The Museum Association of New York News (Blog)

New York State Museum Study Now Available

Emma Montross — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 17:56:36 GMT

New York State Museum Study Now Available

The New York Study of Public and Private Museums—the first comprehensive statewide study of New York's museum sector—is now available.

Prepared by Wilkening Consulting for Empire State Development, the Study identified nearly 1,200 chartered museums across New York.

MANY is proud to announce the publication of this resource in partnership with legislator Didi Barrett

[PR link]

Together, they - MANY's members - welcome more than 47 million visitors annually, employ more than 33,000 people, engage more than 50,000 volunteers, and serve nearly 3 million K–12 students through field trips each year. Some 96% of New Yorkers consider museums educational assets in their communities, and museums rank alongside public libraries as New Yorkers' most trusted public sources of information.

[Read the New York Study of Public and Private Museums]

The Study documents the significant challenges museums across the state face. The data shows:

Fifty-seven percent of museums in New York State operate on less than $100,000 annually,
60% have no full-time employees,
and one-third rely entirely on volunteers.
Collectively, museums report an estimated $1.7 billion in deferred maintenance and preservation needs.

The Study represents years of advocacy by The Museum Association of New York, museum professionals, and legislative partners. In 2022, the New York State Legislature passed the Museum Study Act, championed by Assemblymember Didi Barrett and Senator Jeremy Cooney. The 2023–24 New York State Budget subsequently included $1 million to undertake the Study. We are proud to announce the study with Assemblymember Barrett. [LINK]

Completing this work required sustained attention through a period of profound instability. In spring 2025, sudden federal funding cuts disrupted museums and cultural organizations across New York. The need in our communities had not diminished—only the resources available to meet it. The small, community-rooted, and already under-resourced museums the Study was designed to identify and better understand were among those most vulnerable to these losses.

Even as MANY navigated this wider upheaval and significant disruption within the organization itself, we continued working with state leaders and project partners to support the Study's completion and preserve its promise as a resource for the field. Museums committed time and resources to continue providing meaningful responses to ensure wide and accurate representation,

The resulting report establishes an essential statewide baseline and recommends making funding more accessible, expanding facilities and preservation support, increasing access to professional development and technical assistance, and addressing the distinct needs of small and volunteer-run museums.

Publication is not the conclusion of this work. As the 2027 legislative session approaches, MANY will work with members and partners to translate the findings into stronger public policy, more equitable investment, and practical systems of support. We will also help museums use the data in their own planning, advocacy, and conversations with elected officials, funders, trustees, and community partners.

New York's museums are among the state's greatest strengths. This Study makes their contributions visible, documents the challenges they face, and gives us a shared foundation for action.

[PRESS RELEASE]

[Read the full Study]

Assemblymember Barrett, The Museum Association of New York Announce Museum Study Completion, Need for Additional State Support

Emma Montross — Thu, 17 Sep 2026 16:19:14 GMT

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 17, 2026

CONTACT: Gunnar Wordon (845)-750-3589 / wordong@nyassembly.gov

***Press Release***

Assemblymember Barrett, The Museum Association of New York Announce Museum Study Completion, Need for Additional State Support

Assemblymember Didi Barrett (D- Dutchess/Columbia) and The Museum Association of New York (MANY) announced the release of the New York Study of Public and Private Museums, the first comprehensive statewide study of New York's museum sector. This study shows that New York's nearly 1,200 chartered museums – including art and history museums, children's museums, zoos and aquariums, historic sites and historical societies, and botanical gardens – serve more than 47 million visitors a year. Some 96% of New Yorkers consider museums to be educational assets in their communities, and museums rank among New Yorkers' most trusted public information sources.

The study, authorized by legislation championed by Assemblymember Barrett, was prepared by Wilkening Consulting for Empire State Development and conducted a comprehensive census of public and private museums across New York State, examining their operating conditions, characteristics, attendance levels, and the challenges they face.

Museums across the state collectively employ more than 33,000 people, engage more than 50,000 volunteers, welcome nearly 3 million K-12 students on field trips each year, and care for unique collections and facilities that preserve New York's extraordinary history, art, culture, science, and natural heritage. The findings also challenge assumptions about the scale and resources of New York's museum sector:

57% of museums operate on less than $100,000 a year.
60% have no full-time employees.
One-third rely exclusively on volunteers.
Collectively, museums report an estimated $1.7 billion in deferred maintenance and preservation needs.

These findings establish a statewide baseline for understanding and supporting New York's museum sector and make it clear that strengthening New York's museums will require not only additional investment, but systems of support designed around the realities of institutions of different sizes and capacities.

Explicit recommendations from the authors include:

Making funding more accessible to small and volunteer-run museums
Expanding capital preservation, and facilities support
Increasing access to professional development and technical assistance
Helping museums address collections stewardship, emergency preparedness, accessibility, and long-term planning.

"When we first called for this study, we knew New York needed a clearer understanding of the museums serving communities across our state," said Assemblymember Barrett. "Now we have an unprecedented picture of one of New York's great strengths. Our museums are a diverse ecosystem of nearly 1,200 deeply rooted community organizations, sustained by dedicated professionals and volunteers. New Yorkers have made clear how deeply they value museums in their communities, and now we have the data to understand both the extraordinary role these institutions play and the challenges they face."

"This is a critical juncture to make investments that ensure museums in every region of our state have the resources they need to continue serving their communities. This is the first meaningful data following last year's devastating cuts to federal support for arts and culture. We had the foresight to undertake this work and we are now positioned to act. At a consequential moment for museums and cultural institutions across the country, New York has an opportunity to lead."

"Museums Make New York, New York," said Sarah Van Anden, Executive Director of The Museum Association of New York. "They preserve the histories and collections of our communities, educate millions of children and adults, contribute to local economies, and provide trusted places where New Yorkers learn, encounter new ideas and perspectives, and experience civic and cultural belonging.”

“This study makes clear that the strength of New York's museum ecosystem extends far beyond our largest and most recognizable institutions. Most of New York's museums are small, local organizations sustained by dedicated staff and volunteers, often working with very limited resources. For the first time, we have a shared statewide picture of this ecosystem's dynamism and what it takes to sustain it. Our opportunity now is to use that knowledge to bring institutions, policymakers, funders, and communities together around the investment and stronger statewide systems that will allow New York's museums — and the communities they serve — to thrive for generations.”

Assemblymember Barrett and MANY will continue working with the museums, state agencies, policymakers, funders, and other partners to translate the study findings into action, strengthen statewide systems of support, and ensure that museums of every discipline, budget size, and region can continue serving New Yorkers.

The New York Study of Public and Private Museums, prepared by Wilkening Consulting for Empire State Development, can be found here.

Join MANY for the Arts Rally in Albany

Kajsa Harley — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 13:36:12 GMT

Please plan to join us for this year's Arts Rally in Albany on Wednesday, March 25.

12 noon - 1 pm 4th Floor Senate Lobby Capitol Building

Preceded and Followed by Office Meetings with our Senators and Assembly Members.

Please fill out this form to express interest in attending the rally and lobby day, so you'll be on the email list for rally info and lobbying meeting updates.

MANY submits testimony to State Legislature's Joint Budget Hearing

Kajsa Harley — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 14:03:01 GMT

On February 25, 2026, MANY submitted written testimony to the State Legislature's Joint Budget Hearing as part of the annual budget negotiations in Albany.

We joined peers across the state in calling for $210 million in funding for the New York State Council on the Arts in the upcoming State Budget.

including $100 million for localities
$100 million for capital projects,
and $10 million for the much-needed reserve fund program.

A PDF of the full testimony is included here.

MANY Testimony 2026.2.25 pdf

MANY Executive Director Gives Testimony at Arts Day 2026

Kajsa Harley — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 14:44:43 GMT

Executive Director, Sarah Van Anden participated in Arts Day 2026, a joint forum to discuss the importance of the Arts and Cultural Sector throughout New York State.

Hosted by Senator José M. Serrano (Chairman, Cultural Affairs, Tourism, Parks and Recreation) and Assemblyman Ron Kim (Chairman, Tourism, Parks, Arts, and Sports Development).

The Public Event Agenda

Below are portions of Van Anden's statements:

Good morning. I'm Sarah Van Anden, Executive Director of The Museum Association of New York, representing more than 750 museums across our state — from small, volunteer-run historical societies to world-renowned art, science, and cultural institutions. New York is home to the greatest concentration and diversity of cultural organizations in the country. This uniquely globally-admired ecosystem reflects the curiosity, creativity, and excellence that define who we are.

When people picture museums, they often picture New York City. But 88% of our members are outside the five boroughs (The recent study of the field identified as many as 2,500 self-identified nonprofit museums across the state)

From the Great Lakes to Long Island Sound, from remote "forever wild” communities to the urban heart of a megacity, there are museums in all 62 counties (with annual budgets ranging from <$10,000 to >$300 million, and staff sizes ranging from 1 to over 2,000)

In these communities, museums are trusted, place-based civic institutions and centers of learning.

They present globally admired exhibitions.
They publish original research.
They preserve irreplaceable histories and collections.
They foster creative public engagement and dialogue.
They host countless nonprofit partners, public programs, and opportunities for cultural enrichment.

And every day, they serve their communities in very practical ways.

Thirty-six percent provide tutoring or after-school education.
Nineteen percent provide workforce development or job training.
Seventeen percent offer mental health and wellness resources.
Fourteen percent support digital access and literacy.
Thirteen percent facilitate civic engagement activities.

These aren't extras. They are essential services.

According to research by Independent Sector, museums consistently rank among the most trusted public institutions for visitors across the political spectrum, socioeconomic statuses, and educational levels. That trust shows up in classrooms, senior centers, neighborhood partnerships, and rural main streets alike.

They are places where young people build critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
Where neighbors practice empathy and dialogue.
Where communities see their histories and identities reflected — and feel a deeper sense of belonging.

Research shows that children in low-wealth communities with strong cultural assets perform 91% better in school. Day after day, across New York, museums help students thrive, connect neighbors, and strengthen the social fabric that holds communities together.

At the same time, many institutions are facing sudden funding losses. Earlier this year, the National Endowment for the Humanities terminated a nearly $500,000 grant supporting MANY's statewide civic engagement and a 12-site exhibition tour about voting and the history of democracy. Our loss is just one example of what museums across the state are experiencing.

Though some funds have been retroactively restored, combined IMLS, NEH, and NEA terminations withdrew $78 million ($46 million outside of NYC, $32 million in NYC).

The need in our communities has not diminished — only the resources have.

That is why we support $210 million for the New York State Council on the Arts, including $100 million for localities, $100 million for capital projects, and $10 million for the much-needed reserve fund program, which we are so grateful NYSCA launched. The response was overwhelmingly positive; expanding the program is essential.

We are also grateful to Representative Barrett and peers who championed the study of all New York State's Museums, and look forward to working with Empire State Development and other partners to share that information broadly for the benefit of institutions in every community in the state.

Because strong cultural infrastructure helps make strong communities.

We are grateful for your attention to the needs of New Yorkers across the state and your passionate articulation of why the arts matter.

Thank you.

Announcing the 2026 MANY Annual Conference: Museums Make New York

Kajsa Harley — Tue, 02 Dec 2025 14:16:51 GMT

The 2026 MANY annual conference “Museums Make New York: The State of Culture” is at The New York State Museum in Albany, NY on May 7-9!

Registration is now OPEN.

Bold. Civic. Proud. The MANY Annual Conference is the primary statewide gathering of museum leaders, cultural organizations, and public agencies across New York’s museum sector. A statewide call to recognize museums as essential civic infrastructure powering New York's identity, economy, and cultural vitality. Museums don't just belong to New York — they've made New York. They help define what the state stands for: curiosity, creativity, and excellence.

New Museum Advocate Membership Level

Kajsa Harley — Tue, 11 Nov 2025 14:29:30 GMT

The Museum Advocate membership is a new leadership tier launched in 2025 in response to unprecedented shifts in cultural funding and public policy. It’s designed for forward-thinking institutions committed to sustaining the shared infrastructure that empowers museums across New York State.

Suggested for organizations with annual budgets of $20 million+, this level is open to any institution eager to lead — regardless of size.

The Museum Association of New York (MANY) looks ahead

Sarah Van Anden — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 20:49:26 GMT

For Immediate Release

The Museum Association of New York (MANY) looks ahead amid federal grant termination, funding crisis, and shifts in organizational structure.

MANY Statement_Press Release - July 2025.pdf

JULY 29, 2025, Troy, New York- The Museum Association of New York (MANY) is contending with the loss of federal funding that has severely impacted daily operations. On April 2, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) terminated a $494,284 grant for MANY's multi-year program, "A New Agora for New York: Museums as Spaces for Democracy." The sudden withdrawal of income committed to a project already underway has been devastating. The organization has responded by reducing staff to one employee, maintaining essential programming, and restructuring the volunteer Board of Directors to ensure long-term sustainability.

Developed as an extension of the Smithsonian Institute's Voices & Votes exhibition, New Agora exemplifies MANY's commitment to linking institutions large and small. Awarded the NEH grant in 2023, the funding supported MANY's collaboration with Humanities New York and Museums on Main Street to sponsor the participation of 12 museums across the state in hosting the traveling exhibition and developing site-specific responses. The award was the largest in MANY's history and brought national visibility to New York's museum leadership in using museums as spaces for civic dialogue and public good.

Now operating at a critically reduced capacity, MANY is launching a $200,000 fundraising campaign to rebuild funds lost due to the NEH's sudden grant termination. 28% percent of MANY's 2025 budget was lost as a direct result of the federal funding decision. The cited reasoning – "misalignment with federal priorities" – was the same as hundreds of other terminations and stands in stark contrast to the program's success in fostering civic engagement, public trust, and inclusive dialogue in communities.

New executive director, Sarah Van Anden, began just three days after the notification. She notes, "Nonprofits around the country have been forced to reevaluate income streams and chart a new path forward. MANY is no different. I am committed to the future of this organization and grateful to the leaders who have stepped up during this difficult time. From world-renowned museums to rural historical societies, MANY provides advocacy, training, and networking that fortify the entire cultural landscape. Our path forward is service to our members and a focus on those three most essential mission priorities."

