- $450,000
American Experience: Panama Canal
Recipient: Samels, Mark (Boston, MA 02135 USA) in affiliation with WGBH Educational Foundation
Goal: Production of a two-hour documentary on the history of the construction of the Panama Canal for PBS's American Experience.
Description: This is a request to the National Endowment for the Humanities for funds to support the production of ???Panama Canal,??? a two-hour special presentation of American Experience, for national broadcast on PBS. Focusing primarily on the decade-long American construction effort, it places the American Canal against the backdrop of the calamitous French effort that preceded and haunted it. It traces the roots of the American commitment to a trans-Isthmian canal in Theodore Roosevelt???s expansionist vision of American power, and shows how advances in public health, technology and engineering made it possible for the Americans to succeed where the French had failed. It examines how the leadership of the canal dealt with the challenges of recruiting and managing an immense and diverse work force,and explores the risks borne by workers building one of the planet's most remarkable structures in one of the most hostile environments on earth.
Grant: 197094 / TR-50066-10, Category: American History, Program: America's Media Makers Production, Year Awarded: 2010 - $350,000
Prints and the Pursuit of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe
Recipient: Dackerman, Susan (Cambridge, MA 02138 USA) in affiliation with Harvard University
Goal: Implementation of a traveling exhibition, a colloquium, a catalog, an interactive website, and educational and public programs exploring the alliance between printmakers and scientists in the 16th century.
Description: The Harvard Art Museum will organize, present, and circulate a groundbreaking interpretive exhibition that will transform traditional assumptions about the role of artists in the production of new forms of knowledge during the Renaissance???s Scientific Revolution. The museum requests funds for the implementation of the major traveling exhibition, Prints and the Pursuit of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe, and for support of its related publications and public programming. The exhibition, which opens jointly at Harvard???s Sackler Museum and Wellesley College???s Davis Art Museum, addresses the participation of such celebrated northern European artists as Albrecht D??rer, Hendrick Goltzius, and Hans Holbein in the scientific inquiries of the sixteenth century, especially as manifested in their printed works. Such an investigation reveals the previously unexamined close working relationships between the artistic and scientific communities, and the exchanges of influence between them.
Grant: 194753 / GI-50097-10, Category: Arts History & Criticism, Program: America's Historical & Cultural Organizations Implementation, Year Awarded: 2010 - $40,000
American Art Web Collections Interpretation & Access project
Recipient: Fleming, Jenna (Boston, MA 02115 USA) in affiliation with Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Goal: Development of a new online interpretation and search framework for the Americas collection that will serve as an extensible model for all collection areas of the museum.
Description: The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA) requests a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities in support of its Collections Interpretation & Access project which, in its first phase, will focus on creating a new interpretive online resource for the Museum???s American Art collection. In the fall of 2010, the MFA will open a new wing for its unparalleled Art of the Americas collection. This resource will illuminate key themes of the collection; deepen visitors??? engagement with the artworks by providing rich learning and discovery materials; and will offer more dynamic interpretation of the collection for virtual visitors. The MFA???s collection of American art is a rich resource through which to examine the evolution of art in the Americas and to explore the multi-faceted nature of the American story. The online resource will draw out central themes of the collection for the public to provide them with new perspectives on American art, history, and experience.
Grant: 197893 / GE-50183-10, Category: Art History and Criticism, Program: America's Historical and Cultural Organizations Planning, Year Awarded: 2010 - $1,000
NEH on the Road: Grass Roots
Recipient: Davis, Audrey Paulette (Alexandria, VA 22314 USA) in affiliation with Alexandria Black History Museum
Goal: Ancillary public humanities programs to accompany the NEH on the Road: Grass Roots traveling exhibition.
Grant: 201074 / MR-50066-10, Category: Art History, Program: NEH on the Road, Year Awarded: 2010 - $1,000
NEH on the Road: Farm Life
Recipient: Nice, Connie Kae (Hood River, OR 97031 USA) in affiliation with Hood River County Historical Museum
Goal: Ancillary public humanities programs to accompany the NEH on the Road: Farm Life traveling exhibition.
Grant: 201075 / MR-50067-10, Category: Humanities, Program: NEH on the Road, Year Awarded: 2010 - $1,000
NEH on the Road: Asian Games
Recipient: O'Brien, Nancy (Del Rio, TX 78840 USA) in affiliation with Del Rio Council for the Arts
Goal: Ancillary public humanities programs to accompany the NEH on the Road: Asian Games traveling exhibition.
