Projects We've Funded: Southeastern Massachusetts

$2,500 to the Orleans Historical Society to exhibit seventy images of amateur photographer Harry J. Sparrow from 1911. An accompanying lecture series will address Sparrow and his photographs, the history of amateur photography, digital preservation of images, and the landscape and daily life of Orleans at the turn of the twentieth century. (2008)

1911 photograph of James Boland blacksmith in Orleans, MA. His smith was at the corner of Rt. 6A and Brewster Cross Road. Photo credit: Harry J. Sparro. Courtesy of Orleans Historical Society.

$4,000 to the Payomet Performing Arts Center in Truro in support the documentary series, Liberty and Justice for Some. Focusing on civil rights, the screenings will include: The American Civil Liberties Union, directed by Larry Hott; Banished, directed by Marco Williams; Greensboro: Closer to the Truth, directed by Adam Zucker; Holler Back: (Not) Voting in an American Town, directed by Lulu Friesdat; and American Gypsy, directed by Jasmine Dellal. (2008)

$5,000 to the Rotch-Jones-Duff House & Garden Museum in New Bedford for Lighting the Way: The Life and Legacy of William Rotch, Jr., a permanent exhibit on the Rotch whaling family and its role in establishing the whaling trade in New Bedford. (2008)

$4,995 to The Navy & Marine Living History Association in North Attleboro for an educational poster about the first Civil War Submarine, the Alligator. (2008)

$10,000 to Plimoth Plantation, Inc. to support a large panel exhibit entitled Chosen to Lead that will run from July to November 2008, and programming on leadership and the political process in Plymouth County and the Wampanoag Homeland in the 17th century. (2008)

$5,000 to Martha’s Vineyard Museum in Edgartown for a website exhibit entitled, Laura Jernegan: A Girl on a Whaleship, based on her original journal from 1868. (2007)

Photograph of Laura Jernegan. Courtesy of Martha's Vineyard Museum

$9,320 to the Community and Economic Development Center of Southeastern MA in New Bedford toward the fourth annual Working Waterfront Festival, which draws 12,000 in September. The focus this year is on women’s role in the fishing industry. (Cultural Economic Development Grant) (2007)

$3,090 to Falmouth Historical Society for Living Off the Land in Falmouth, Then and Now, a new trolley tour focusing on agricultural history and contemporary farming in Falmouth. (Cultural Economic Development Grant) (2007)

$10,000 to Harwich Junior Theatre, Inc. for pre-production of a film on the survival of two Jewish, art-student resistance workers in 1940s Berlin, and the recent meeting of Nina Schuessler with her mother’s friend in Berlin. (Liberty & Justice for All Grant) (2007)

Actors capture the state of heightened emotions that followed the Boston Massacre in Uprising on King Street.

$5,000 to Spinner Publications, Inc. in New Bedford for Branded on My Arm and in My Soul, a memoir compiled from oral history interviews with the late Abraham Landau, a Holocaust survivor and long-time New Bedford resident. (Liberty & Justice for All Grant) (2007)

Abraham Landau at work at his tailor shop on Sixth Street in downtown New Bedford, circa 1962. His forearm bears the identifying tattoo of a Holocaust survivor. Courtesy Spinner Publications.

$2,000 to African American Heritage Trail on Martha’s Vineyard for the project, Linking Communities, to create a traveling historical exhibition and install bronze markers honoring the involvement of four local women in the Civil Rights Movement. (2007)

$2,000 to Orleans Historical Society for 300 Years of Mapping Orleans and Cape Cod, 1600-1900, an exhibit of 25 museum-quality maps of Cape Cod and a related lecture series. (2007)

John Thornton’s “A Chart of the Sea Coast of New Found Land, New Scotland, New England, New York, New Jersey, with Virginia and Maryland.” From The English Pilot. London: W. Mount & T. Page, [1698]. Courtesy The Philadelphia Print Shop.

$5,000 to the Rotch-Jones-Duff House in New Bedford to support the design and installation of an exhibit on the Rotch family and its role in New Bedford’s whaling industry. (2007)

$4,870 to the Hull Lifesaving Museum to install a permanent exhibit on the history of the coastal lifesaving station whose headquarters the museum now occupies. (2007)

$5,000 to the Handshouse Studio in Norwell to support its traveling exhibition Wooden Synagogues: A Lost World Revisited, which explores the architectural heritage of the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe. (2006)

$1,000 to the Westport Historical Society to survey and create a database of their collections. (2006)

$10,000 to the USS Massachusetts Memorial Committee in Fall River to help develop and construct an exhibition on the contributions of women to the U.S. armed forces, to be installed on the battleship Massachusetts. (2006)

$5,000 to the Rotch-Jones-Duff House and Garden Museum in New Bedford to support the planning phase of a new exhibit on the life of whaling merchant William Rotch, Jr. (2006)

$2,200 to the Committee to Encourage Public Art in Falmouth to support the continuation of a project that successfully combines public art and public history by commemorating the industries that helped shape the town’s development. (2006)

$4,750 to the Community Economic Development Center of Southeastern Massachusetts in New Bedford to conduct oral history interviews and present panel discussions in conjunction with an annual festival event celebrating the culture, traditions, and history of New Bedford’s commercial fishing industry. (2005)