Traditionally focused on vision and governance, board members have also stepped up to assume day-to-day operational responsibilities. Board Member and Director of Human Resources at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Andrea Harden, weighs in on this transition, stating, "Throughout my Human Resources career, I have worked for or consulted with numerous companies that have had to deal with adversity. In all cases, the key to success was a committed leadership team and/or board. Our MANY Board, faced with unforeseen challenges this year, has banded together to pivot from support to hands-on. And though there has been a transition of some board members (not unusual in times of change), their commitment to continued support of the organization, personally and through their museums, models the resiliency of MANY".

In the face of setbacks, MANY has received an outflow of support from organizations, former board members, funders, and other constituents who have been alerted to these challenges and remain committed to supporting the organization. Likewise, MANY's work continues. Despite the loss of funding, MANY upheld its commitment to New Agora partners. Thanks to generous project support from the William G. Pomeroy Foundation, the exhibition will travel as planned and be presented in all 12 locations.

Thanks to continued generous funding from the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation, MANY will also continue to offer free virtual programming to all members for the remainder of 2025. "In 2024, MANY served 2,387 museum professionals from more than 900 organizations and from 48 states (including DC) and 26 countries (outside the US) through a series of 19 webinars," said Natalie Stetson, MANY board member, chair of the program committee, and executive director of the Erie Canal Museum in Syracuse NY, "This year we're offering a new series of virtual programs with topics ranging from the impact of federal grant loss to creating accessible spaces and developing sustainable internship programs to deaccessioning."

Since 1960, MANY has been a trusted advocate, convener, and partner for New York's museums. Affirming its commitment to advocating for museums across New York State, MANY is committed to equipping museums to meet evolving challenges through education, professional development, and support in areas such as workforce development and digital transformation. Museums generate over $5 billion in economic activity in New York each year, supporting jobs, tourism, education, and community identity. We must continue to support these institutions that are resilient and future-facing. Collectively, we remain committed to elevating New York's cultural leadership nationally and to meeting the demands of the moment.

About MANY:

The Museum Association of New York (MANY) helps shape a better future for museums and museum professionals by sharing best practices and building organizational capacity through advocacy, training, and networking opportunities. Founded in 1960, MANY is the only statewide museum service platform and brings together more than 700 member museums, historical societies, zoos, botanical gardens, and aquariums. MANY's annual conference connects hundreds of professionals across the state and nation.

nysmuseums.org \ @nysmuseums

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For press inquiries, please contact info@nysmuseums.com

New York State Gather in Ithaca to Provide Local Economic Boost and Discuss Federal Funding Cuts

Emma Montross — Sat, 05 Apr 2025 19:48:39 GMT

Over 400 museum professionals from New York State Gather in Ithaca to Provide Local Economic Boost and Discuss Federal Funding Cuts

April 5, 2025, Ithaca NY, MANY officially opens its 2025 annual conference, “Cultivating Community: Looking In, Reaching Out,” 400 museum professionals from around the state will converge at the brand-new state of the art Ithaca Conference Center.

Over the past few years, New York’s museums have placed a greater emphasis on fostering and deepening their community connections, aligning and elevating institutional missions while strengthening education, sustainability, and a crucial sense of civic belonging. Nearly 90 percent of American museums now center their audiences and communities in their mission and vision statements. Their missions and work focus on expanding and diversifying their audiences and engaging with their local communities.

But what is community? Who are the members of our communities? How can we evaluate our internal structures to help us better understand our organization, define our audiences, and serve our communities? How do we bring all communities together to support our field? How can we support and develop our internal community of staff, volunteers, and board members? How can we advocate for funding that meets operational capacity needs and includes equitable staff support? What changes do we need to make to prioritize the health and well-being of our museum workforce that will support the longevity and sustainability of our institutions and strengthen our ability to build meaningful community relationships?

When our stories are silenced, it’s a loss to all humanity. Museums are not luxuries; they are keepers of truth, and we will not lose ourselves—or let others lose us—to the erasure of history.

The Museum Association of New York (MANY) is a statewide organization dedicated to supporting museums and cultural institutions across New York. As an affiliate of national organizations like the American Alliance of Museums (AAM), we strongly support their efforts at the federal level and continue to collaborate with the Consortium of State Museum Associations and peer organizations nationwide.

In February, the MANY Board issued a statement , which we continue to stand behind. Recent developments have only deepened our commitment to that message.

This week, we learned that federal funding for MANY’s state-wide project, A New Agora for New York: Museums as Spaces for Democracy, has been terminated. The $493,284 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) was a critical investment in civic engagement and museum-community partnerships.

We are not alone. Our members and partners across the state are feeling the impact. For instance, the Museum of the City of New York recently received notice that its $100,000 NEH grant for Changing the Face of Democracy: Shirley Chisholm at 100 exhibition was terminated. The project included a school curriculum honoring the legacy of the first Black woman elected to Congress.

MANY remains committed to federal and state advocacy efforts. As AAM President Laura Lott shared during Museums Advocacy Day 2023, “96 percent of the public supports federal funding for museums.” That public support has helped drive an 80% increase in funding for the Office of Museum Services at the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) over the last decade. On the state level, our advocacy led to the passage of the Museum Study Act—New York’s first comprehensive census of chartered museums, now underway.

Looking ahead, our 2025 annual conference, Cultivating Community: Looking In, Reaching Out, will bring together around 400 museum professionals from across New York State. This gathering is a vital opportunity to listen, learn, and strengthen our collective response to current challenges. We urge members and other institutions to complete our Federal Funding Impact Survey – CLICK HERE so we can better assess and respond to the needs in our field.

Museums and related cultural institutions are essential economic drivers and community anchors. With an average return of $3-$10 for every public dollar invested, few industries can match the economic efficiency and civic value of the arts. We are actively pursuing support from private funders to help sustain our members during this time.

Throughout the COVID-19 crisis, MANY provided regranting, capacity building, and virtual programs to help museums stay connected and resilient. We will continue this work with the same spirit and determination. And we are thrilled to welcome our new Executive Director, Sarah Van Anden, who joins MANY at this critical moment to lead us forward.

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More about MANY:

MANY helps shape a better future for museums and museum professionals by uplifting best practices and building organizational capacity through advocacy, training, and networking opportunities. MANY serves over 1,400 museums across New York State including museum studies professors and students, libraries and archives, and museum industry partners.

MANY's members represent the full range of museum sizes, missions, disciplines, and geographic locations. At the end of 2023, MANY had 733 members with 1,063 staff bundled to their organizations’ accounts. Group memberships created in the past two years with the Historic House Trust of New York City and the NYS Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation provide access to MANY resources and discounts for hundreds of museum professionals employed by New York City and the State.

MANY Announces New Executive Director

Emma Montross — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 18:37:34 GMT

The Board of Directors of The Museum Association of New York is pleased to announce the appointment of Sarah Van Anden as the new executive director effective April 7, 2025.

With decades of experience as an advocate, and exemplified leadership in museum engagement, expertise in fundraising and program development, and deep commitment to strengthening New York’s museum community as a whole, we are thrilled to welcome her as the new leader of the association.

Sarah brings a wealth of expertise and vision to MANY as the association advances our mission and vision in a climate of change MANY continues to raise the standard of service and professionalism for membership.

Sarah distinguished career expands through 15 years of experience in museum leadership, nonprofit management, and cultural advocacy. Most recently, she served as Programs & Finance Director at the Center for Curatorial Leadership, where she expanded funding, strengthened professional networks, and supported leadership development for museum professionals nationwide. Previously, she worked at the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, overseeing annual funding for more than 140 cultural organizations.

More About Sarah:
Sarah Van Anden has worked to build bridges and strengthen relationships between artists, cultural professionals, and institutions. She maintains a wide network of creative and curatorial professionals and has diverse experience in collection and archive management, museum engagement, program design, communications, fundraising, strategic philanthropy, and nonprofit administration.

Previously, as Programs & Finance Director at the Center for Curatorial Leadership, Sarah led program planning, fundraising, communications, and strategic initiatives, working with Fellows, alumni, supporters, and the Board of Trustees to develop and carry out the organization’s full schedule of activities. Earlier in her career, Sarah was a Program Officer with the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. There, as a member of the Programs Unit, she oversaw a portfolio of more than 140 New York City cultural organizations and helped distribute over $30 million annually through the Cultural Development Fund, the city’s open, competitive funding process for arts nonprofits. In an earlier position at the Shelley and Donald Rubin family office, Sarah was part of the curatorial team responsible for organizing exhibitions and programs extending from the Rubins’ philanthropic activities centered on art and social justice. Her additional experiences include roles with Eric Firestone Gallery, Ford Foundation Gallery, McGraw-Hill Higher Education, Art in America magazine, the Center for the History of Collecting at the Frick Art Reference Library, and Research and Academic Programs at the Clark Art Institute. She also previously served as vice president and treasurer on the board of AIGA NY (the New York chapter of the American Institute of Graphic Arts).

Sarah received her M.A. in the History of Art from Williams College, where she focused on art collecting in early modern Europe. She began higher education at the Community College of Philadelphia before completing her B.A. at Temple University and Tyler School of Art with a dual major in History and Art History.

Reflecting on her appointment, Ms. Van Anden shared: “MANY is an exceptional community, and the vibrant diversity of its membership is its greatest strength. I am truly honored to join as its next Executive Director. I believe in the transformative power of museums, and I am excited to support the advancement of institutions of all sizes in New York. I, too, am steadfast in my commitment to help shape a better future for our member organizations, their staffs, and the communities they serve. I’m thrilled to work with MANY’s board, staff and membership to bring its resources to the lives of New York residents and visitors, while advocating for museums across the state.”

As we prepare for our conference next week, “we salute and thank our interim executive director and past board member Ms. Sheila McDaniel for steering and steadying the ship and making sure we didn’t miss a beat,” said MANY Board Georgette Grier-Key. We also congratulate Sheila on her new role as the new COO for the International African American Museum in Charleston, South Carolina.

“We have great anticipation and expectancy as we begin this new chapter for MANY. We are strong and resilient. The MANY board and dedicated staff are positioned to succeed, I’m looking forward to working with Sarah on this new Journey”, said Georgette Grier-Key.

We hope you join us in welcoming Sarah at MANY’s 2025 annual conference in Ithaca stop by say hello and introduce yourself and your museum.

Letter from The Board of Directors

Emma Montross — Sat, 01 Mar 2025 01:00:00 GMT

Dear MANY Members,

The Museum Association of New York (MANY) is committed to fostering an inclusive and supportive environment for museums and museum professionals across the state. We believe that museums play a vital role in shaping a more informed and compassionate society by engaging diverse communities and offering valuable opportunities for learning and growth. They serve as record keepers of our shared histories, preserving and interpreting the stories that shape our collective identity.

As an organization dedicated to the advancement of best practices and institutional strength, MANY remains focused on empowering museums to enhance their impact, provide relevant programs, and engage with people from all walks of life. We recognize the importance of ensuring that all individuals, regardless of background or identity, feel welcome in these spaces.

We are deeply concerned about the impact of recent shifts away from support for initiatives that promote diverse and inclusive approaches. These efforts are crucial for the continued growth and relevance of cultural institutions. We stand firm in our belief that museums must continue to evolve and support environments that reflect the rich diversity of our communities.

MANY will continue to advocate for the resources and opportunities that allow museums to thrive, offering professional development, strategic training, and networking to strengthen their capacity to serve all people. We remain committed to collaborating with partners at the local, state, and national levels to ensure the continued success of museums in all their forms.

Board of Directors
The Museum Association of New York

Smithsonian’s “Voices and Votes: Democracy in America” Travels to the Long Island Museum

Thu, 30 Jan 2025 18:36:24 GMT

The exhibition will be on view from February 20th through April 6th, 2025

The Museum Association of New York (MANY) today announced the next stop for the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service Museum on Main Street exhibition Voices and Votes: Democracy in America will be the Long Island Museum (LIM) in Stony Brook, NY.

“Long Island is full of inspiring stories of civic engagement and significant “firsts” in America’s 250 years of democratic history for civil rights and women’s rights,” said MANY Agora Project Fellow Ren Lee. “We are thrilled to work with the Long Island Museum as they use Voices and Votes as a launching point to engage with their community.”

The only Smithsonian Affiliate Institution in the Nassau-Suffolk region, LIM collects, preserves, interprets, and celebrates Long Island’s richly diverse past and its storied role in our nation’s history.

“The Long Island Museum is honored to be involved in this statewide conversation about democracy,” said Co-Executive Director Joshua Ruff. “In our response exhibition and planned programs, we will especially explore how political participation throughout our region has expanded and been a shifting, challenging, and inspirational terrain over time.”

Building the Ballot Box will examine the role this region played in history from the Women’s suffrage movement, Civil Rights, and other movements in political history. This exhibition features key artifacts, including the Suffrage Wagon that traveled across New York State for public events advocating women’s suffrage in 1917. Other objects highlight regional trailblazers such as Shirley Chisholm, the first Black U.S. Congresswoman, and Geraldine Ferraro, the first female candidate nominated for Vice President by a major political party.

MANY is the statewide organizer for the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service’s Museum on Main Street Program, which previously brought the “Water/Ways” exhibition to six New York museums in 2019. The Museum on Main Street program offers traveling exhibitions, educational resources, and programming across America to communities through local museums, historical societies, and other cultural venues.

The Voices and Votes exhibition will be on view in the Cowles Gallery of LIM’s History Museum. Building the Ballot Box will be on view directly adjacent to Voices and Votes, in the History Museum’s Main Gallery. These exhibitions will be accompanied by a series of programs, including a drop-in day for Girl Scouts on Friday, February 21st. For a full description of the exhibitions and programs, visit the Long Island Museum’s website: https://longislandmuseum.org/.

This exhibition is supported through a Market New York grant awarded by Empire State Development and I LOVE NY, New York State’s Division of Tourism.

Learn more about the New York State tour of the Voices and Votes exhibition at https://agoranewyork.org/ and preview the full schedule of programming and events happening at the Long Island Museum.

# # #

Voices and Votes is a Museum on Main Street (MoMS) exhibition developed by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service. It’s based on an exhibition by the National Museum of American History. It has been made possible in New York State by the Museum Association of New York. Support for MoMS in New York State has been provided by the United States Congress.