Description: To expose the Del Rio community to the arts of the Asian cultures through the visual arts, lectures, workshops and classes
Grant: 201076 / MR-50068-10, Category: Asian Studies, Program: NEH on the Road, Year Awarded: 2010 - $1,000
NEH on the Road: Farm Life
Recipient: Henrickson, Gary P (Fergus Falls, MN 56537 USA) in affiliation with Minnesota State Community and Technical College, Fergus Falls
Goal: Ancillary public humanities programs to accompany the NEH on the Road: Farm Life traveling exhibition.
Description: Public programming related to the Farm Life Exhibition
Grant: 201077 / MR-50069-10, Category: Humanities, Program: NEH on the Road, Year Awarded: 2010 - $1,000
NEH on the Road: Lee and Grant
Recipient: Phillips, Bryan (Texarkana, TX 75501 USA) in affiliation with Texarkana Regional Arts and Humanities Council
Goal: Ancillary public humanities programs to accompany the NEH on the Road: Lee and Grant traveling exhibition.
Description: A traveling visual arts exhibit from Mid-America Arts Alliance and NEH on the Road that showcases the two Civil War Generals, Lee and Grant.
Grant: 201078 / MR-50070-10, Category: Arts History & Criticism, Program: NEH on the Road, Year Awarded: 2010 - $1,000
NEH on the Road: Heroes of the Sky
Recipient: Boyd, Heidi Michele (Rawlins, WY 82301 USA) in affiliation with Carbon County Museum Foundation Inc.
Goal: Ancillary public humanities programs to accompany the NEH on the Road: Heroes of the Sky traveling exhibition.
Description: Carbon COunty played a significant role during the transcontinental air race of 1919. Rawlins, the Carbon County seat, was chosen as one of the stopping points for the airplanes and one of the planes was lost after slamming into the County's Elk Mountain. Shortly after the transcontinental air race, airmail became commonplace in many parts of Wyoming, including Rawlins. The museum will do a handout that outlines the early history of aviation in Carbon County. The visitors will learn how the national movement played out at a local (county) level.
Grant: 201079 / MR-50071-10, Category: History, Program: NEH on the Road, Year Awarded: 2010 - $1,574,655
We the People Bookshelf: A More Perfect Union
Recipient: Castle, Lainie (Chicago, IL 60611 USA) in affiliation with American Library Association
Grant: 196853 / BB-50014-09, Category: American History, Program: Bookshelf Cooperative Agreement, We the People, Year Awarded: 2009 - $1,000,000
The Buddha and Pilgrimage and Buddhist Art
Recipient: Proser, Adriana (New York, NY 10021 USA) in affiliation with Asia Society
Goal: Implementation of a traveling exhibition, a website, a symposium, a catalog, and educational and public programs, together with production of a complementary two-hour documentary film; the film concerns the sites of major events of the life of the Buddha, and the traveling exhibition concerns the art of Buddhist pilgrimages to those sites.
Description: Asia Society, the preeminent multi-disciplinary institution dedicated to understanding Asia, and David Grubin, the distinguished documentary film producer, come together for a joint project examining the life of the Buddha and Buddhist pilgrimage. Through a two-hour documentary film biography of the Buddha, a dynamic, multi-venue international loan exhibition on Buddhist pilgrimage practice, PILGRIMAGE AND BUDDHIST ART, with more than 100 objects, an accompanying scholarly catalogue, interactive web site, symposium, and related humanities programs, this unprecedented project will explore the life of the Buddha and Buddhist pilgrimage practice across all of Asia. Since the Buddha???s life experiences are integral to places and practice of pilgrimage, the exhibition and documentary are designed to enhance one another. The PBS nationwide premier of the documentary, THE BUDDHA, will coincide with the exhibition opening in February 2010.
Grant: 194641 / GI-50066-09, Category: Art History and Criticism, Program: America's Historical & Cultural Organizations Implementation, Year Awarded: 2009 - $950,000
An American Turning Point
Recipient: Jackson, Cheryl L (Richmond, VA 23219 USA) in affiliation with Virginia Sesquicentennial of the American Civil War Commission
Goal: Implementation of a traveling exhibition, a mobile gallery, a panel exhibition, a permanent online web exhibition, and related educational and public programs in observance of the Sesquicentennial of the American Civil War.
Description: Serving a national resources to the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War, An American Turning Point is a four component exhibition (gallery, mobile, panel and online)that will narrate the personal stories of those living though one of our nation's most challenging times. The exhibition will highlight the experiences and accomplishments of both Union and Confederate men, women and children as well as African Americans both free and enslaves on the home and battlefronts. The first three components will travel throughout the region and country taking these often under told stories directly to the people in rural and metropolitan areas. The online component, which will host, several of the media components from the gallery and mobile exhibitions, will remain indefinitely on the website of the Virginia Historical Society serving as a lasting legacy long after the end of the sesquicentennial.
