Division of Public Programs

Through the Division of Public Programs, the Endowment supports activities that engage Americans of all ages in the study, interpretation, and appreciation of important works, ideas, and events that make up the record of human civilization. The programs are based on the assumption that reflection upon the fundamental ideas addressed by the humanities remains important throughout a person's life, not just during the years of formal education. The Division of Public Programs accomplishes its mission through support of interpretive exhibitions, radio and television programs, reading and film discussion groups, symposia, conferences, interactive multimedia projects, and other types of humanities programs that reach communities throughout the country. The division particularly encourages projects that have regional or national significance or impact, reach new and diverse audiences, use new technologies or multiple formats, and represent collaborations between cultural institutions and organizations.

Museum exhibitions funded in fiscal year 1999 encompass twenty-five hundred years of human history, from pre-Columbian sports culture to consumer technology in the twentieth century. For example, Your Place in Time, at the Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan, invites visitors to explore the rich interplay between people and technology by looking at the experiences of five generations that came of age in the twentieth century. Displays, including multimedia computer kiosks and dramatic presentations of artifacts, invite visitors to immerse themselves in different eras and contemplate the influence of film, radio, television, personal computers, and the Internet on American culture as each new technology was incorporated into everyday life. An accompanying website provides educational resource materials and moderated online discussion forums about the content and themes of the exhibition. A smaller version will travel to such sites as NASCAR speedways and state fairs.

Grants made by the division in fiscal year 1999 will result in the hosting of hundreds of reading and discussion programs, film viewing and discussion groups, and panel exhibitions by the nation's librarians. Brown University's Choices for the 21st Century Project will engage citizens in eighteen states in civic discourse about selected public policy issues. Participants will consider possible directions that the nation could take and, in doing so, will ground the discussion of these issues in the values that shape current public life. The program, led by scholars employing a humanities-centered methodology, will articulate a new concept of what the humanities can offer public life in the United States.

African American life in the Jim Crow South, changing popular images of American womanhood, utopian communities, American music, China's cultural revolution, and films on George Wallace, Ulysses S. Grant, and Woodrow Wilson are only some of the topics and themes covered by film and radio projects funded by the division in 1999. KCET-TV in Los Angeles received a grant to produce a three-hour biographical study of Woodrow Wilson. The two-part documentary will locate his life in terms of the cultural history of a generation scarred by the chaos of the Civil War and determined to prevent its recurrence. The film will explore how Wilson's deep religious convictions and the dominant religious discourse of politics during his generation shaped his response to World War I. The growth of government under Wilson, his position and influence in world affairs, and the long-term impact of Wilson's ideas for world order also will be examined.

Public programming projects that do not fall under the categories of museum, media, or library projects are funded by the division's Special Projects program. Mystic Seaport Museum in Mystic, Connecticut, received a 1999 planning grant for a website that will include an online exhibition and exploration of topics related to U.S. maritime history. The site, drawing on the resources of twenty participating institutions, will be a rich environment for the public to learn about the relationship between America and the sea, from prehistory to the present. The website will include information on topics such as immigration, trade, exploration, the U.S. Navy, fisheries, recreational boating, and the sea as artistic inspiration.

In fiscal year 1999, the division initiated a new grant category, Consultation Grants. These grants, for a maximum award of $10,000, are designed to enable organizations whose projects are in the early stages of development to confer with scholars and experienced public humanities programmers to help place the projects firmly in the humanities. Preference for Consultation Grants is given to institutions that have not previously received a grant from the division. The first round of Consultation Grants resulted in awards for films on such topics as the life of Annie Oakley, Napoleon's foray into Egypt, and the history of flight. Preliminary planning also will take place for exhibitions on Emily Dickinson's world and American Indian pictorial beadwork, as well as for an oral history project on Jewish women across North America.

Nancy Rogers
Director
Division of Public Programs

Humanities Projects in Libraries and Archives

Grants supported projects that enhance public appreciation and understanding of the humanities through the discovery, use, and interpretation of books and other resources in the collections of American libraries and archives.