“A New Agora for New York: Museums as Spaces for Democracy” humanities discussion programs are made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Additional funding from the William G. Pomeroy Foundation supports public events, community exhibitions, free public lectures, workshops for teachers, and community discussion programs.

Smithsonian’s “Voices and Votes: Democracy in America” travels to the Alice Austen House Museum

Wed, 18 Dec 2024 14:13:52 GMT

The exhibition will be on view from December 27, 2024 through February 7, 2025

The exhibition will be at Eccleston Hall, the lower level of St John’s Episcopal Church, one block away from the Alice Austen House.

“One of the key themes of A New Agora for New York: Museums as Spaces for Democracy and the Voices and Votes exhibition is the struggle for civil rights, voting rights, and equal participation in our democracy,” said MANY Agora Project Fellow Ren Lee. “As a photographer who documented LGBTQ+ life in New York, Austen’s photographs give us an intimate picture of women’s lives during an era of struggle for greater freedoms and the right to vote. We’re excited to have the opportunity to partner with the Alice Austen House to explore these themes through Austen’s lens and see how she and her circle participated in these efforts for representation.”

Largely self-taught, Austen’s photography challenged the social norms of her era, exploring themes of gender and identity. She photographed herself and her friends in unconventional ways, often subverting traditional gender roles, which reflected a progressive perspective on social boundaries.

“The Alice Austen House is looking forward to collaborating on this project,” said Executive Director Victoria Munro. “It allows us to develop complementary programming that celebrates Alice Austen's role in organizing and community building while also recognizing the contributions of other women, both from her time and throughout history, to the advancement of American democracy.”

The Alice Austen House’s Study Gallery will host Documenting Democracy: The Austen Home and Community, a response exhibition in conjunction with the Voices and Votes exhibition. This initiative will feature an electronic slideshow reflecting Alice Austen’s significant contributions to community organization and volunteerism. Additionally, the exhibition will integrate recent materials highlighting Austen’s legacy, drawing connections to the museum’s mission of exploring personal identity and contemporary storytelling. Visitors will have the opportunity to actively engage with the exhibition by recording their reflections. These contributions will form part of a growing oral history archive, documenting personal narratives and connections to the principles of democracy. This interactive component aims to foster a deeper understanding of the historical and personal significance of democratic engagement.

Learn more about the New York State tour of the Voices and Votes exhibition:https://agoranewyork.org/ and preview the full schedule of programming and events happening at the Alice Austen House.

“A New Agora for New York: Museums as Spaces for Democracy” humanities discussion programs are made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Additional funding from the William G. Pomeroy Foundation supports public events, community exhibitions, free public lectures, workshops for teachers, and community discussion programs.

About the Museum Association of New York

The Museum Association of New York is the only statewide museum service organization with more than 780 member museums, historical societies, zoos, botanical gardens, and aquariums. MANY helps shape a better future for museums and museum professionals by uplifting best practices and building organizational capacity through advocacy, training, and networking opportunities. Visitwww.nysmuseums.organd follow MANY on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn @nysmuseums

About the Alice Austen House Museum

The Alice Austen House Museum fosters creative expression, explores personal identity, and educates and inspires the public through the interpretation of the photographs, life and historic home of American photographer, Alice Austen (1866-1952). The Alice Austen House is a living breathing photographic resource, providing a platform for contemporary photographers to explore Austen’s legacy and make connections to the place she called home. The Alice Austen House and its surrounding waterfront park are a nationally designated site of LGBTQ+ history. The museum centers the 56 year relationship between Alice Austen and her life partner Gertrude Tate, providing an important window into pre Stonewall LGBTQ+ history and enriching our understanding of the important life and work of Alice Austen.

About St. John’s Episcopal Church

St. John’s Episcopal Church has been a pillar of faith, family, and friendship on Staten Island for over 175 years. Founded in 1843, the church has grown alongside the diverse communities it serves, welcoming individuals from all backgrounds, including the LGBTQ+ community. Known for its inclusive spirit and commitment to justice, St. John’s provides a sanctuary of acceptance and understanding, where everyone is invited to be their authentic selves.The church's current home on Bay Street was built in 1871 to accommodate a growing congregation. Over the years, St. John’s has embraced new waves of immigrants and worked to uphold its mission of love, hospitality, and equality, while also repenting for the sins of racism and white supremacy. Today, it is a vibrant, multigenerational community enriched by partnerships with organizations like the Boy Scouts of America, the United Staten Island Veterans Organization, Episcopal Charities, and Richmond Senior Services. Rooted in a deep belief in the transformative power of faith, St. John’s continues to celebrate diversity and foster meaningful connections that uplift its members and the wider community.

Support MANY, Support New York's Museums

Wed, 20 Nov 2024 15:43:02 GMT

Dear Friends, Colleagues, and Supporters,

MANY is stronger today than ever before. MANY continues to support, build, and uplift our members and its Board of Directors and dedicated staff have guided us through the current leadership transition with clarity so that MANY's important service to the field has not wavered. The great work of our members, individuals, and organizations speak to the incredible work of MANY. Over the last couple of years, we have seen the reopening of the new Buffalo AKG Art Museum, the groundbreaking in Albany of the Underground Railroad Education Center’s new Interpretive Center, and the launch of the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Museum on Main Street “Voices and Votes: Democracy in America” and “A New Agora for New York” humanities discussion series. We are so proud to be the designated partner for the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum on Main Street program, circulating Smithsonian-created exhibitions across New York State and facilitating capacity-building programming.

"Voices and Votes" installation workshop at Preservation Long Island, March 2024

“Our community was excited and proud to host a Smithsonian exhibition, especially one as timely as “Voices and Votes: Democracy in America.” For Preservation Long Island, participation in the larger “A New Agora for New York” project helped strengthen our local partnerships, opened our doors to new audiences, and enhanced our capacity to create programs that center community voices and perspectives. We were challenged to rise to the occasion in a transformative way and we look forward to continuing to apply the new tools and skills we acquired through this experience to future Preservation Long Island projects!”

–Lauren Brincat, Preservation Long Island

MANY’s work is not only focused on today but also on securing the future of museums through leadership development. That work is anchored in our Annual Conference. In 2024, over 400 museum professionals were able to gather in person, strengthen connections, learn together, and witness an eclipse. More than 1,500 people from more than 800 organizations in 20 countries and 46 states have joined us for webinars. All the educators, historians, curators, fundraisers, administrators, visitor service staff, executive directors, facility managers, board members, and volunteers we met with this year know they are not only working to inspire their visitors today and tomorrow but building their museums to serve generations to come. We were very excited to host another Museum Institute at Great Camp Sagamore last fall, bringing together twenty museum professionals from across New York State. Our Institute continues to provide transformative opportunities for museum professionals to come together and through facilitated discussions address critical issues affecting our field.

2023 Museum Institute attendees at Great Camp Sagamore in the Adirondacks

“The Museum Institute reinforced how much intersectionality there is between cultural organizations across disciplines, and how important it is to seek out those various perspectives to make your own work better,”

–Museum Institute attendee

Our advocacy in Albany has led to a million dollars in appropriation to complete a comprehensive Museum Study. The work to secure this resource has been ongoing. We are excited to share the news that the work on The Museum Study has begun with the summer release of an RFP to identify the contractor. They will take a deep dive into the need of museums across the state, small to large, rural to urban, in every discipline, art, science, history and children museums throughout our state. The resulting data and report will help paint a picture that will show the full range and impact of New York’s museums and their most critical needs. Once that data is in hand, MANY will work to respond to those needs through direct service, collaboration, and advocacy.

2024 conference attendees experiencing the solar eclipse

on the Empire State Plaza in front of the NYS Capitol Building in Albany.

“Thank you for being an articulate voice for the importance of museums in New York…MANY ensures that our museum community stays strong and united by showing innovation and persistence. I am grateful to MANY for being a beacon of positivity and purpose.”

–MANY Member

All this work is vital and transformative for our members. We are fortunate to have funding partners who make our work possible. But more is needed to continue these efforts. We need your support to continue this important and impactful work and expand what we do. As we have shared in the past, we want to continue to create new ways to support museums and broaden our conversations to shape a shared vision for the future of museums in New York.

So the work continues…

If you have visited a museum in New York State, attended our conference, virtual programs or meetups, called the office for assistance or used our website to find resources, we know you value the work we do. I hope you can help us now with a donation in any amount to sustain our work into 2025 and create opportunities for us to help you for years to come.

With thanks,

Sheila McDaniel, Interim Executive Director

Click here to donate

Utica’s Munson Museum of Art to host the Smithsonian’s “Voices and Votes: Democracy in America”

Tue, 22 Oct 2024 16:36:50 GMT

The exhibition will be on view at the Munson (left) from November 1 to December 13 and will coincide with Munson serving as a polling site. The Oneida History Center (right) will host a companion exhibit, “An Essential Feature of Democracy: Lucy Carlile Watson.”

The Museum Association of New York (MANY) announced the next stop for the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service Museum on Main Street exhibition Voices and Votes: Democracy in America will be Munson Museum of Art in Utica, N.Y.

The exhibition coincides with Munson serving as a polling site for Utica’s Ward 5, District 7 and Ward 2, Districts 6 and 8. The museum anticipates hundreds of voters and visitors on Election Day.

“Voices and Votes stresses the personal experience of democracy,” said April Oswald, Munson Museum Education Director. “For example, at each venue, community members record their individual observations about what democracy means to them, animating real life events such as becoming a citizen and gaining the right to vote.”

“The Voices and Votes exhibition examines how voting rights have changed dramatically over our history as we confronted issues of race, class, wealth, and politics,” said MANY Deputy Director Megan Eves. “As Utica residents visit the Munson to exercise their right to vote, we hope they will explore this timely exhibition to learn and understand more about the democratic process and their role within it.”

Munson is partnering with Oneida County History Center to celebrate this exhibition in Utica. The History Center was founded in 1876 amid the excitement and anticipation for the U.S. Centennial and is dedicated to preserving and sharing Oneida County's history. The History Center has organized a companion exhibit, “An Essential Feature of Democracy: Lucy Carlile Watson.” Watson played an active role in bringing the women’s suffrage campaign to central New York. This exhibition showcases her life and the contributions of local women in achieving equality and enhancing the lives of those in their community.

For additional programming as part of the “A New Agora for New York: Museums as Spaces for Democracy” series, the History Center will host a scholar lecture, “Women Voted on this Land Before Columbus,” with Sally Roesch Wagner, Ph.D., a Syracuse University professor and major scholar on the suffrage movement who has taught women’s studies for over five decades. Roesch Wagner’s lecture will discuss how sovereign women of the Haudenosaunee Peoples in upstate New York may have shown early settlers how societies with empowered women could succeed.

“The History Center is excited to collaborate with Munson and Dr. Roesch Wagner to showcase local contributions and influences on the women’s suffrage movement and civic engagement,” said History Center Executive Director Rebecca McLain. “It is an honor to work across disciplines with these talented individuals. We encourage the public to visit both sites and hope they are inspired to learn more about their local and national history.”

This project is supported through a Market New York grant awarded by Empire State Development and I LOVE NY, New York State’s Division of Tourism.

Learn more about the New York State tour of the Voices and Votes exhibition: https://agoranewyork.org/ and preview the full schedule of programming and events happening at the Munson Museum of Art and the Oneida County History Center.

# # #

“A New Agora for New York: Museums as Spaces for Democracy” humanities discussion programs are made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Additional funding from the William G. Pomeroy Foundation supports public events, community exhibitions, free public lectures, workshops for teachers, and community discussion programs.

About the Museum Association of New York

About Munson

Munson is an internationally recognized fine arts organization in Utica, serving diverse audiences through the renowned Munson Museum of Art, live performances and events, community arts classes, and Pratt Munson College of Art and Design, the upstate extension campus of the prestigious Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Munson Museum of Art is at 310 Genesee St. in Utica. For more information, visitmunson.art.

About Oneida County History Center

Oneida County History Center (OCHC) is fueled by a passion for history, education, and community. Founded in 1876, its mission is to protect, preserve, and share the past of Oneida County and central New York. Free public programs, rotating exhibits, educational opportunities for all ages, and preservation of a vast archival and artifact collection are at the core of its mission. Oneida County History Center is at 1608 Genesee St. in Utica. Visitoneidcountyhistory.org for more information.

Institute of Museum and Library Services Funding Opportunities

Tue, 24 Sep 2024 13:55:07 GMT

Last year, the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) received the most applications ever, making FY2024 the most competitive, especially in the Museums for America program category. In New York State, 43 museums were awarded $7,741,317 in IMLS grants in FY 2024.

This year, museums and related organizations across the United States have eight opportunities to apply for grants from the IMLS.

Applications are due no later than November 15.

IMLS Grant Opportunities

21st Century Museum Professionals Program 

Grant Amount: $100,000 - $500,000

Grant Period: One to three years

Cost Share Requirement: You must provide funds from non-federal sources in an amount that is equal to or greater than the amount of your IMLS request.

The 21st Century Museum Professional grant program supports projects that offer professional development to the current museum workforce, train and recruit museum professionals, and identify and share effective practices in museum workforce education and training.

IMLS recognizes the important role of strong local and regional networks in providing peer-to-peer learning, training, and mentoring opportunities for the museum workforce. Partnerships among museums, museum-serving organizations, and higher education institutions are vital to expanding career pathways for broad groups of museum professionals throughout a city, county, state, region, or the nation. The 21MP Program encourages applications from museum associations, museum studies programs at higher education institutions, and museums that serve as essential parts of the professional learning and training environment.

Inspire! Grants for Small Museums  

Grant Amount: $5,000 - $75,000

Grant Period: One to three years

Cost Share Requirement: If your total request for federal funding is between $5,000 and $25,000, then no cost share is required. If your request for federal funding is between $25,001 and $75,000, you must provide funds from non-federal sources in an amount that is equal to or greater than the amount of your IMLS request.

Inspire! Grants for Small Museums is a special initiative of the Museums for America program. It is designed to support small museums of all disciplines in a project-based efforts to serve the public through exhibitions, educational/interpretive programs, digital learning resources, policy development and institutional planning, technology enhancements, professional development, community outreach, audience development, and/or collections management, curation, care, and conservation.