Grant: 197005 / GI-50133-09, Category: American History, Program: America's Historical & Cultural Organizations Implementation, Year Awarded: 2009 - $800,000
To Tell the Truth
Recipient: Pomeroy, Ali (New York, NY 10011 USA) in affiliation with Moving Image (New York, NY 10013 USA)
Goal: Production of a six-hour documentary series tracing the history of the nonfiction film, from the beginnings of cinema to the present.
Description: In six hour-long episodes, TO TELL THE TRUTH will trace the evolution of non???fiction film from the dawn of cinema to the current era. The series will show how documentaries have both shaped and reflected their times and our view of the past. In the process, we will disseminate scholarship from the field of visual studies; educate viewers about the choices behind, and consequences of, on-screen ???reality???; and help expand the audience for substantive documentaries past and present. Above all, TO TELL THE TRUTH will capture a unique cultural history of America.
Grant: 197099 / TR-50071-09, Category: Film History and Criticism, Program: America's Media Makers Production, Year Awarded: 2009 - $800,000
The Big Show in Bololand
Recipient: Hoyt, Austin (Cambridge, MA 02138 USA) in affiliation with Filmmakers Collaborative, Inc. (Waltham, MA 02453 USA)
Goal: Production of a 60-minute film and an accompanying website about the efforts of the American Relief Administration to combat starvation in the new Soviet Union from 1921 to 1923.
Description: "The Big Show in Bololand" is a 60-minute documentary on the work of the American Relief Administration (ARA) to combat stavation in the new Soviet Russia from 1921-23. It will focus on the challenges faced by two ARA volunteers. In the background are the distrust and the political agendas of an ardent anti-communist, the ARA's director Herbert Hoover, and the leader of Russia's new regime, Vladimir Lenin.
Grant: 197151 / TR-50093-09, Category: Humanities, Program: America's Media Makers Production, Year Awarded: 2009 - $750,000
John Muir in the New World
Recipient: Tatge, Catherine A (New York, NY 10025-3322 USA) in affiliation with Global Village Media
Goal: Production of a two-hour television documentary and website that examines the life of the Scottish-American naturalist John Muir and places his writing, his beliefs, and his activism in the context of late 19th- and 20th-century American history.
Description: This two-hour documentary,John Muir in the New World [working title], shot on high definition for PBS' American Masters, will follow the life of the Scottish-American naturalist and place his writing, his beliefs, and his activism in the context of late 19th and 20th century American history. We will show how, through his writings and associations, Muir became an early and influential spokesman for the conservation movement of the United States. Visually, this film will be strongly rooted in the locations of Muir's life, from Scotland to California, which were the prime influences on his thinking and writing. While preparing this documentary, we will look specifically at the emergent field of environmental history and the new scholarship on the definition of wilderness. We will also explore Muir's egalitarianism within the context of American political thought. And we will consider the importance of religion in Muir's thinking as it related to his botanical and geological observations.
Grant: 194668 / TR-50032-09, Category: American Studies, Program: America's Media Makers Production, Year Awarded: 2009 - $725,000
Butterfly: The Art and Life of James McNeill Whistler
Recipient: Thomas, Karen (Washington, DC 20009 USA) in affiliation with Film Odyssey, Inc. (Washington, DC 20037 USA)
Goal: Production of a one-hour critical biography on the art and life of American artist James McNeill Whistler.
Description: A painter, an etcher, and designer who brought attention to his work with his brilliant wit, contretemps with the press, showmanship and talent, James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) was an American-born artist whose contributions to art include landscape paintings that nudged 19th century art towards abstraction, portraits (such as the iconic "Whistler's Mother")that are known for their color harmony and restraint, and etchings which are to the 19th and 20th centuries as Rembrandt's were to the 17th. A serious reformer of contemporary art, Whistler was an independent artist whose focus on the aesthetic quality of art ("art for art's sake"), rather than any social, moral or ethical purpose, was contrary to the thinking of many in his day. We are requesting production support for a one-hour critical biography on the art and life of James McNeill Whistler.
Grant: 197096 / TR-50068-09, Category: Art History and Criticism, Program: America's Media Makers Production, Year Awarded: 2009 - $725,000
America, Whaling, and the World
Recipient: Burns, Ric (New York, NY 10023 USA) in affiliation with City Lore: NY Center for Urban Folk Culture (New York, NY 10003 USA)
Goal: Production of a two-hour documentary exploring the history, culture, and significance of the American whaling industry from 1620 to 1924.
