrants and refugees and an interest in teaching cultural literacy by having students actually converse with people from other countries.

Production of a treatment and trailer to aid in production of a feature-length documentary film exploring U.S. immigration from Central America and the current sanctuary movement through the story of Lucio, an immigrant from Guatemala who came to the U.S. illegally and who entered sanctuary in the First Congregational Church in Amherst in 2017 after receiving deportation orders.

Funding to conduct and interpret 12 oral histories with affiliates of Margaret Fuller Neighborhood House, a 112-year-old settlement house, adding under-documented narratives into the archives that address the relationship between providers and patrons in the settlement house movement, and reflect on how such settlement houses were transformed by patrons who became providers.

Completion of a digital site on the history of immigration to Lowell, with a particular emphasis on immigration since 1965 to make often scattered information publicly available.

Production of a multimedia project for the 25th Anniversary of the Rwandan genocide this year in addition to creation of the trailer in for a film featuring three three men orphaned by the Rwandan genocide who teach photography as a healing practice to vulnerable children around the world, including at the Home for Little Wanderers in Boston.

A collaboration between formerly incarcerated women, a scholar, facilitators, and a playwright to create a performance exploring the history of incarceration and its connection to the women's personal experiences.

Support for the distribution phase of a feature-length documentary film about the Me2/Orchestra in which half the musicians are diagnosed with mental illness.

Public programming, a teacher institute, and interpretive materials to accompany a two-part exhibit using maps to examine the history of U.S. expansion and Native American dispossession in the 19th and 20th century.

Writing workshops with those who are homeless, transitional, and recently-housed, culminating in publication of their works in The Pilgrim magazine and four public reading and discussion programs.

Two events interpreting Indigenous history, culture, and environmental perspectives connected to the art exhibit "Ripples."

Lectures with historians and authors on the history of women's political participation.

Support for a project using film to help local workers see their work lives as worthy of attention, and as a part of a historical trajectory in which they are agents, including a three-day digital story-telling workshop, solicited video submissions from local workers, a 1 1/2 day conference and a website showing workers' videos.

Support for curricular development, a semester-long seminar for ESL teachers, and stipends for ESL teachers to learn and implement Poetry Inside Out, a translation-based approach to literary interpretation, in their ESL classrooms.

Support for a weeklong teacher's institute in July on the holocaust, genocide, and human rights, that employs a multidisciplinary approach engaging history, philosophy, ethics, and religion with an emphasis on literature and reflective writing.

Support for promotion and distribution of the documentary CodeSwitching, which explores the experience of shifting between 'home' and 'away' cultures for two generations of students who were bused from urban to suburban schools as part of Boston's METCO program.

Support for a five-day summer teacher workshop highlighting historic sites in Boston where communities of color struggled for recognition and inclusion in the social contract.

A series of three panel discussions exploring Boston's Great Molasses Flood of 1919, on its 100th anniversary.

Support for historical, contextual, and interpretive conversations between scholars, artists, and participating audience on art expressing the stories of marginalized social groups.

Support for the final planning stages of an interactive educational website on Isaiah Thomas that will introduce children, particularly high school students, to archival material.

Support for moderated conversations following a series of one-act plays written by Patrick Gabridge.

Support for a project that will fill a gap in Worcester Historical Museum's collections and result in an exhibition and related programming during 2019, the 50th anniversary of New York's Stonewall Uprising.

A project exploring how changing technologies have affected the fishing community in New Bedford that includes archival research, ethnographic interviews with members of the fishing community, two public exhibits, six panel discussions, and MA standards-based curricula for elementary and secondary school children.

Oral history collection, transcription, and creation of a gallery exhibit examining the lives and experiences of Black residents of Holyoke from the second half of the 20th century through the present.

Two public events-moderated by Scholar Kerri Greenidge and held in Cambridge and in Roslindale-based on writings by the women of Brook Farm, a 19th-century transcendentalist community in Boston.

A Literature & Medicine series, led by Scholar Ruth Rhode, at Bedford's local VA facility.

A reorganization of archival documents and electronic inventories to create a searchable, accessible inventory for both scholars and the public.

A series of discussion-based events on local history and public health, inspired by Norwood's Great Flu Epidemic of 1918 and led by Scholar Patricia Fanning.

A Literature & Medicine series, led by Scholar Kent Jacobson, at Baystate Medical Center.

Research by Scholar Stephen O'Neill on 17th-century Plymouth Colony artifacts in order to produce a draft manuscript with photos, as well as a monograph and a public lecture.

A three-part discussion series, led by Historian Bob Forrant, on immigration in the Lowell area.

The development and launch of a digital public history project, combined with an annual History Harvest event, at which community members will share their own artifacts and stories.

A "Play Reading Book Club" for families with incarcerated members and returning citizens that will lead up to the production of "The Peculiar Patriot."

The creation, by Springfield-area youth producers, of three filmed segments, based in documentary journalism and storytelling, to explore the effects of Hurricane Maria on Springfield-area communities.

Three sections of a twelve-week course on poetry for male inmates at the Hampden County Sheriff's Department Pre-Release Center.

A disability-studies exhibit-to accompany a tactile art exhibit- on the history of accessibility in arts programming and on how both blind and sighted artists and audiences influence and affect the fine arts.