PROVIDENCE – The National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded the Providence Athenaeum a planning grant totaling $50,000 to assess and preserve its historical assets, the Athenaeum announced Monday. The funding is part of the Endowment’s Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections program which aids in the preservation of humanities materials at cultural institutions like the Athenaeum.
The Athenaeum will utilize funding from the grant to conduct a multi-phase conservation effort, the first stage of which will comprise the employment of conservators, architects, engineers and electricians. The effort will also include a year-long thermal assessment of the building, a mapping of its electrical system and an evaluation of its fire detection and suppression systems.
“We are humbled and thrilled to receive this grant from the NEH,” said Athenaeum Executive Director Matt Burriesci. “The Athenaeum will be improved immensely by this project which will enable us to plan for the future and to preserve our nineteenth-century building and our impressive collections.”
The Athenaeum was the sole New England institution to receive funding from the SCHC program this year. Other recipients for the competitive program – which last year awarded funding to only 23 percent of applicants – include the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Chicago Historical Society and the Historical Society of Seattle and King County. Funding from the grant will be put to use immediately with the project expected to conclude by Aug. 1, 2018.
Kyle Borowski is a PBN contributing writer.
