The Rhode Island Council for the Humanities today announced it has awarded $55,079 ingrants to 11 nonprofits and $8,605 in grants to four individual scholars for the development and production of public humanities projects.
Nonprofits awarded “Major Grants” by RICH are:
• Little Compton Historical Society for an oral history and related exhibit entitled “The Portuguese in Little Compton.” RICH funds support collection of oral histories, the creation and presentation of a new exhibit, related special events for the public, including an exhibit preview and family day festival, and project DVD.
• Trinity Repertory Company for “Our Town: Project Discovery Plus.” RICH funds support an off-site educational program for high school students in which students will view the theatre’s production of Our Town and participate in-school workshops before and after seeing the show. RICH funding will enable Trinity to offer the workshops free for students at 12 public schools from Central Falls to Woonsocket, reaching upwards of 300+ youth.
• The Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre, for its Pawtucket Humanities Forums: Straight Talk and Shared Sundays. RICH funds continue to support Pawtucket based post-performance humanities talk-backs (6), essays (6), and study guides (8) that accompany Gamm’s theatre productions. RICH funds also support a series of 5 readings of contemporary documentary plays followed by a discussion of the historical and philosophical issues raised by the play with scholars and experts.
• The Providence Black Repertory Company for its Humanities Scholar in Residence Initiative. RICH funds support the development of a pilot series of humanities programs with the assistance of two scholars-in-residence. Black Rep will produce up to 10 post-performance theatre discussions and incorporate humanities essays and content in their theatre magazine produced twice a year.
• Salve Regina University for its Ideas into Action project. RICH funds support a series of 8 public lectures and an essay contest involving local students. The project aims to serve 1500 or more people.
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Nonprofits awarded “Mini Grants” are:
• Warwick Museum of Art for “Languages of the Land: A Dialogue with Salter Grove.” RICH funds support three panel discussions, accompanying the main exhibit, which encourage both participants and audience to consider how the landscape of Salter Grove influences and, in turn, is influenced by memory, imagination, and creativity for groups as diverse as Native Americans to teenagers to country-clubbers.
• Brown Broadcasting Services, Inc. for “Radio at Brown: A Unique Rhode Island Institution.” RICH funds support the production of a 60-minute radio documentary chronicling over 70 years of history and influence at Brown University’s student radio stations WBRU and WBSR respectively. The launch of the documentary will be marked with a correlating exhibit at the John Hay Library at Brown.
• Barrington Preservation Society to prepare a “Local History Activity Workbook about Barrington, Rhode Island.” RICH funds support the production of a 20-page history activity workbook about Barrington that will be given to and completed by all third graders.
• Touro Synagogue Foundation for the Journey to Freedom Lecture Series. RICH funds support this annual lecture series, featuring the theme Soul Liberty: America’s Heroes and Unsung Heroines. This year’s series journeys across Rhode Island to explore the lives of four unique individuals – Anne Hutchinson, Roger Williams, John Clarke and George Washington – and seeks to answer why their creative genius and greatness continues to out-shadow those who have followed in their footsteps in pursuit of democracy.
• Preservation Society of Newport County for the research for the upcoming exhibit “In Vogue: Newport and the American Fashion Press 1881-1914.” This exhibition, featuring costumes from the PSNC collection, examines what Vogue magazine said about clothing that was worn in Newport and sheds light on this bygone era of Newport society.
• Everett Dance Theatre for “What is Love?” This project allows youth from Everett Dance Theatre’s youth mentorship program (the Carriage House School) to work with a scholar to research the history, language, literature and philosophy around love for presentation in a public forum.
Individuals receiving RICH “Mini Grants” are:
• Robert Cvornyek for “Black Grays and Colored Giants: Black Baseball in R.I., 1886-1949” and “And Now to Our Local Boys on the Diamond: R.I. Black Baseball in the Age of Integration, 1946-1955.” The researcher will collect oral histories, create a traveling exhibit, and host a panel discussion on the relationship betwen black baseball, historical commemoration and African American fraternal organizations in Rhode Island, and will develop a public talk on how integration of baseball in local communities relates to race formation, identity and cultural expression.
• Anne Tait for “Grace Church Cemetery: A Modest Memorial of Nineteenth-Century Gravestones.” Research will result in an on-line text and photo essay presentation examining the iconography of the gravestones in the Grace Church Cemetery and examine what the stones reveal about the way the lower middle and middle class planned their deaths.
• John Eng-Wong for “The Story of Doris and Leah.” Research will result in a slide presentation that presents a look at the circumstances of Chinese American life in Rhode Island through one of the key figures in the history of the Rhode Island Chinese community, now in her 90s.
• Jane Lancaster for “Who was Madame Eliza Jumel?” Research will result in a PowerPoint lecture presentation on the story of Betsey Bowen, once desperately poor, who reinvented herself as Madame Eliza Jumel, one of America’s wealthiest women.
Nonprofits and researchers in the humanities are invited to apply for RICH grants. Grant guidelines and the application form can be found online at www.rihumanities.org. Nonprofits interested in applying for the council’s next Major Grant cycle must submit a letter of intent by March 1.
The grant process will be explained at two upcoming workshops:
• Wednesday, Jan. 17, at noon, at the Preservation Society of Newport County, 424 Bellevue Ave., Newport.
• Thursday, Jan. 18, at 3:30 p.m., at the North Kingston Free Library, 100 Boone St.
Cost: Free, but at the Newport workshop, a boxed lunch will be available for a fee of $8.50. Reservations are requested, by calling RICH at 273-2250 or e-mailing sue@rihumanities.org.
The Rhode Island Council for the Humanities (www.rihumanities.org) is devoted to inspiring and supporting intellectual curiosity and imagination in all Rhode Islanders through lifelong learning in the humanities.