American Library Association
Chicago, IL Susan Brandehoff
$30,000* StoryLines America: A Radio/Library Partnership Exploring Our Regional Literature (Part II: California and the Southeast)

Brown University
Providence, RI Susan W. Graseck
$250,000 Choices for the 21st Century Library Project

Huntington Library
San Marino, CA David C. Zeidberg
$162,134 The Great Experiment! George Washington and the American Republic

Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities
New Orleans, LA Dianne Brady
$20,000* Prime Time: Family Reading Time

Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities
New Orleans, LA Kathryn Mettelka
$233,934 Prime Time: National Reading Project

Modern Poetry Association
Chicago, IL Joseph A. Parisi
$14,950* Poets in Person: National Library Discussion Project

National Video Resources, Inc.
New York, NY Sally Mason-Robinson
$282,000 From Rosie to Roosevelt: A Film History of Americans in World War II

National Video Resources, Inc.
New York, NY Sally Mason-Robinson
$39,875 American Retrospective: A Film and Discussion Series on the Legacy of 20th-Century America

Humanities Projects in Media

Grants supported the planning, writing, or production of television and radio programs in the humanities intended for general audiences.

Austin Film Society
Austin, TX Paul J. Stekler
$200,000* George Wallace: Settin' the Woods on Fire

Calliope Film Resources, Inc.
Lexington, MA Randall Conrad
$30,000 Henry D. Thoreau

Center for Independent Documentary
Waban, MA Melissa W. Banta
$50,000 The Murder of Dr. Parkman: A Documentary about a Famous 19th Century Crime and the Issues of Historiography It Raises

City Lore: New York Center for Urban Folk Culture
New York, NY Jude 0. Ray
$30,000 Harlem: The Greatest Negro City in the World

Civil Rights Project, Inc.
Boston, MA Martha Fowlkes
$15,000* I'll Make Me a World: A Century of African American Arts

Community Television of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA Joyce B. Campbell
$702,134 Woodrow Wilson and the Birth of the American Century

CultureWorks, Ltd.
Philadelphia, PA Steven S. Rowland
$60,000 Leonard Bernstein: An American Life

DC Productions
Silver Spring, MD Daniel J. Collison
$10,000 American Salesmen

Educational Broadcasting Corporation
New York, NY Joseph A. Dorman
$15,000** Arguing the World (Promotion)

Educational Broadcasting Corporation
New York, NY Susan Lacy
$601,150 American Novel

Educational Broadcasting Corporation
New York, NY Susan Lacy
$300,740 Alfred Stieglitz and the Making of Modern America

Educational Film Center
Annandale, VA Stephen L. Rabin
$600,000 The Life and Death of the Federal Theatre: An Investigation

ETV Endowment of South Carolina
Spartanburg, SC Steven Alves
$60,000 A History of American Teenagers

Film Arts Foundation
San Francisco, CA Nancy D. Kates
$30,000 American Socrates: The Life of Bayard Rustin

Film/Video Arts, Inc.
New York, NY Riva Freifeld
$9,619 Annie Oakley: Little Miss Sure Shot

First Amendment Productions, Inc.
Huntington, NY Stewart R. Bird
$30,000 Black Seminoles: A Fight for Freedom (Planning)

Hawai'i Community Television
Honolulu, HI Diane M. L. Mark
$22,000 Picture Bride (Promotion)

Heritage Films
Thousand Oaks, CA Steven J. Schechter
$76,943* The Homestead

History Institute for Education and Media
Charlotte, VT Jeanne B. Houck
$60,000 There She Is: A History of Miss America

History Institute for Education and Media
Charlotte, VT Jeanne B. Houck
$5,000 Scenes of a Lifetime: Women and Photography

IMAGE Film/Video Center
Atlanta, GA Kristy M. Andersen
$226,155 BlackSouth: The Life Journey of Zora Neale Hurston

Independent Broadcasting Associates, Inc.
Littleton, MA Julian Crandall Hollick
$131,970* Living Islam

Independent Production Fund
New York, NY Gordon Hyatt
$10,000 Napoleon in Egypt

Interfaze Educational Productions, Inc.
Berkeley, CA Gail 0. Dolgin
$9,950 From the Poorhouse to the Workplace: The Changing Policy of Social Welfare in America