$10,000 to the Center for Independent Documentary in Sharon towards pre-production costs of The Powder and the Glory, a documentary film on cosmetics entrepreneurs Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden. (2005)

$5,000 to Pilgrim Monument and Provincetown Museum to support an exhibit focusing on playwright Eugene O’Neill’s time in Provincetown. (2005)

$5,000 to the New Bedford Whaling Museum for an exhibit on Frederick Douglass and Herman Melville. (2005)

$5,000 to the Center for Independent Documentary in Sharon to offset production costs of a documentary film on the social history of the uniquely American musical instrument, tentatively titled The Banjo Project. (2005)

$5,000 to the Gloucester Maritime Heritage Center toward an interpretive exhibit and oral history project on the history of the Vincie N. fishing vessel and its place in the maritime community. (2004)

$5,000 to Pilgrim Monument and Provincetown Museum to support an exhibit focusing on playwright Eugene O’Neill’s time in Provincetown. (2005)

$5,000 to the New Bedford Whaling Museum toward an exhibit on writers Frederick Douglass and Herman Melville. (2005)

$5,000 to the Center for Independent Documentary in Sharon to offset production costs of the documentary The Banjo Project, a feature on the social history of the uniquely American musical instrument. (2005)

$4,980 to the Center for Independent Documentary in Sharon to cover costs of producing a teaching guide to the film Monkey Dance, a story of three Cambodian-Americans coming of age in Massachusetts. (2004)

$5,000 to the Center for Independent Documentary in Sharon to fund completion of a trailer for an hour-long documentary entitled Plastic: Credit Cards and the Culture of Debt by director Tim Wright. (2004)

$2,500 to the Oversoul Theatre Collective in Mashpee to support the work of scholars, writers, folklorists, storytellers and artists brought together to develop a series of public presentations on the oral and literary traditions of the Wampanoag people. (2004)

$3,500 to the African American Heritage Trail History Project in Martha’s Vineyard to publish a revised and expanded version of the Heritage Trail book, last printed in 1998. The proposed book will include eight new sites, oral histories of Island residents, and student artwork. (2004)

$1,000 to the Sturgis Library in Barnstable for a reading and discussion series examining the American experience from different social, ethnic, and cultural perspectives. (2004)

$4,042 to the Rotch-Jones-Duff House & Garden Museum in New Bedford to support the revision of the Museum’s school program to accommodate changes in the New Bedford Public Schools’ history curriculum. (2004)

$1,000 to the Brewster Bicentennial Committee to promote an exhibit of portraits by a nineteenth-century itinerant painter who spent several years in Brewster. (2003)

$4,000 to the Committee to Encourage Public Art, Inc. in Falmouth to produce a series of six articles for local newspapers, each examining the history of an important Falmouth industry. The articles will be compiled into a booklet and distributed. (2003)

$4,700 to Plimoth Plantation to underwrite the design and first printing of a brochure to accompany Plimoth's new exhibition on the history of Thanksgiving. (2003)

$2,500 to the Martha's Vineyard Historical Society in Edgartown to underwrite the costs of videotaping, logging, and editing oral history interviews with eight elderly Vineyard residents and combining one interview with archival and other footage to complete a trailer for a one-hour documentary film. (2003)

$5,000 to ArtWorks! Partners for the Arts & Community, Inc. in New Bedford to provide architectural, historical, and social context for an exhibition of work by New Bedford native and artist-in-residence Carolyn Swiszcz. www.artworksforyou.org (2003)

$2,550 to the Korean War Veterans Association, Cape & Islands Chapter in Centerville to fabricate and install a wayside exhibit at the Korean War Memorial in Hyannis. (2002)

$2,500 to the Eventide Arts Festival in Dennis to support the research and writing of a play about the years the legendary actress Gertrude Lawrence spent living in Dennis and the contributions she made to the Cape's theater tradition. (2002)

$400 to the Lakeville Public Library for a four-part, scholar-led reading and discussion series featuring fiction written by Massachusetts authors. (2002)

$3,000 to the Provincetown International Film Festival in Provincetown to present a panel discussion during the festival about the role of film during wartime and responsibilities of filmmakers. (2002)

$14,705 to the Cuttyhunk Historical Society for a series of lectures on the cultural and natural history of the Buzzards Bay area, to be held at five locations around the Bay in commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the landing of explorer Bartholomew Gosnold on Cuttyhunk Island. (2002)

$1,500 to the Eventide Arts Festival in Dennis for a performance at the Dennis Union Church of an imagined dialogue between Anna Howard Shaw, minister of the church from 1878 to 1885, and the abolitionist leader Harriet Tubman. (2002)

$2,563 to the New Bedford Whaling Museum to allow the museum to do expanded promotion of its annual 25-hour nonstop reading of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick and to support an introductory lecture and a printed information handout for those who attend. (2002)

$25,000 to Plimoth Plantation in Plymouth to bring two experts from England to supervise the reconstruction of a 17th century kiln and to underwrite related public programs and curriculum materials. (2001)

$901 to the Thornton W. Burgess Society in East Sandwich for a four-part book discussion series entitled A Natural Wilderness: American Nature Writers. (2001)

$1,050 to the Sturgis Library in Barnstable for The American Dreams, a five-part book discussion series. (2001)