Inspire! Has three project categories:

1. Lifelong Learning supports projects that position museums as unique teaching organizations. The goal is to empower people of all ages and backgrounds through experiential and cross-disciplinary learning and discovery.

Objectives:

Support public programs, adult programs family programs, and early childhood programs
Support exhibitions, interpretation, and digital media
Support in-school and out-of-school programs

In FY23, The Children’s Museum of the East End was awarded $50,000 to expand Estrellas de Lectura/Reading Stars, a reading mentorship program that improves special emotional learning skills and restores and supports reading fluency in bilingual children that were disproportionately affected by learning loss as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The project includes gathering information through community meetings, recruiting and training reading mentors, updating the curriculum, and promoting the program through community partners. Students entering grades Kindergarten through fourth will meet with their reading mentors twice a week in the fall, winter, and spring at the museum’s Bridgehampton and Riverside locations. As a result, students will see improvements in their English reading fluency and general vocabulary, increased self-confidence, and improved social-emotional learning skills.

2. Institutional Capacity builds the capacity of small museums to serve their communities by supporting institutional planning and policy development, supporting recruitment, training, and development of museum staff, and supporting technology enhancements.

Objectives

Support institutional planning and policy development
Support recruitment, training, and development of museum staff
Support technology enhancements

In FY24, the Underground Railroad Education Center (UREC) in Albany, NY was awarded $33,453 to develop a Museum Studies Teen Program for junior and high school students. Utilizing this funding, the UREC will offer a comprehensive out-of-school program to prepare students from low-income and/or marginalized backgrounds for a career in the museum field. This funding will help support hiring a full-time Program Manager, initiate partnerships for mentorship, develop a curriculum with input from external consultants, and recruit program participants. The project will result in a ready-to-implement plan that can be shared with other small museums wishing to replicate the program and their institutions.

UREC hopes to increase organizational capacity, engage with community youth, and help to diversify the museum workforce, benefiting student participants and the museum field as a whole.

3. Collections Stewardship and Access supports the role of museums as trusted stewards of museum collections. This program category focuses on the desire to improve long term collection care. It funds conservation treatments, rehousing projects, cataloging, and increasing collection access via digitization.

Objectives

Support cataloging, inventorying, and registration; collections information management; and collections planning.
Support conservation and environmental improvement and/or rehousing; conservation surveys; and conservation treatment.
Support database management, digital asset management, and digitization.

In FY23, the Antique Boat Museum in Clayton, NY, was awarded $50,000 to increase staff capacity to digitize two of its collections about the history of the Matthews Boat Owners Association (approximately 30,000 documents) and the Richardson Boat Owners Association (approximately 5,000 documents, photographs, and works on paper). Project staff is working to catalog materials from these collections and make the collections diitally accessible online with a searchable collections database to benefit maritime historians and the public.

Museum Grants for African American History and Culture 

Grant Amount: $5,000 - $500,000

Grant Period: One to three years

Cost Share Requirement: If your total request for federal funding is between $5,000 and $100,000, then no cost share is required. If your request for federal funding is between $100,001 and $500,000, you must provide funds from non-federal sources in an amount that is equal to or greater than the amount of your IMLS request.

The Museum Grants for African American History and Culture (AAHC) program is designed to build the capacity of African American museums and support the growth and development of museum professionals at African American museums.

The AAHC program supports projects that nurture museum professionals, build institutional capacity, and increase access to museum and archival collections at African American museums and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).

In FY23, the Michigan Street African American Heritage Corridor Commission was awarded $100,000 to build the capacity of five African American anchor institutions in Buffalo, NY to develop and expand public programs and exhibitions by creating a Visitor Experience Plan. Representatives from the Michigan Street Baptist Church, the Nash House Museum, the Historic Colored Musicians Club and Museum, and WUFO 1080 AM Black Radio History Collective will collaborate with visitor experience consultants to produce the plan. These anchor institutions preserve stories, collections, and structures on themes ranging from the Buffalo Anti-Slavery Movement, and the Niagara Movement, to the Civil Rights Movement, and the Jazz Age. The visitor experience plan will shape future interpretation, exhibitions, and public wayfinding in the corridor through a cohesive narrative that tells the entire Michigan Street Corridor story.

In FY24, the Lewis Latimer House Museum in Queens, NY, was awarded $195,000 to hire staff to improve collections management and create a digital exhibition from the museum’s collection. In partnership with Queens Public Library, museum staff will digitize the Latimer Family Papers. The museum will hire a Collections Digitization Manager to train and supervise paid interns on digital asset management practices for the project. The museum will also hire a digitization specialist to implement digitization software for collections. Staff will travel to conduct collections research, informing the creation of a digital exhibition of the museum’s permanent collection. The digital exhibition will be available on the museum’s website as a free public resource.

*NEW* Museum Grants for American Latino History and Culture 

Grant Amount: $5,000 - $500,000

Grant Period: One to three years

Cost Share Requirement: None

Museum Grants for American Latino History and Culture are designed to build the capacity of American Latino history and culture museums to serve their communities and broadly advance the growth and development of a professional workforce in American Latino institutions.

This is a new funding opportunity in FY25, and prospective applicants are encouraged to contact Senior Program Officer Gibran Villalobos at gvillalobos@imls.gov or click here to learn more.

Museums Empowered

Grant Amount: $5,000 - $250,000

Grant Period: One to three years

Cost Share Requirement: You must provide funds from non-federal sources in an amount that is equal to or greater than the amount of your IMLS request.

Museums Empowered (ME) is a special initiative of the Museums for America grant program. It supports projects that use the transformative power of professional development and training to generate systemic change within museums of all types and sizes.

IMLS recognizes the many challenges facing individual museums and the need to invest resources, time, and energy toward nurturing the professional development of staff and strengthening museum operations. The Museums Empowered grant program identifies four areas of museum operations to focus for professional development.

Digital Technology focused projects that will support the work of museum staff in using digital technology to enhance audience engagement, collections access, or general museum operations.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion focused projects that will increase cultural competency among museum staff and support the relevancy of museum programs through learning activities that strengthen their ability to connect with the communities they serve.

Evaluation focused projects that will enhance the ability of museum staff to understand a broad spectrum of evaluation methods and techniques and better use evaluation reports, data, and metrics to improve the design and delivery of programs.

Organizational Management focused projects that will help museum staff develop and implement effective practices in organizational management, human resources, and strategic planning in response to emerging internal or external priorities.

IMLS expects successful Museums Empowered projects to:

Reflect a solid understanding of relevant theory and effective practices in professional development, organizational dynamics and change management.
Engage staff, leadership, and volunteers in a series of training activities tied to directly to a key need or challenge.
Generate systemic change or organizational growth that results in a more agile and sustainable museum.

In FY23, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in NYC was awarded $250,000 to create a new training program for supervisors of internship programs in the five New York City wildlife parks operated by WCS –the Bronx, Central Park, Prospect Park, and Queens Zoos, and the New York Aquarium. The professional development training program will focus on positive youth development, cultural competence, supervising young adults, and mentoring and career support to help the intern supervisors develop the necessary skills to succeed in this important role.

Project activities include hosting listening sessions with current intern supervisors to understand their needs, gathering existing training resources, developing a training curriculum, delivering supervisor training, and conducting training follow-ups. The new training program will ensure the internship program is effective, inclusive, and supportive, transforming the zoo into a more welcoming place, resulting in a broader representation of youth participating in the internship program.

Museums for America 

Grant Amount: $5,000 - $250,000

Grant Period: Up to three years

Cost Share Requirement: You must provide funds from non-federal sources in an amount that is equal to or greater than the amount of your IMLS request.

The Museums for America program supports museums of all sizes and disciplines in strategic, project-based efforts to serve the public through exhibitions, educational/interpretive programs, digital learning resources, professional development, community debate and dialogue, audience-focused studies, and/or collections management, curation, care, and conservation.

In FY24, the Museums for America grant program awarded 115 projects, the most of any grant award program, 21 of which were awarded to NYS museums.

Museums for America has three project categories:

Lifelong Learning

In FY24, the Museum of the City of NY was awarded $249,920 to create programs and classroom resources aligned with New York City’s “Civics for All” public school initiative. The museum will convene a paid teacher advisory group to work with a curriculum consultant to develop educational resources for students in grades six through eight. The advisory group will also provide feedback on two new “Civics for All”-themed field trips. In addition, the museum will host several professional development programs for New York City teachers focused on civic engagement themes. To support project activities, the museum will contract with a curriculum consultant, project evaluator, graphic designer, and translation services to translate curriculum materials into Spanish to reach a broader student population. The new “Civics for All”-aligned curricula and field trips will reach an estimated 10,000 New York City students and teachers.

2. Community Engagement

In FY24, Genesee Country Village & Museum was awarded $188,841 to strengthen interpretation related to the history of enslavement in 19th century New York State. The project will focus on the educational interpretation of four historic buildings on site: the Nathaniel Rochester House, Land Office, Livingston-Backus House, and Quaker Meeting House. Staff will work with interpretive and educational consultants to create content and evaluation plans and train staff on content delivery. Staff will also work with local community partners and local and national subject experts to create and review in-person interpretation, exhibit, audio tour, and school program content.

3. Collections Stewardship and Access

In FY24, the Staten Island Museum was awarded $248,057 to build a collaborative approach to the stewardship of the Native American and Indigenous collections in its care. Museum staff will work directly with Lenape representatives to catalog the Lenape archaeology collection and ensure appropriate handling, storage, and interpretation. The collection contains nearly 3,500 artifacts found on Staten Island and surrounding areas, part of the traditional homeland of the Lenape people. The museum will host advisory meetings with Lenape representatives to gain insight regarding the cultural and spiritual significance of the artifacts. The project will support the hiring of a part-time collections assistant and a museum fellow. This project will increase the care of the collection while allowing the museum to make the collection as accessible to the public as possible in a way that respects the heritage and significance of the artifacts.

National Leadership Grants for Museums 

Grant Amount: $50,000 - $750,000

Grant Period: One to three years

Cost Share Requirement: You must provide funds from non-federal sources in an amount that is equal to or greater than the amount of the request, unless otherwise indicated in the FY25 Notice of Funding Opportunity.

In FY24, four NYS-based organizations received a National Leadership Grant: Games for Change, Rochester Insitute of Technology, Visitor Studies Association, and Voices in Contemporary Art.

Native American/Native Hawaiian Museum Services 

Grant Amount: $5,000 - $250,000

Grant Period: Up to three years

Cost Share Requirement: None

The Native American/Native Hawaiian Museum Services (NANH) grant program is designed to support Indian Tribes and organizations that primarily serve and represent Native Hawaiians in sustaining indigenous heritage, culture, and knowledge. The program supports projects such as educational services and programming, workforce professional development, organizational capacity building, community engagement, and collections stewardship.

To be eligible for an award under the NANH program, your organization must be either:

a Federally Recognized Indian Tribe, or
a Nonprofit Organization that Primarily Serves and Represents Native Hawaiians.

In FY24, the Oneida Indian Nation was awarded $248,212 to address recommendations from a recent preservation assessment by purchasing and installing museum-quality mobile shelving in the Nation’s newly renovated Archives Room. Project activities include purchasing the new shelving, rehousing and cataloging the collections and archival materials, moving the collection to a temporary location, installing the new shelving, and re-shelving the collections in the Archives Room. The project will improve the safety and security of the collection and support the nation’s efforts to reclaim, preserve, and sustain Oneida culture, heritage, and knowledge.

Learn more about IMLS Grant Programs: https://imls.gov/grants/grant-programs

Eight NYS Institutions Awarded $3.1M from the National Park Service Save America's Treasures

Wed, 21 Aug 2024 17:40:46 GMT

The National Park Service (NPS) today announced $25.7 million in Save America’s Treasures grants to fund 59 projects that will preserve nationally significant sites and historic collections in 26 states and the District of Columbia.

In New York State, eight institutions were awarded a total of $3,106,544.

“The Save America’s Treasures program began 25 years ago and continues to enable communities across the United States to preserve and conserve their nationally significant historic properties and collections,” said National Park Service Director Chuck Sams. “It’s fitting to celebrate this milestone anniversary through a wide range of projects that help to pass the full history of America and its people down to future generations.”

Since 1999, the Save America’s Treasures program has provided over $405 million from the Historic Preservation Fund (HPF) to more than 1,400 projects to provide preservation and conservation work on nationally significant collections, artifacts, structures, and sites. Previous awards have gone toward restoring the Park Inn Hotel, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright; the USS Intrepid, an Essex class carrier on display in Manhattan; and the Saturn V Launch Vehicle, a three-stage rocket designed for a lunar landing mission.

Today’s award of $25,705,000 will be matched by almost $50 million in private and public investment. NPS partners with the National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Institute for Museum and Library Services to award the grants.

Established in 1977, the HPF has provided more than $2 billion in historic preservation grants to states, Tribes, local governments, and non-profit organizations. Administered by NPS, HPF grant funds are appropriated by Congress annually to support a variety of historic preservation projects to help preserve the nation’s cultural and historic resources.

The HPF, which uses revenue from federal offshore oil and gas leases, supports a broad range of preservation projects without expending tax dollars. The intent behind the HPF is to mitigate the loss of nonrenewable resources through the preservation of other irreplaceable resources.

Applications for next year’s round of the Save America's Treasures Grant Program will open in the fall of 2024. $25.5 million in funding will be available.

Learn more.

American Jewish Historical Society, $165,288

The American Jewish Historical Society will use the funds to process records of the Anti-Defamation League’s Civil Rights Information Center and its Center on Extremism, which includes documents that illuminate ADL’s initiatives to expose and mitigate antisemitism, racism, and other forms of hate. The subseries of the collection is about 100 linear feet and includes correspondence, records of court cases and legislation, periodicals, reports, and research files. Selections will be digitized after processing and will be made available to researchers both on-site and online. The project will be matched with $181,998 in non-federal share.

Great Hudson Heritage Network, $269,038

The Greater Hudson Heritage Network will use funds to conserve objects from 10 small and mid-size museums in New York State. The objects include 35 items of historical significance and a wide range of materials, which, after a preliminary assessment, were selected as those items most in need of treatment. A panel of conservators will work on the objects over the course of 8-10 months and will also participate in a Community Engagement Conservation Workshop at each museum for staff and visitors to highlight unique challenges and new discoveries during the process of conserving these unique stories from New York State. The project will be matched with $269,359 in non-federal share.