Interfaze Educational Productions, Inc.
Berkeley, CA Marilyn H. Mulford
$5,000 The American Business Corporation

Koahnic Broadcast Corporation
Anchorage, AK Nellie Moore
$9,860 Consulting for a Revitalizing Native Oral Traditions Project

Long Bow Group, Inc.
Brookline, MA Carma Hinton
$700,776 Morning Sun

Minnesota Public Radio
St. Paul, MN Nancy H. Fushan
$30,000 "Voices Behind the Veil": Radio Documentaries

Nebraskans for Public Television, Inc.
Lincoln, NE Melissa Bucklin
$65,000 Free Thought, Free Speech, Free Love: Emma Goldman

New England Foundation for the Arts, Inc.
Boston, MA Martha Fowlkes
$9,998 The City Game: Basketball and Social Life in 20th-Century America

New Images Productions, Inc.
Berkeley, CA Avon Kirkland
$472,311 Indivisible Man: The Life and Legacy of Ralph Ellison, American Writer

New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc.
Staten Island, NY Regine Beyer
$10,000 The Life of Memory: Holocaust Survivors and Consciousness since World War II

New York Foundation for the Arts
New York, NY John J. Valadez
$10,000 The Head of Joaquin Murrieta

New York State Historical Association
Cooperstown, NY Frank G. Christopher
$60,000 Heaven on Earth: Love and Conflict in the Oneida Community

Pacific Street Film Projects, Inc.
Hastings-on-Hudson, NY Steven Fischler
$10,000 High Flight: Consultation Grant for a Six-Part Film Series on Aviation

Rattlesnake Productions, Inc.
Bozeman, MT Pamela R. Roberts
$20,000 From Their Labors: The Saga of America's Greatest Mining Town (Planning)

Saint Thomas Foundation
Nashville, TN Andrea R. Kalin
$551,111 Partners of the Heart

Social Media Productions, Inc.
New York, NY Daniel P. Anker
$30,000 Beautiful Dreamers: Pioneers of American Music

SoundVision Productions
Berkeley, CA Barinetta Scott
$9,995 Science and the Search for Meaning in the 21st Century

Station Resource Group
Takoma Park, MD Davia L. Nelson
$200,000 "Lost & Found Sound": An American Record

Stone Lantern Films, Inc.
Glen Echo, MD Sarah Mondale
$160,867* School: A Social History of American Public Education

WGBH Educational Foundation
Boston, MA Paula Apsell
$300,600 Wonders of the Modern World

WGBH Educational Foundation
Boston, MA Peter McGhee
$600,776 The American Experience: Grant

Women Make Movies, Inc.
New York, NY Joanna Kiernan
$29,460 Cabinet of Spells: Cinderella

*Federal Matching Funds
**Enterprise Grant

Humanities Projects in Museums and Historical Organizations

Grants assisted museums, historical organizations, and other cultural institutions in the planning and implementation of exhibitions, publications, and other interpretive programs to convey the humanities to the public. Grants also supported projects for museum professionals to improve the interpretation of the humanities and self-study projects to develop long-range interpretive plans.

Alutiiq Heritage Foundation
Kodak, AK Amy F. Steffian
$194,555 Looking Both Ways: Heritage and Identity of the Alutiiq People

American Museum of Natural History
New York, NY Enid Schildkrout
$40,740 Changing Childhoods

Amherst College
Amherst, MA Cynthia S. Dickinson
$10,000 "I Dwell in Possibility": Interpreting Emily Dickinson's World

Amistad Research Center
New Orleans, LA Donald E. DeVore
$10,000 Through the Lens of Promise: African Americans in the South, 1895-1955

Art Institute of Chicago
Chicago, IL Stephen Little
$290,000 Taoism and the Arts of China

Art Institute of Chicago
Chicago, IL Richard F. Townsend
$30,000* Ancient West Mexico: Art and Archaeology of the Unknown Past

Asia Society
New York, NY Vishakha N. Desai
$39,743 Monks and Merchants at the Gateway: Silk Road Treasures from Northwest China, 4th-7th Century