Description: INTO THE DEEP: America, Whaling & the World: a two-hour documentary film for national broadcast on PBS in 2010, directed by Ric Burns and co-produced by Steeplechase Films, American Experience, and WGBH/Boston, explores the history, culture and significance of the American whaling industry from its 17th century origins in drift and shore-whaling, through the golden age of deep ocean whaling in the 18th and 19th centuries, and on to the industry's demise in the decades following the American Civil War. Combining stunning archival material with powerful on-camera interviews, evocative live cinematography, dramatic reenactments, and underwater footage of whales at sea, the film will bring alive the complex reality and extraordinary experience of American whaling as the nation rose to the threshold of global power, all the while registering the larger forces, economic, social, cultural, technological and environmental, that shaped and propelled American Whaling from start to finish.
Grant: 197113 / TR-50085-09, Category: American History, Program: America's Media Makers Production, Year Awarded: 2009 - $700,000
Picturing America On-screen and Online
Recipient: Lacy, Susan (New York, NY 10001 USA) in affiliation with Educational Broadcasting Corporation
Goal: Production of 20 three- to five-minute video segments, together with a website, exploring the masterworks of American art featured in the NEH initiative Picturing America.
Description: Picturing America on Screen is a multi-media companion project that will extend the reach of the Picturing America initiative via production and online distribution of video segments featuring each of the selected works of art, an educational DVD, and an interactive "Viewers' Choice" interactive online component. This media presentation will explore on screen the interpretations and appeal of the selected works of American art, as well as engage a broad spectrum of the American public in a dialogue about them. These dynamic segments, produced by a variety of directors using a wide range of perspectives and viewpoints, aspire to strengthen the nexus of history and art as well as demonstrate how looking at art can be a vital component in the study of our cultural history. al history.
Grant: 194064 / TR-50029-09, Category: Media-General, Program: America's Media Makers Production, Year Awarded: 2009 - $550,000
Robert E. Lee
Recipient: Samels, Mark (Boston, MA 02135 USA) in affiliation with WGBH Educational Foundation
Goal: Production of a two-hour television program with accompanying website for the American Experience that examines the life of Robert E. Lee.
Description: This is a request to the National Endowment for the Humanities for funds to support the production of ???Robert E. Lee,??? a two-hour special presentation of American Experience, for national broadcast on PBS. It examines the life and reputation of the Confederacy???s pre-eminent general, whose military successes made him the scourge of the Union and the hero of the Confederacy during the Civil War, and who was elevated to almost godlike status by his admirers after his death. It examines a number of dimensions of an extraordinary life and an enigmatic personality, looking at Lee as a son; as a Virginian and a Southerner; as a Christian; as a soldier; as a symbol; and most fundamentally, as a man. Spanning the 19th century, from Lee???s birth to his apotheosis, it tells the story of how Lee rose from a genteel background shadowed by paternal disgrace to become the unchallenged hero of the white Southern cause.
Grant: 194669 / TR-50033-09, Category: American History, Program: America's Media Makers Production, Year Awarded: 2009 - $400,000
Lincoln and New York
Recipient: Mirrer, Louise (New York, NY 10024 USA) in affiliation with New-York Historical Society
Goal: Implementation of a large interpretive traveling exhibition, a website, a smaller traveling nine-panel exhibition that would circulate nationwide, a catalog, and public educational programs on Lincoln and his relationship to New York City.
Description: The New-York Historical Society will organize and install "Lincoln and New York," a major interpretive exhibition and national traveling component that will explore for the very first time how America's flourishing media and financial capital-also a center of Northern pro-slavery sentiment and anti-Lincoln Democratic politics-contributed to and influenced Lincoln's political rise, his prosecution of the Civil War, his decisions on emancipation and African-American enlistment, and ultimately Lincoln's place in history. The exhibition will present more than 100 objects, including original artifacts, iconic images, period newspapers, original paintings and sculpture, and hand-written period documents. The traveling component will feature text panels, facsimiles of objects and documents, selected original works from the Society's collections, and media components, including an introductory film and audio-visual presentations of speeches and the media creation of national candidates.
Grant: 196994 / GI-50122-09, Category: American History, Program: America's Historical & Cultural Organizations Implementation, Year Awarded: 2009 - Endowment for the humanities grants to division Public Programs; items 1-21 of 7657 with a total funding of $9,820,655.