Historic Hudson Valley, $630,300

Washington Irving’s Sunnyside, a National Historical Landmark, was the estate of author Washington Irving from 1835 until his death in1859. Sunnyside, known as America’s first “literary landmark,” preserves the ideals of the Romantic movement. Irving’s Cottage, one of the buildings on the property, experiences water penetration, moisture, and temperature fluctuations, deteriorating masonry and stucco, and harmful UV light. This grant project will create a site drainage system and redirect water collection as well as repair damage to lime-based and clay materials on the building envelope. This work will ensure important access to Sunnyside and continued engagement with Irving’s life and cultural legacy for future generations. The grantee is providing $640,365 of matching funds.

Livingston County Historical Society, $150,000

The Livingston County Historical Museum will improve the storage of approximately 30,000 artifacts relating to Indigenous people and habitants of the post-colonial Finger Lakes Region. Project activities will include purchasing and installing new collections storage and environmental controls, security, and fire prevention measures. Building upon a detailed assessment of storage needs conducted by an interdisciplinary team, project staff will engage experts to ensure that the equipment will properly store collections and mitigate further damage. The rehoused material will facilitate the creation of future exhibits and allow staff to rotate and rest objects from the collection. The grantee will provide $150,000 in matching funds.

NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission, $88,670

The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission will use the funds to make a portion of their archaeological collections accessible to the public through processing documents and photographing artifacts. The collections include two significant archaeological excavations in Lower Manhattan excavated in the late 1970s and early 1980s: the Stadt Huys Block Site, the first major urban excavation in New York City, and 7 Hanover Square, associated with highly significant 17th century households. There are 20,595 documents that will be processed, digitized, and data made available through the LPC’s online archaeological repository, and 8,400 artifacts that will be photographed; two digital exhibits will also be created to showcase the data for public and researcher access. The project will be matched with $96,312 in non-federal share.

St. Bartholomew's Conservancy, Inc., $749,840

The Stanford White Triple Portal is the main entrance to the St. Bartholomew’s Church on Park Avenue. The Triple Portal, boasting three sets of spectacular bas-relief cast bronze doors and carved stone iconographic sculpture by renowned artists of the early 20th century, was the defining feature for the design and construction of the new St. Bartholomew’s Church building in 1918, heralded by architect Bertram G. Goodhue as “perhaps the most beautiful thing of its kind in America.” Over time the building has experienced deterioration from pollution and age. The SAT grant will focus on the preservation of the Cipollino marble columns, iconographic sculpture, the bronze doors and the limestone steps that comprise the Stanford White Triple Portal. The grantee is providing $2,957,505 of matching funds.

Staten Island Institute of Arts and Sciences, $303,408

The Staten Island Museum will inventory and rehouse approximately 185 linear feet of archival material in preparation to move the collections into a new climate-controlled storage space. The collections include the papers of renowned scientists including Nathaniel Lord Britton, John J. Crooke, and Mathilde Weingartner. The archives also include archaeological descriptions of Lenape sites on Staten Island. This project will support the purchase of archival supplies, as well as a part-time project archivist and museum fellow, who will carry-out the collection inventory and rehousing activities. Additionally, the museum will work with a contractor to conserve and digitize 11 journals of William T. Davis, a prominent naturalist, entomologist, and historian. The project will result in improved preservation of the collection, enhanced intellectual control, and the creation of new finding aids that will increase accessibility of the collection for staff and researchers. The grantee will provide $303,408 in matching funds.

The Paley Center for Media, $750,000

The Paley Center for Media will use the funds to digitize and catalog approximately 2,500 items within their African American Collection. The collection holds rare and at-risk television media and historic programs featuring figures such as Nat King Cole, Bayard Rustin, Bernard Shaw, Toni Morrison, from Congresswoman Barbara Jordan, and Oprah Winfrey. The Paley Center for Media will work with multiple vendors to digitize the collection. Once digitized, these materials will be used by the Paley education staff for its K-12 media education program and for the museum's public exhibits. The project will be matched with $750,000 in non-federal share.

Smithsonian’s “Voices and Votes” next stop will be the Robert H. Jackson Center

Mon, 19 Aug 2024 13:25:49 GMT

The exhibition will be on view from September 6 to October 18 at the Robert H. Jackson Center (photo) in Jamestown, NY coinciding with the center's Constitution Days.

We're pleased to announce the next stop for the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service Museum on Main Street exhibition "Voices and Votes: Democracy in America" will be the Robert H. Jackson Center (RHJC) in Jamestown.

The center will use the Smithsonian exhibition to amplify New York State and Chautauqua County’s role in the development of American Democracy as the nation approaches its semiquincentennial.

“Voices and Votes is a wonderful way to celebrate Jamestown’s rich history and the RHJC’s mission while creating an opportunity to work with our partners to bring a Smithsonian exhibit to the area,” said RHJC President Kristan McMahon. “This opportunity perfectly aligns with our mission to educate our communities on issues of justice and civic participation, and the RHJC is the perfect venue to host this exhibit. Jamestown was the home of the American Voting Machine Company, and we’re looking forward to working with the Fenton History RHJC, Chautauqua County Historical Society, Chautauqua Institution, and other community partners to tell the story of our region as a seat of the democratic process.”

The exhibition will be on view from September 6 to October 18.

Dedicated to promoting the legacy of former US Attorney General under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, US Supreme Court Justice, and Chief US Prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials, the RHJC serves as a museum, educational institution, and forum for discussions on legal and ethical issues focusing on advancing the principles of justice, law, and human rights. Jackson is remembered as one of the most articulate justices in the history of the Supreme Court, known for his ability to explain complex legal principles in clear, accessible language. His work at Nuremberg established important precedents in international criminal law.

“The residents of Jamestown have a history of active participation in American Democracy,” said Agora Project Fellow Ren Lee. “From the legacy of Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson to the Jamestown-based companies that revolutionized the voting process with automatic voting machines, the RHJC has a unique opportunity to share stories of civic engagement. We’re excited to hear those stories from the past and learn how the RHJC continues Jackson’s influence and encourages active participation in democracy today.”

The exhibition coincides with the RHJC’s Constitution Days on September 17 and 18. It will feature a presentation by Dr. Karen Korematsu, who will speak about her father’s landmark US Supreme Court Case and the importance of civic participation.

Additional programming as part of the “A New Agora for New York: Museums as Spaces for Democracy” that will run during the exhibition includes a responsive exhibition focused on the Chautauqua Region’s voting story and an in-person Community Conversation led by Humanities New York Director of Grant-Making Joseph Murphy on September 25. Additionally, a teacher training workshop on October 4 will be led by New York State Museum Educator James Jenkins, who will align themes from the Voices and Votes and responsive exhibitions with New York State Learning Standard that encourages hands-on and inquiry-based classroom learning.

MANY is the statewide organizer for the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service’s Museum on Main Street Program, which previously brought the “Water/Ways” exhibition to six New York Museums in 2019. The Museum on Main Street program offers traveling exhibitions, educational resources, and programming across America to communities through local museums, historical societies, and other cultural venues.

Learn more about the New York State tour of the Voices and Votes exhibition: https://agoranewyork.org/ and preview the full schedule of programming and events happening at the Robert H. Jackson Center.

“A New Agora for New York: Museums as Spaces for Democracy” humanities discussion programs are made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

About the Museum Association of New York

The Museum Association of New York is the only statewide museum service organization with more than 780 member museums, historical societies, zoos, botanical gardens, and aquariums. MANY helps shape a better future for museums and museum professionals by uplifting best practices and building organizational capacity through advocacy, training, and networking opportunities. Visit www.nysmuseums.org and follow MANY on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn @nysmuseums

About the Robert H. Jackson Center

The Robert H. Jackson Center advances Justice Robert H. Jackson's legacy through education, including live presentations, exhibitions, multimedia, research, and scholarship that demonstrate the relevance and applicability of Justice Jackson’s ideas to present and future generations. To learn more, visit roberthjackson.org.

21 NYS Museums awarded an IMLS Museums for America Grant

Fri, 09 Aug 2024 14:40:27 GMT

In its latest museum grant announcement, the Institute of Museum and Library Services awarded twenty-one #NYSmuseums $4.3 million in funding from its Museums for America grant initiative.

One hundred and fifteen museums of diverse sizes, disciplines, and geographies will receive support for strategic, project-based efforts to serve the public through exhibitions, educational/interpretive programs, digital learning resources, professional development, community debate and dialogue, audience-focused studies, and/or collections management, curation, care, and conservation. In total, the program’s FY24 awardees will receive $23,361,915 in federal funding.

This year, IMLS saw an increase in MFA grant applications requesting funding for projects related to America250. America250 is the nationwide commemoration of America’s 250th anniversary in 2026 led by the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission. IMLS is proud to support these institutions as they share America’s history, and where we stand today.

“IMLS remains committed to serving the museum field and furthering the goals of the American public,” said IMLS Acting Director Cyndee Landrum. “The Museums for America program encourages applicants to be creative in their response to challenges, and to envision a bold future for their institution.”

Adirondack Experience, $145,653

The Adirondack Experience will engage with a professional firm to conserve 139 drawings identified to be in urgent need of treatment following a survey of its drawing collection. This project will build upon previous IMLS-funded projects involving treatment of the oils on canvas, watercolors, and artists' sketchbooks. General treatment for most drawings will include both dry and aqueous surface cleaning, humidifying, and pressing, while some others will require more involved treatments such as removing supports, mending tears, and stabilizing iron gall ink. The conservation treatments will be documented in detailed reports including before and after photos; conditions addressed during treatment; the methods used, and high-resolution images. As a result, public access to the collection will be expanded by stabilizing and treating the objects so that they can be safely rotated in exhibitions.

American Museum of Natural History, $190,810

The American Museum of Natural History will improve the care and access of their collections of African and Asian elephant skulls, and African bovid specimens. Project activities will include unifying bovid specimens that are in offsite storage with the specimens in compact storage at the museum’s new Gilder Center; as well as cleaning, rehousing, digitizing, and moving elephant skulls to offsite storage where post-crania are kept. Two part-time conservation interns will provide support to the museum team by carrying out critical cleaning, stabilization, and documentation tasks on the skulls. Museum staff and researchers will experience increased access to frequently used specimens, and the objects will benefit from reduced exposure to key agents of deterioration.

BRIC Arts Media Brooklyn, $200,000

BRIC Arts Media Brooklyn will offer thirty-five to forty, twelve-session residencies per year partnering with New York City public schools. BRIC education staff will work collaboratively with teaching artists, teachers, administrators, and social service providers to design program curricula to strengthen arts and media mastery, develop critical thinking skills, and promote social-emotional well-being. The programs will engage in and enhance subject-area learning in social studies, language arts, and STEM to support meeting Common Core Learning Standards and the New York City Blueprint for Teaching and Learning the Arts. During each two-hour session, BRIC teaching artists and classroom teachers will deliver a custom curriculum that explores historical and contemporary works of art and engages students in hands-on, art-making activities. BRIC will supplement the residencies with BRIC House Gallery exhibition visits, family programs, and an annual exhibition to showcase student artwork.

City Lore, $235,153

City Lore will create exhibitions and programming focused on immigrant communities around the topics of women in the Blues, Cuban music, J’ouvert festival traditions, and the material culture of House Ballroom in the New York LGBTQ+ community. The exhibitions will be held in several locations in New York, Massachusetts, and Florida. Project staff will consult with cultural ambassadors to work with artists and communities and curate exhibitions. Staff will train cultural ambassadors on ethnographic methods to document cultural expression and assist them in establishing relationships with local government authorities. An online toolkit will be developed, which will provide professional information for artists, such as work samples for grant proposals and event production and promotion.

Genesee Country Village & Museum, $188,841

Genesee Country Village and Museum will strengthen interpretation related to the history of enslavement in 19th century New York State. The project will focus on the educational interpretation of four historic buildings on site: the Nathaniel Rochester House, Land Office, Livingston-Backus House, and Quaker Meeting House. Staff will work with interpretive and educational consultants to create content and evaluation plans as well as to train staff on content delivery. Staff will also work with local community partners as well as both local and national subject experts to create and review in-person interpretation, exhibit, audio tour, and school program content.

George Eastman Museum, $249,849

The George Eastman Museum will digitize and provide free online access to a collection of audio and audiovisual recordings. The nearly 600 hours of recordings document the interviews, lectures, and gallery discussions of significant photographers, actors, filmmakers, scholars, curators, and critics who have influenced the study of visual culture over the past seventy-five years. Building on a previous IMLS-funded digitization project, the museum will reformat the recordings, which currently require technologically obsolete playback equipment to access, to open-source digital formats accessible through the museum’s website. The project will support a temporary full-time project processing archivist. The digitization of the recordings will improve long-term preservation by minimizing handling and will allow the museum to provide free online access for the benefit researchers, historians, enthusiasts, and the public throughout the world.

Heckscher Museum of Art, $250,000

The Heckscher Museum of Art will undertake a collaborative effort to produce exhibitions and associated educational programming showcasing major works by LGBTQ+ artists. A community advisory board and a youth advisory board will inform exhibit interpretation and programming to ensure that LGBTQ+ youth voices and perspectives are centered. Exhibitions will include works by LGBTQ+ artists in the museum's permanent collection, a retrospective of American neoclassical sculptor Emma Stebbins (1815–1882), and a photography exhibition created by teen participants on the youth advisory board. A full-time Community Outreach Coordinator will be hired to facilitate the advisory boards, collaborate with the museum's education team to inform school programming, and work with core project team members including a guest curator, exhibition design contractor, and external evaluator. As a result of the project, the museum will build sustainable relationships with the local LGBTQ+ community, support the mental health and well-being of local LGBTQ+ youth, and elevate, contextualize, and interpret experiences of LGBTQ+ figures in American Art History, past and present.