Atlanta Historical Society
Atlanta, GA Janice Morrill
$45,000* Native Lands: Indians and Georgia Exhibition

Atwater Kent Museum
Philadelphia, PA Victoria T. Hawkins
$9,750 The Philadelphia Story in the Life of the Nation

Brooklyn Historical Society
Brooklyn, NY Richard Heaps
$200,000* Brooklynworks: 150 Years of Work in an American City

Brooklyn Museum
Brooklyn, NY Brooke Kamin Rapaport
$135,000 Vital Forms: American Art in the Atomic Age, 1941-62

Buffalo Bill Historical Center
Cody, WY B. B. Price
$177,060 Plains Indian Museum Reinterpretation

Children's Museum of Utah
Salt Lake City, UT Karey L. Rawitscher
$17,086 Nine Mile Canyon under Construction Multimedia Project

Chippewa Falls Museum of Industry and Technology
Chippewa Falls, WI Julie A. Johnson
$10,000 Keys to Change: Master Planning for Interpretation

Chippewa Valley Museum
Eau Claire, WI Susan M. McLeod
$41,400 Country Places: Evolving Families, Farms, and Neighborhoods

Cleveland Museum of Art
Cleveland, OH William H. Robinson
$20,000* Diego Rivera: Art and Revolution Exhibition

Cornell University
Ithaca, NY Herbert J. Engman
$200,000 Coming Up on the Season: Migrant Farmworkers in the Northeast

Detroit Institute of Arts Founders Society
Detroit, MI Alan P. Darr
$41,029 The Legacy of Michelangelo

Filson Club
Louisville, KY Mark V. Wetherington
$5,564 Portraits and the Stories They Tell

Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco
San Francisco, CA Steven A. Nash
$35,000* Picasso and the War, 1937-45

Friends of Peralta Hacienda Historical Park
Oakland, CA Alan M. Saragoza
$42,510 Peralta Hacienda

Gallaudet University
Washington, DC Jean L. Bergey
$100,000 History through Deaf Eyes

Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village
Dearborn, MI Judith E. Endelman
$151,029 Your Place in Time: 20th-Century America

Heritage Preservation
Washington, DC Susan K. Nichols
$10,000 Voices in Bronze and Stone: Americans and Their Public Sculpture

International Folk Art Foundation
Santa Fe, NM Robin F. Gavin
$39,300 Once Upon a Plate: The Story of Spanish Majolica

Lauren Rogers Museum of Art
Laurel, MS George D. Bassi
$9,532 Reinstallation of the LRMA Native American Basket Collection

Maine State Museum
Augusta, ME Edwin A. Churchill
$55,866 Maine Home Life

Mariners Museum
Newport News, VA Claudia L. Pennington
$40,796 Against Human Dignity: The Transatlantic Slave Trade

Mid-America Arts Alliance
Kansas City, MO Mary K. McCabe
$40,000 Feasibility Study on Small Traveling Exhibits

Mint Museum of Art
Charlotte, NC E. M. Whittington
$40,858 Life, Death, and Sport: The Mesoamerican Ballgame

Missouri Historical Society
St. Louis, MO Carolyn Gilman
$40,000 National Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Exhibition

Museum of International Folk Art
Santa Fe, NM Barbara Mauldin
$175,000 Carnaval!

Museum of the New South
Charlotte, NC Thomas Hanchett
$200,858 New City, New South: Tradition and Transformation in the Carolina Piedmont

National Afro-American Museum
Wilberforce, OH John E. Fleming
$100,000* When The Spirit Moves: The Africanization of American Movement

National Museum of Women in the Arts
Washington, DC Jordana Pomeroy
$39,724 Intrepid Ladies: Victorian Women Artists Travel

New Jersey Historical Society
Newark, NJ Sally M. Yerkovich
$40,000 The New Jersey Turnpike Project: "What Exit?"

Newark Museum
Newark, NJ Joseph Jacobs
$135,000 Picturing America

Oneida Community Mansion House
Oneida, NY Bruce M. Moseley
$10,000 Interpretive Planning Colloquium

Philadelphia Museum of Art
Philadelphia, PA Joseph J. Rishel
$100,653 Art in Rome in the 18th Century

Please Touch Museum
Philadelphia, PA Aaron S. Goldblatt
$25,000* Alice at Please Touch Museum

Rhode Island School of Design
Providence, RI Susan Hay
$90,000 The Tirocchi Project

Rhode Island School of Design
Providence, RI Maureen O'Brien
$94,056* Image and Enterprise: The Photographs of Adolphe Braun

San Antonio Museum of Art
San Antonio, TX Tracy A. Baker-White
$4,965 Flight or Fancy? The Secret Life of Charles A. A. Dellschau

University of Alaska
Fairbanks, AK Aldona Jonaitis
$135,000 Rose Berry Alaskan Art Gallery

University of California
Los Angeles, CA Doran H. Ross
$200,000 The Heritage of African Music

University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, MN Lyndel King
$41,217 On the Edge of Your Seat

Walters Art Gallery
Baltimore, MD Ellen D. Reeder
$90,937* Reinstallation of the Egyptian Collection of the Walters Art Gallery

Walters Art Gallery
Baltimore, MD Gary K. Vikan
$100,000 Reinstallation of the Medieval Collection of the Walters Art Gallery

White Mountain Apache Tribe
Fort Apache, AZ Nancy E. Mahaney
$40,330 Transitions in the Apache World: The Fort Apache Legacy - An Interpretive Plan for the Fort Apache Historic Park

Yakima Valley Museum and Historical Association
Yakima, WA John A. Baule
$10,000 Southern Columbia Plateau Pictorial Beadwork

Yale University
New Haven, CT Helen A. Cooper
$35,000* Myer Myers: Craft and Identity in 18th-Century America

Yeshiva University Museum
New York, NY Sylvia A. Herskowitz
$30,701 A Perfect Fit: The Garment Industry and American Jewry

*Federal Matching Funds

Special Projects

Grants support public programs in venues or formats that fall outside the other divisional categories. Special projects engage public audiences in learning about important topics in the humanities in a variety of settings and formats, including lectures, workshops, demonstrations, or other innovative presentations and traveling exhibitions. Grants also support planning for the use of newer technologies, such as the Internet and CD-ROMs, to engage general audiences in the humanities.

Appalshop, Inc.
Whitesburg, KY Dudley D. Cocke
$200,977 Voices from Home: Appalachian Tales/America's Story

Arizona Humanities Council
Phoenix, AZ Dan Shilling
$39,990 Colorado River: Metaphor for the West

Community College Humanities Association
Newark, NJ Colleen O'Connor
$40,651 Faces of America: Photographs and Memory, The American Past in the Present

CUNY Research Foundation/Medgar Evers College
Brooklyn, NY Elizabeth A. Nunez
$75,740 Fifth National Black Writers Conference

Great Plains Chautauqua Society, Inc.
Bismarck, ND Everett C. Albers
$34,500* Behold Our New Century: Early-20th-Century Visions of America

Jewish Women's Archive
Brookline, MA Jayne K. Guberman
$10,000 Project 2004: Oral Histories of Jewish Women across North America

Maine Humanities Council
Portland, ME Victoria B. Bonebakker
$250,000 Literature and Medicine: Humanities at the Heart of Health Care

Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities
South Hadley, MA Ellen K. Rothman
$50,591 Planning for Bringing History Home: A New Museum-Based Website

Mystic Seaport Museum
Mystic, CT Susan Funk
$40,837 Connecting with America and the Sea

National Foundation for Jewish Culture
New York, NY Jerome Chanes
$28,240 Image and Imagination: Jewish Self-Representation

Straight Ahead Pictures, Inc.
Conway, MA Laurie Block
$10,000 On Independence: The Changing Relationship between Able and Disabled Americans, 1820-1990

*Federal Matching Funds

The Jefferson Lecture

Production costs associated with presenting the Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities were supported by contributions from principal underwriter Sara Lee Corporation, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and the National Trust for the Humanities.

Carolyn Walker Bynum
New York, NY
$10,000 Shape and Story: Metamorphoses in the Western Tradition