Historic Saranac Lake, $250,000

Historic Saranac Lake will create an exhibit about the history of Saranac Lake and its role as an international center for tuberculosis treatment and scientific research. Informed by an interpretive planning process and a previous design project supported by IMLS, staff will work with exhibit design professionals and humanities scholars to draw connections to topics such as the development of public health in the U.S., the history of occupational therapy, and the evolution of tuberculosis treatment and prevention. The exhibit will be installed in both the home of Dr. E. L. Trudeau and the neighboring Saranac Laboratory Museum. Beneficiaries of the project will include local residents, visitors, students, and members of the academic community.The Intrepid Museum will create accessible and interactive exhibits within seven compartments in Intrepid’s medical facility, known as sick bay. The exhibits will blend storytelling with multisensory elements and advanced augmented reality (AR) experiences and engage visitors with the experiences of medical personnel and their patients. The cross-departmental museum team will partner with the NYU Ability Project, experts in creating accessible environments through assistive technology and adaptive design for people with disabilities. The project team will also engage with a media group that combines producers and AR technology experts. Throughout the project, Disability Advisory Group, self-advocates with a range of lived experience and expertise, will provide continuous feedback on each exhibit element. This project will address an ongoing and documented interest from visitors of all ages and geographic regions in accessing more of the ship's historic areas, of which only 44% are currently open to the public.

Intrepid Museum, $250,000

The Intrepid Museum will create accessible and interactive exhibits within seven compartments in Intrepid’s medical facility, known as sick bay. The exhibits will blend storytelling with multisensory elements and advanced augmented reality (AR) experiences and engage visitors with the experiences of medical personnel and their patients. The cross-departmental museum team will partner with the NYU Ability Project, experts in creating accessible environments through assistive technology and adaptive design for people with disabilities. The project team will also engage with a media group that combines producers and AR technology experts. Throughout the project, Disability Advisory Group, self-advocates with a range of lived experience and expertise, will provide continuous feedback on each exhibit element. This project will address an ongoing and documented interest from visitors of all ages and geographic regions in accessing more of the ship's historic areas, of which only 44% are currently open to the public.

Long Island Museum, $134,334

The Long Island Museum will create a permanent exhibition and associated programs to explore the fight for equal rights in horse-drawn public transportation in the United States. The exhibition will be anchored by a c. 1885 streetcar that will include an accessible entrance for visitors to climb aboard, interact with the vehicle, and examine episodes such as the story of Elizabeth Jennings, a Black school teacher who fought for her right to ride a New York City streetcar in 1854. The project team will contract with a design firm to fabricate exhibition components, develop programs for families, students, and individuals living with memory loss, and make adjustments to the exhibition based on assessment findings. As a result, visitors of all ages and abilities will engage with an immersive and interactive gallery space.

Metropolitan Museum of Art, $250,000

The Metropolitan Museum of Art will develop and launch a suite of public programs tied to the reopening of the galleries dedicated to the Arts of Africa, Ancient Americas, and Oceania. The initiative will activate the collections and ideas explored in the new galleries, create multiple entry points for the museum’s diverse audiences, and incorporate Indigenous perspectives essential to understanding the collections. Project components will include performances and concerts, study days and salon-style discussions, symposia, thematic gallery tours, and additional programs such as art-making workshops, classes for teens, and access programs for visitors of varying abilities. The museum will build upon outreach efforts to civic, social, and professional groups in New York City and the tri-state area. The resulting suite of programs will further develop relationships with source communities at the museum while generating lasting resources for educators, artists, scholars, individual learners, and families.

Museum of the City of New York, $249,920

The Museum of the City of New York will create programs and classroom resources aligned with New York City’s “Civics for All” public school initiative. The museum will convene a paid teacher advisory group to work with a curriculum consultant to develop educational resources for students in grades six through eight. The advisory group will also provide feedback on two new “Civics for All”-themed field trips. In addition, the museum will host several professional development programs for New York City teachers focused on civic engagement themes. To support project activities, the museum will contract with a curriculum consultant, project evaluator, graphic designer, and translation services to translate curriculum materials into Spanish to reach a broader student population. The new “Civics for All”-aligned curricula and field trips will reach an estimated 10,000 New York City students and teachers.

National September 11 Memorial and Museum, $160,069

The National September 11 Memorial & Museum will create an exhibition of children’s artwork of 9/11, which will highlight the experience of children as witnesses to the events of 9/11 through the art they created in the year following. Museum staff will select works from the museum’s permanent collection of more than 800 works of children’s art. For the project, staff will develop an audio tour and online educational resources. To accompany the exhibition, staff will conduct educational public programming. Beneficiaries of the project will include multigenerational audiences, educators, adult visitors who were children on 9/11, and youth visitors.

New Museum of Contemporary Art, $246,718

The New Museum of Contemporary Art will expand and refocus its educational programming to address the need for teachers to meet the New York Department of Education’s Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Education framework, an educational strategy for student-centered learning that uses aspects of students’ race, social class, gender, language, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, or ability to learn about the world around them and connect across cultures. The museum will partner with teaching artists and twelve New York City public high school teachers to develop and implement lesson plans. The museum will then engage 360 teachers in professional development workshops. Ultimately, 2,600 teachers across the city will benefit from access to digital lesson plans that they can implement in their classrooms, and over 78,000 New York City high school students will benefit from art-based instruction, which has increasingly been cut from public schools.

New York Botanical Garden, $249,912

The New York Botanical Garden will implement the second phase of its Therapeutic Horticulture and Rehabilitative Interventions for Veteran Engagement (THRIVE) program to provide horticultural therapy programming for local veterans. In partnership with the Resilience and Wellness Center in the Bronx-based James J. Peters Veterans Administration Medical Center, the garden's Edible Academy will expand services and outreach for participating veterans and THRIVE alums. Program participants will learn about plants and nutrition by growing, harvesting, preparing, and consuming fresh produce with horticultural therapy specialists. The garden will hold a symposium with cultural institutions, horticultural therapy specialists, and veterans' organizations to share strategies and best practices informed by the THRIVE program, and staff will present findings and share information about horticultural therapy intervention for veterans at professional conferences and via new digital resources.

Paleontological Research Institute (Museum of the Earth), $101,976

The Museum of the Earth will expand access to the collection of Cenozoic corals from the Western Atlantic by digitizing specimens and sharing data through online portals and educational resources. Project activities will include photographing 200 specimens and creating 50 illustrated species pages that will be published on the museum’s free, web-based educational portal. The museum will hire a collections assistant and train them in all aspects of specimen digitization and curation. A team of interns and volunteers will be trained to associate labels to specimens, enter information for the specimens in the collections database, and re-box items. This project will enhance the collection’s long-term preservation and accessibility for scientists, students, and the public to understand how coral reefs, which are one of the ocean’s most threatened habitats, respond to environmental stresses.

Rochester Museum and Science Center, $240,302

The Rochester Museum & Science Center will partner with the Ganondagan State Historic Site and the Friends of Ganondagan to offer programming related to the opening of the museum’s Hodinöšyö:nih (Haudenosaunee) Continuity, Innovation, and Resilience exhibit. Curated by a Seneca Knowledge Keeper, and informed by Haudenosaunee community member feedback, the exhibit will explore themes of Haudenosaunee cultural continuity and change, identity, and sovereignty through featured artists and artworks. A series of educational programs featuring traditional Haudenosaunee artistry through artist demonstrations, workshops, and cultural festivals will be planned and carried out. Project staff will provide professional development for staff, docents, and volunteers across the organizations to increase cultural knowledge and awareness about partner collections and resources. In addition to hosting field trips, staff will share online associated lesson plans and educational videos for the benefit of teachers, students, and Haudenosaunee audiences.

Sciencenter, $249,660

The Sciencenter will partner with regional libraries to expand equitable access to hands-on STEM learning by leveraging and supporting public libraries as trusted spaces that offer relevant and engaging experiences. The project team will use input from prior library collaborations and listening sessions to co-create STEM activity kits and establish a learning community with library educators to support locally relevant STEM learning opportunities that address regional challenges. Project activities will include prototyping activities with museum and library visitors, disseminating kits for at-home and library learning, and a developmental evaluation. As a result, the museum will strengthen partnerships to reach new audiences with a focus on rural communities and libraries; regional libraries and families will increase their capacity to facilitate STEM learning; and children will improve science process skills through increased STEM learning and engagement.

Staten Island Museum, $248,057

The Staten Island Museum will build a collaborative approach to the stewardship of the Native American and Indigenous collections in its care. Museum staff will work directly with Lenape representatives to catalog the Lenape archaeology collection and ensure appropriate handling, storage, and interpretation. The collection contains nearly 3,500 artifacts found on Staten Island and surrounding areas, part of the traditional homeland of the Lenape people. The museum will host advisory meetings with Lenape representatives to gain insight regarding the cultural and spiritual significance of the artifacts. The project will support the hiring of a part-time collections assistant and a museum fellow. This project will increase the care of the collection while allowing the museum to make the collection as accessible to the public as possible in a way that respects the heritage and significance of the artifacts.

Studio Museum in Harlem, $200,853

The Studio Museum in Harlem will install an inaugural exhibition in the new building about the life and artistic achievements of Tom Lloyd, that will address Lloyd's career as an artist, community organizer, and museum leader. The exhibition will include every known extant electronic sculpture Lloyd created, as well as works in metal and paper, and will be traveled to three venues along with an exhibit publication. Project activities at the museum will include free, weekly educational programs, art-viewing and art-making workshops, exhibition tours, and public programs for adults. During the museum’s opening year, the exhibition will be featured in free tour programs for all schools in New York's District 5. The project team will partner with institutions focused on underserved populations and addressing needs of their local communities to host the traveling exhibition. The resulting exhibition will be an entry point for arts learning for new audiences and non-traditional museum goers around the country.

University of Rochester (Memorial Art Gallery), $62,955

The Memorial Art Gallery at the University of Rochester will work with a professional conservator to complete conservation treatments on 29 South Asian miniature paintings and drawings. These artworks range in date from the 16th through the 19th centuries and are inaccessible to visitors and very limited to researchers due to their present condition. The conservator will document the treatment in full photographic and written reports, and museum staff will re-mat the works and compile the treatment data for inclusion in the collection object records. As a result, the paintings and drawings will be available to the public, either on display in the Asian Art gallery or made accessible through photographs on the museum website.

Learn more and IMLS Museums for America: https://www.imls.gov/news/imls-awards-over-23m-grant-funding-through-museums-america-program?utm_campaign=&utm_content=&utm_medium=email&utm_name=20240808&utm_source=govdelivery

11 NYS Museums awarded an IMLS Inspire! Grant for Small Museums

Fri, 02 Aug 2024 14:43:25 GMT

Eleven NYS museums were awarded $498,809 in the latest round of the Institute of Museum & Library Services' Inspire! Grants for Small Museums to serve the public through exhibitions, educational programs, institutional planning, collections management, and other initiatives. In total, 78 museums across the country will receive $3,324,571 in federal funding.

This year, the Inspire! program provided applicants with two funding options – institutions requesting $5,000 to $25,000 were not required to provide any of their own funding, while institutions requesting $25,001 to $75,000 were required to match their requested funding amount with non-federal funds. This structure enables Inspire! grantees to propose larger-scale projects without putting undue burden on institutions that cannot provide a funding match.

The decision to update the program in this way was made with consideration to the diversity of small museums. Increasing the program’s adaptability enables applicants to design projects that best fit their institution’s needs and capacity. This is especially critical now, as many small museums are still struggling to return to pre-Covid funding and staffing levels.

“Small museums exist across a wide range of disciplines and geographies,” said Acting IMLS Director Cyndee Landrum. “Many serve as the only cultural institution in their community. Federal investment in small museums is an investment in access to art, science, history, and the preservation of local culture and stories. IMLS’s mission is to support small museums as the engines of vibrant, thriving communities.”

Oneida Community Mansion House, $25,000

The Oneida Community Mansion House (OCMH) will inventory and catalog approximately 850 objects in its care to preserve and improve access to its collection and advance knowledge of the Oneida Community and its relevance in United States history. OCMH staff will hire a part-time collections manager to inventory and photograph objects, create and update digital catalog records, and implement a collection storage plan and location system for two collections storage areas. Completion of this project will result in increased intellectual and physical control over the collection. Improving preservation and access to the collection will benefit visitors, students, researchers, historians, and Oneida Community descendants.

The Flow Chart Foundation, $25,000

The Flow Chart Foundation will partner with the Information Sciences Department at the University at Albany to create a paid internship program at the Ashbery Resource Center (ARC). ARC is the foundation’s repository and special collection library dedicated to the scholarly research of the 20th-century American poet, John Ashbery, and the broader New York School of Poets and Painters. Three part-time interns will be hired and trained under the direction of the ARC ’s Archivist/Librarian to assist with processing, cataloging, digitizing, and rehousing undocumented collections. The project will support museum and library workforce development by providing interns with hands-on training in collections management and archival processing. The work completed by interns will enhance preservation and access to the collection for students, visitors, and researchers and expand documentation for use in exhibitions and programming.

Hanford Mills Museum, $73,071

Hanford Mills Museum will draft and implement an updated Interpretive Master Plan to heighten connections between the site’s history and larger global systems and conditions. Museum staff will contract with a consultant to assist in writing the plan, building upon its recent interpretive audit and draft framework. The project team will draft interpretation and evaluation processes and protocols and provide interpretive workshops for staff, other small museums, and students. The project will result in a master plan to guide and expand interpretation, including an updated orientation script and mill tour. The planning process, resulting documents, and workshops will increase internal and external capacity and staff knowledge. Project beneficiaries include museum staff and board members, staff from surrounding small museums, nearby museum studies programs, and ultimately visitors to the site.

The Museum at Bethel Woods, $43,442

The Museum at Bethel Woods will build upon its oral history initiative to document personal stories of the Catskills, the Woodstock festival, and community activism during the 1960s and 1970s. The museum will partner with the Borscht Belt Museum and the Borscht Belt Marker Project to organize oral history pop-ups and conduct long-form interviews. Museum staff will process and transcribe oral histories and contract with an outside advisor to ensure adherence to ethical standards and best practices. The project will result in 60 videotaped oral histories that will be used by all three institutions in exhibits and public programs to help commemorate the 250th anniversary of America. This collaborative project will expand partnerships and contribute to organizational capacity-building. Documenting these rapidly disappearing personal accounts will enhance public understanding of a formative period in our country's history.

King Manor Museum, $60,000

The King Manor Museum will create a series of three exhibitions about local and national history as well as the abolition of slavery in New York. The museum presents the history of the King family, focusing on Rufus King (1755-1827), a Founding Father and anti-slavery advocate in early American government. The exhibitions will explore such topics as: the history and legacy of antislavery activism from 1805 (which was when Rufus King purchased the property) through the end of the Civil War, the history of Jamaica Queens, and the American bicentennial commemoration in 1976. Staff will work with community members to co-curate exhibitions. Staff will conduct associated public programming with the exhibitions for the benefit of the local Southeast Queens community.

Historic Cherry Hill, $47,469

Historic Cherry Hill will develop programming aligned with its reinterpretation plan and in preparation for the commemoration of the United States Semiquincentennial and 200th anniversary of the end of slavery in New York. Building upon previous IMLS funding and audience feedback, the museum will conduct historical research on enslavement, transcribe and digitize documents, and create a new tour and programming to share the complex stories of the diverse members of the Cherry Hill household. Museum staff will contract with historians, an interpretive specialist, and an evaluator to assist with the project. The resulting programming and new focus tour will help reshape the interpretation of the museum for the next generation of visitors.

En Foco, $25,000

En Foco in the Bronx, New York, will inventory, rehouse, and digitize materials chronicling its 50-year exhibition history. Founded as a collective of photographers from the Puerto Rican diaspora, En Foco’s exhibition records detail the cultural legacy of photographers of color. This project will support the hiring of a full-time digital librarian to research, organize, digitize, and rehouse the exhibition’s archive. The digitized collection will be available onsite at the Nueva Luz Study Center as well as digitally online. Archive staff will purchase a computer, document scanner, and archival supplies. The project will result in greater preservation and access to the collection and will serve as a crucial resource for the Bronx community of Latino artists and artists of color. Providing online access to the collection will benefit artists, scholars, writers, curators, gallerists, and the public.

The Whaling Museum, $75,000

The Whaling Museum will fabricate, install, and evaluate a 2-year special exhibition that explores ocean-inspired myths and monsters and their contemporary connections. The museum will develop an array of onsite and offsite learning opportunities including school group tours, workshops, and lectures to complement the exhibition. The project will support staff, exhibit and programming supplies and materials, and marketing. To convey the fragility of our oceans, the museum will commission a local artist to create a kraken sculpture made from plastic debris collected from local shore cleanups. The stories and messages in the exhibition will be gateways to launch wider discussions about the cultural roots of hate and negative stereotypes. By exploring nautical mythologies, visitors will be prompted to think about the ocean’s influence on how cultures were shaped and continue to shape us, and our impacts on the ocean today.

Center for Photography at Woodstock, $71,000

The Center for Photography at Woodstock will implement an educational program to engage local high school students enrolled in the English as a New Language Program. Center staff will partner with Kingston High School to organize field trips and weekly in-school classes designed to help students improve language skills through photography. The program will culminate in a student-produced public art piece and a publication. The center will contract with an artist team that has facilitated similar community projects. The expected outcomes are to build students’ sense of self-worth and foster a wider discussion about the neighboring Latin American community. The center recently relocated to Kingston, and engagement with its new community will help it build capacity and establish new audiences. Primary beneficiaries include participating students, their families, and the local community.

Roger Tory Peterson Institute, $20,374

The Roger Tory Peterson Institute will purchase equipment to enhance preservation and access to the approximately 80 framed works of art in its collection. The Institute holds the largest collection of works by the artist-naturalist and creator of the well-known Peterson Field Guides. Informed by a 2022 Collections Assessment for Preservation (CAP) report, museum staff will purchase and install powder-coated cabinets and wall-mounted screens to store its framed artwork collection. Staff will also take the opportunity to photograph and complete condition reports for each piece as it is being rehoused. The project will result in improved preservation and access to the framed art in the collection and the creation of more functional space for collection care support activities.

Underground Railroad Education Center, $33,453

The Underground Railroad History Project of the Capital Region will develop a Museum Studies Teen Program for junior and high school students. The organization will offer a comprehensive out-of-school program to prepare students from low-income and/or marginalized backgrounds for a career in the museum field. Staff will hire a full-time Program Manager, initiate partnerships for mentorship, develop curriculum with input from external consultants, and recruit program participants. The project will result in a ready-to-implement plan that can be shared with other small museums wishing to replicate the program at their institutions. The project will increase organizational capacity, engage community youth, and help diversify the museum workforce, benefiting student participants and the museum field as a whole.

Learn more about IMLS Inspire! Grants for Small Museums: https://www.imls.gov/news/imls-awards-332m-grant-funding-through-inspire-grants-small-museums

Highlighting Community: “Old/New Threads” Traveling Exhibition by the Castellani Art Museum in Partnership with Stitch Buffalo

Tue, 30 Jul 2024 20:03:30 GMT

Located at the center of Niagara University campus is the Castellani Art Museum of Niagara University, a free admission university museum with a world-class collection of over 5,000 works, including paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, and photographs. The collection encompasses a broad range of contemporary art movements from the 19^th century onwards; the most comprehensive collection of Niagara Falls prints in the world, including its oldest ever depiction; and works by local folk and traditional artists.

In addition to permanent and temporary exhibitions, the museum also curates traveling exhibitions, including “Old/New Threads,” which will begin traveling in Spring 2025. We spoke with Edward Millar, Castellani Art Museum’s Curator of Folk Arts, to learn more about the museum's history and future of traveling exhibitions.

Installation photo of "Old/New Threads". 2024. Courtesy Castellani Art Museum of Niagara University.

Why travel exhibitions?

Museums often develop traveling exhibitions to enhance their mission, outreach, and operational goals, as well as the ability to share their unique resources and collections. Partnering with another museum or organization to bring in a traveling exhibition, especially a high-profile exhibition, can increase attendance or attract a more diverse audience.

Before the pandemic, the Castellani Art Museum had a robust traveling exhibition program which toured exhibitions nationally and internationally, developed by Michael Beam, Curator of Exhibitions and Special Projects. “We predominantly created these traveling exhibitions from our collection, which worked for us as a mid-sized university art museum,” said Millar. “The exhibitions attracted a large audience and increased awareness for the museum…but then the pandemic happened.” Like many New York museums during the pandemic, the museum was forced to reduce staff, pausing current traveling exhibitions and their future development.

During the pandemic pause, the museum took it as an opportunity to reflect on and strategize its traveling exhibition program. “We wanted to better understand the traveling exhibition market. What kind of exhibitions are museums looking to host? Should we focus on thematic exhibitions or artist retrospectives? We want to create something museums will be interested in bringing into their communities and telling a story utilizing our collections while being conscious of the challenges of adapting exhibitions for travel and the need to build our museum capacity to achieve this.”

Now in 2024, the museum is back to capacity and rebuilding its traveling exhibition program, with its newest offering, “Old/New Threads”, ready for travel in Spring 2025.

Beginning of a tour of the "Old/New Threads" exhibition, with garlands made by Kaushila Biswa (originally from Bhutan) hanging over the entryway. 2024. Courtesy Castellani Art Museum of Niagara University.

Stitch Buffalo Partnership

“Old/New Threads” is a collaboration between the museum and Stitch Buffalo, a textile art center in Buffalo committed to empowering refugee and immigrant women, environmental stewardship, and community education. The exhibition highlights the intersection of art, economy, and community and features over 14 local artists and 73 traditional and contemporary artworks—encompassing Afghan, Karen, Pakistani, Bhutanese Nepali, and other textile traditions.

Millar first connected with Stitch Buffalo in 2015, about a year after the group was founded. At the time, Stitch Buffalo was hosting monthly meet-ups at a local hall on the West Side of Buffalo, which was a well-known gathering space for Buffalo’s refugee community. Since then, Stitch Buffalo has grown into one of Buffalo’s major arts and cultural organizations, and recently relocated in Spring 2024 to a brand-new, expanded physical location (their second since 2017) that includes a storefront, community class space, work areas, textile donation room, and more.

For the Castellani Art Museum, grassroots organizations like Stitch Buffalo help fill an important gap in the support network for local refugee and immigrant women. “Stich Buffalo has been an important organization in Western New York [for years] but we never necessarily had [found] a project to work on together. When the pandemic happened, we started to think about the bigger picture in terms of what kind of stories we can help share that are maybe beyond one specific tradition. We connected with Dawne Hoeg (Founder and Executive Director of Stitch Buffalo) in 2020 about the possibility of developing an exhibition together.”

One of the exhibition's goals is to tell the story of Stitch Buffalo and its community of artists, and their impact on the fiber arts and refugee communities. “It’s been amazing to see Stitch Buffalo grow over the past decade. We want to share their story with a wider audience to not only help support what they do but help them grow by connecting them with new markets and people across New York and beyond through this traveling exhibition partnership.”

Hkwang Lung (l) and Munawara Sultana (r) at Stitch Buffalo. 2022. Courtesy Michael Mandolfo.

The Exhibition

“Old/New Threads” explores how textile arts can be a medium for artistic expression, economic empowerment, and community building through the artists and story of Stitch. “Interpretive content for the exhibition came from interviewing the artists at Stitch Buffalo,” said Millar. “From talking about their work and how they’ve created additional income for their families and a community of women with shared interests but different cultural backgrounds. It’s a space where they can participate and share what’s going on in their lives and their art.”

To develop the exhibition, the Castellani Art Museum was awarded an Inspire! Grant for Small Museums from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and a Mid Atlantic Arts Folk and Traditional Arts Community Projects Grant. The museum also receives support from the New York State Council on the Arts.

The exhibition is organized into three main areas reflecting its major themes: artistic expression, economic empowerment, and community building. By exploring artworks like a Karen woven shirt or a knit cap with shisha embroidery, viewers can learn about how traditional and contemporary fiber art can express cultural heritage. Through interpretive paneling about Stitch Buffalo as an organization, visitors can learn about how the sale of artwork is a form of economic empowerment for community members. Direct quotes from artists and artist profiles demonstrate how textiles bring together members of a multitude of refugee communities in the area into a shared community—or, as artist Munawara Sultana put it—a “family…a second home”.

Stitched Stories, like this new one made by Hkwang Lung in 2024, were one of the earliest initiatives of Stitch Buffalo, providing an opportunity for refugee women to create works that express and share memories of home. 2024. Courtesy Castellani Art Museum of Niagara University.

Exhibition Specifications

The traveling exhibition recommends 100 feet of running wall space, salon-style, although 150 feet is preferred. There are ten 24” x 36” interpretive panels, ten 11” x 17” panels, and two 24” x 17” panels on Sintra board. Digital copies of interpretive materials are provided as part of the exhibition rental, and 50 physical copies of a 6-page trifold, full-color brochure are also provided (in addition to a QR code link to the digital copy of the catalog). Host sites must provide a certificate of insurance. The exhibition period is 12 to 20 weeks, with the first opening in Spring 2025.

“It’s great that the material items in this traveling exhibition are textiles, which makes it a bit easier because they can ship flat,” said Millar. Another consideration for the panels was to decide on what type of corners, sharp edges or rounded. “We ended up getting them rounded for use and longevity. There’s a lot to consider when designing an exhibition that will travel [in this case] even with displaying the prayer pouches. Early on, we reviewed a lot of different suggestions but ended up going with embroidery hoops, which fit the exhibition theme and is also portable.”

The rental fee is a sliding scale, based on the organizational budget size of the host site to accommodate institutions of varying resources. The weekly rental fee for an organization with an annual budget of less than $500,000 will be $200. Organizations with a budget size between $500,001 to $2,000,000 is $300 per week, and $2,000,001 and higher is $400 per week. The museum hopes to travel this exhibition throughout at three or four host sites annually.

“What we hope to accomplish with “Old/New Threads” is to spread the word about Stitch Buffalo and the type of support they’ve been able to provide for their community over the years,” said Millar. “We want to highlight their massive impact and encourage people to pick up a skill they may have seen their parents or grandparents do regarding sewing or creating things and thinking that artistry is not necessarily just paintings. [Traditional] textile and fiber arts are sometimes seen only as crafts or functional items. Those who make traditional clothing might not be seen as an artist. However, a big part of this exhibition is recognizing that a lot of artistry is involved with [traditional] textile and fiber arts, and…it’s an art that you often learn to make based on your culture or from your family.”

The museum wants this exhibition to spark interest where it travels, in either supporting or developing grassroots initiatives like Stitch Buffalo who have had such a positive impact on their community’s quality of life. “We want to encourage them to see how an organization like Stitch Buffalo grows into a larger organization and how it provides more opportunities for members in its community,” said Millar. “And if there isn’t a local organization in your community like Stitch Buffalo, what would it look like to create one? That’s something we would love to see… having institutions reach out and work with their communities.” Millar also wants host sites to encourage members of their community to interpret the textile art, or include their own textile art and traditions in supplement to the traveling exhibition.

“Ultimately, we hope that this traveling exhibition can help support these women in their community and organization, and give them a platform where others can recognize their work and dedication to creating each work.”

Learn more about “Old/New Threads” and View its Travel Prospectus & Fee Schedule: https://castellaniartmuseum.org/exhibitions/oldnew-threads

Smithsonian’s “Voices and Votes: Democracy in America” Opens at the National Women’s Hall of Fame on July 12

Tue, 09 Jul 2024 13:38:31 GMT

Exhibition and humanities discussion programs on democracy opens 176 years after the first women’s rights convention was held in Seneca Falls

The Museum Association of New York (MANY) is delighted to bring the Smithsonian Institution Museum on Main Street traveling exhibition Voices and Votes: Democracy in America to the National Women’s Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, NY.

The exhibition and start of the “A New Agora for New York” program series will be unveiled on July 12 with a ribbon cutting and ceremony to open the Hall’s second-floor exhibition space at the historic 1844 Seneca Knitting Mill. This Seneca Falls landmark building is interwoven with the history of the women who worked there. It will be the first time that the second-floor exhibition space will be open to the public following years of extensive restoration efforts.

The Hall will use the Smithsonian exhibition as a launching point to explore, reflect on, and tell the story of women's role in the evolution of American democracy through the stories of the Seneca Falls community and its more than 300 inductees.

“Voices and Votes is the perfect way to celebrate the Hall’s new space with an exhibition that speaks to the heart of the Hall’s work to share stories that are too often overlooked or left out of American history,” said the Hall’s Museum & Community Relations Manager Nellie Ludemann.

The first women’s rights convention was held in Seneca Falls on July 19, 1848, beginning the women’s rights movement in the United States. The Hall’s collection, including suffragist buttons, books, and pamphlets, tells the story of women's suffrage.

“MANY understands the importance of having the National Women’s Hall of Fame as one of our host sites for this project. New York’s role in the Women’s Suffrage Movement was pivotal, and we are so lucky to have a site that can connect with that story in such a deep way,” said MANY Agora Project Fellow Ren Lee.

The Hall’s responsive exhibition will include a national fiber arts exhibition, “Co-Crafting Democracy: Fiber Arts and Activism,” curated by Hinda Mandell and Juilee Decker, a mural installation by artists Victor Pultinas and Bernadette Bos, “La Cicatrice” art exhibition by Rebbeca Aloisia, and “The Rollercoaster for Women’s Rights, Equality, and Freedom” exhibition curated by Mia Tetrault, Greta Paasch, and Betty Bayer that will feature the Hall’s collection and archives on the long history of the Equal Rights Amendment.

Additional programs as part of the “A New Agora for New York: Museums as Spaces for Democracy” will run during the exhibition, including a presentation by Ashley Hopkins-Benton, Senior Historian and Curator at the New York State Museum.

This exhibition is being supported by a Market New York grant awarded to the Museum Association of New York by Empire State Development and I LOVE NY/New York State's Division of Tourism through the Regional Economic Development Council initiative.

Additional funding from the William G. Pomeroy Foundation supports public events, community exhibitions, free public lectures, workshops for teachers, and community discussion programs.

# # #

“A New Agora for New York: Museums as Spaces for Democracy” humanities discussion programs are made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

About the Museum Association of New York

The Museum Association of New York is the only statewide museum service organization with more than 780 member museums, historical societies, zoos, botanical gardens, and aquariums. MANY helps shape a better future for museums and museum professionals by uplifting best practices and building organizational capacity through advocacy, training, and networking opportunities. Visit www.nysmuseums.organd follow MANY on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn @nysmuseums

About the National Women’s Hall of Fame

The National Women’s Hall of Fame was founded to bring the contributions and achievements of American women fully into our national narrative. We believe that an equitable and healthy nation is possible when all people are empowered to achieve their dreams. The Hall serves as a home for women’s stories, informed discussion, and collaborative partnerships. As a hybrid (virtual and physical) institution, the Hall aspires to be a national leader in conversations about women, their history, and the future.

Call for Applications to serve on the Museum Association of New York Board of Directors

Thu, 27 Jun 2024 13:11:33 GMT

The Museum Association of New York (MANY) is pleased to announce an open call for positions on its Board of Directors for the Board Class of 2025-2027 and invites applications for those interested in serving.

Candidates should be museum professionals who work in New York museums, museum service industries, or for related academic programs; leaders in their museum discipline and in their commitment to advancing the field; and can demonstrate a relationship with the Museum Association of New York. Prior or current board experience is not required to join the MANY Board.

The Board Nominating/ Governance Committee has set a priority for people with the following skills:

Fundraising and Membership
Human Resource Management
Facilities
Finance
Marketing and Communications
Exhibition Design

The Committee is seeking nominations for museum professionals in the following regions:

Capital Region
North Country
Southern Tier
Finger Lakes
Mohawk Valley

MANY board members assume certain roles and responsibilities, including a financial commitment to the organization. Members of the Board of Directors are responsible for the custody, control, and direction of MANY under NY and federal statutes and regulations and organizational bylaws.

Click here to read the document outlining those roles and responsibilities. We encourage applicants to discuss the roles and responsibilities with their immediate supervisor or board chair to ensure they have institutional support for their application and potential Board service.

Members of the Board of Directors work with colleagues to address the challenges and opportunities for museums in the state. MANY is committed to continuing to diversify its Board by geographic region, museum discipline and budget size, differing abilities, skills, race, gender, sexual identity, ethnicity, and age and welcomes applications from people who bring a range of skills and expertise to sustain a dynamic, innovative, and responsive organization.

MANY staff and Board meet at various locations around the state at least five times a year, with one mandatory meeting held during the annual conference. Board terms are three years long and are renewable for a second three years. The length of service may change if nominated to serve in an officer capacity.

Members of the Board of Directors:

Embrace MANY’s mission and advocate for the field and the organization.
Promote diversity in programming, membership, staffing, and board representation.
Contribute financially to the organization and/or secure donations.
Join MANY as Organizational Members.

Applicants must be:

Passionate about MANY’s mission.
Comfortable in leadership positions.
Known for innovation and creativity.
Constructive problem solvers.
Happy to share expertise with peers.
Familiar with MANY programs.

Click here to apply.

Applications close at 5 PM on July 31, 2024.

The Governance and Nominating Committee will review applications, and selected candidates should expect to participate in an informational discussion with Committee members as part of the application review. The Committee will bring nominations for a full board vote at the September 18, 2024 board meeting. Applicants will be notified soon after.

Nominees approved by the board will be put to a vote by the membership in accordance with MANY by-laws.

MANY Board Spotlight: Andrea Harden

Wed, 26 Jun 2024 20:35:38 GMT

Andrea Harden has over twenty years of senior-level management and consulting experience in training and development, employee relations, harassment prevention, diversity and inclusion, change management, and effective communication. She is a key partner in supporting museum leadership, focusing on employee engagement, relationship management, and Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility (IDEA). Harden is responsible for developing and administrating various plans and procedures that guide and support museum staff, including recruitment, retention, performance management, development, and compliance. Harden collaborates with the museum’s director and other staff to understand, refine, and implement the museum’s strategic plan. She works with the Buffalo AKG’s Leadership Team and Management Team to ensure alignment of departmental and individual goals and objectives with the broader institutional plan, which includes coordinating IDEA processes, programs, and initiatives in collaboration with other Leadership Team members, ensuring the integration and measurability of IDEA in all aspects of museum operations alongside institutional goals, and making changes and updates as needed to ensure compliance with local, state, and federal employment laws and regulations and best practices for museums.

Harden joined the MANY Board of Directors this past January. We spoke to her to learn more about her journey into the museum field, what motivates her, and more.

Andrea (far right) with MANY Interim Executive Director Sheila McDaniel (left) and MANY Board President Georgette Grier-Key (center) at the 2024 annual conference "Giving Voice to Value" in Albany

Museum Association of New York (MANY): What was your first museum experience?

Andrea Harden (AH): I have two early museum memories. Both were from school field trips. Shortly after I moved to Buffalo, I remember a giant, taxidermied polar bear at the Buffalo Museum of Science, and it was terrifying. It’s still there because when I took my kids years later, I wondered if it was still there, and sure enough, it was! The other memory I have is of the mirrored room at what was the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, which is now known as the Buffalo AKG Art Museum.

What’s your current role?

AH: My current role is the Director of Talent and Culture (formerly Human Resources) at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum. It’s a department of two, including me, with a Talent and Culture Manager. We are strategic partners with everybody in the museum and are responsible for recruitment, performance management, development, and retention. Our goal is to make sure that our employees have the best experience that they can. I work closely with the leadership team, providing assistance and guidance on performance management, shifting away from the typical once-a-year review to ongoing communications – coaching them on ongoing conversations to have with their team regularly and understanding how they can be better leaders. Bottomline, while people are here, I aim to ensure that it’s their best experience. It’s also about strategic planning for the museum, understanding who we are, what we look like, and how we can keep people central to our core of who we are. Our core values include inclusivity, diversity, equity, and accessibility (IDEA), and we want to know how this plays out within the organization across departments. We want to make sure that these values are immersed throughout the museum.

What other jobs have you had? What did your journey look like to get to your current role?

AH: Buffalo AKG Art Museum is my first museum job. I’ve been in human resources for about thirty years, primarily in corporate HR positions or consulting. Albright Knox (Buffalo AKG Art Museum) was one of our clients and we were helping them hire their human resources manager. I ended up helping the museum on a part-time basis because at the time, I still wanted to consult and have that flexibility. It was a nice transition for me to learn more about museums. Then, about a year before the museum was set to reopen after extensive renovations, rebranding, etc. I decided to accept the full-time position, and I love it.

What experiences from previous jobs have been most helpful for your current role?

AH: At the end of my consulting career, 95% of my role was training, primarily diversity and inclusion training, because of what was happening in the country in 2020. There was a lot of training and facilitation across New York State, and facilitation skills are very helpful to my role at the museum, especially working with employees from all generations and backgrounds. I think I also came into their role with a lot of patience and the ability to help people interact with each other. I think that’s the biggest skill I could bring from my previous experiences, and I’m okay with talking to people on the leadership team and the board or in entry-level positions.

What was the last museum that you visited?

AH: Probably The Buffalo History Museum, and full disclosure, my daughter works there! She didn’t tell me she was interviewing for a position there, and I didn’t know that she wanted to stay in Buffalo, but she has a background in digital media. She’s working as a digital media specialist at the museum. I enjoyed the exhibition “Say Their Names: Honor Their Legacies” by the Uncrowned Queens Institute, which shares the stories, wisdom, and insights of Buffalo’s community elders. It closed in April but highlighted African American men and women who have made amazing changes in our community but may not get all the recognition. I saw a few friends of my parents, who I hadn’t seen since I was a child, being recognized.

There’s been a lot of investment in Buffalo into art and cultural organizations, and we're seeing a shift in how the public and museums approach each other. I enjoy visiting other museums because I see a different perspective from that of a contemporary art museum.

Let’s take a step further back… can you tell us about where you grew up?

AH: I was born in Los Angeles, California, and everybody asks me why I am in Buffalo. (laughs) It really wasn’t my choice, but my father, who actually bribed us, told us that there was snow in Buffalo, which, as a child, got me excited. I moved here at a really young age because both of my parents grew up in Buffalo, and my dad was big on family. He wanted us to be closer to grandparents, aunts, and uncles. I ended up staying and attending Buffalo State for my undergraduate degree and then attended the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City for fashion merchandising and business.

Did your 18-year-old self imagine that you would be where you are today?

AH: No, I always thought that I would be a teacher. My mom is a retired teacher, and I was that kid who lined up my stuffed animals to teach them. In my senior year of high school, my guidance counselor told me that there weren’t jobs in teaching and that it wouldn’t be a good path for me. They said that I should be an accountant because I excelled in math. But I didn’t want to do that, so I went to Buffalo State to major in communications and business. I loved fashion, which brought me to the Fashion Institute of Technology. I liked New York City but wanted to return to Buffalo and figure out what I wanted to do. It still came back to teaching. I love training. I attended the University of Buffalo School of Management and got my MBA in Human Resources.

I don’t think I ever thought that working at a museum would be part of my future. It’s funny because I think the pandemic solidified it for me. After all, it was the people we had at the museum who realized that healing could happen and that we could use it through art. I could see the breadth of our museum experience for people and wanted to be part of what we were trying to do for our community.

What motivates you to do what you do? What do you get excited about?

AH: Last week, we extended an offer for one of our leadership positions, an internal promotion, to someone who had started here part-time in a front-of-house position. They left and then came back to a different part-time position. Then, they were promoted to a full-time position and moved up into management. Now they’re our new director of museum experience. That is what motivates me –seeing change and growth in people.

The other thing that motivates me is ensuring that I represent our community and that the museum looks like ours. As a Black woman in a senior leadership position, I like to make sure that my face gets out there, attend conferences or meetings, and say what I’m doing and where I’m doing it because representation matters.

Can you describe a favorite day on the job or is there a favorite aspect of your role?

AH: Training and facilitation are my favorite things. Last week, I worked with two people who were having a difficult conversation, and I was able to help by sitting in on their conversation as a mediator. I listened more than anything but was there to help summarize.

We have a training day each year, and we also incorporate team building. My favorite days are when I interact with others.

What is your superpower?

AH: Flexibility is one, you know, learning on the fly, as we call it in HR. It’s important to be able to pivot. Diplomacy is another, making sure I am saying things in a way people need to hear so they’re still willing to listen. I would also say my positive attitude. I didn’t realize this until my mom told me that I said, “It’ll all work out” and that I always say that. I heard myself say that at work last week and just started laughing. I guess it’s true that I say that a lot!

Do you have any key mentors or someone who has deeply influenced you? Can you tell me about them?

AH: My parents. Both were professionals and established my work ethic when I was young. My dad passed a few years ago, but my mom is 90 and is running a food pantry at her church. They both set a strong foundation for me.

In my museum career, I would say our former Deputy Director Karen Spaulding. She was the one who kind of convinced me to stay at the museum. She is such a strong servant leader. I saw her strength, but she was never overwhelming to people. She’s very good with courageous conversations to the point that The John R. Oishei Foundation here in Buffalo has a fellowship for Leaders of Color named after her. I was fortunate to be part of the signature cohort five years ago, and now my daughter just finished her cohort.

She’s amazing and taught me the balance of speaking up and using our voice. Our voice is powerful; if we don’t use it, then we’re not doing a service to ourselves or anyone else following us.

Five NYS Museums Awarded an IMLS Museum Grant for African American History and Culture

Mon, 10 Jun 2024 18:12:21 GMT

Five NYS museums were awarded a total of $846,372 Museum Grants for African American History and Culture from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). Funding will support projects that build the capacity of African American museums or support the growth and development of museum professionals at African American Museums. 30 institutions across the United States were awarded a total of $5,916,807.

Weeksville Heritage Center will complete a comprehensive collections inventory and increase public access both onsite and online to its collections, documenting the history of Weeksville, one of the largest free Black communities in pre-Civil War America. For the project, staff will hire a new Collections Associate position and two paid interns. Project activities will include compiling existing inventories, cataloging items not yet accessioned, improving safe collections storage, restructuring digital records, and digitizing high-priority items. As a result of the project, staff will expand public access to the collections via a public database portal, enhanced exhibition displays, and an onsite Resource Center with educational resources for researchers, museum professionals, and community members.

The Lewis Latimer House Museum will hire staff to improve collections management and create a digital exhibition from the museum’s collection. In partnership with Queens Public Library, museum staff will digitize the Latimer Family Papers. The museum will hire a Collections Digitization Manager to train and supervise paid interns on digital asset management practices for the project. The museum will also hire a Digitization Specialist to implement collections digitization software. Staff will travel to conduct collections research, informing the creation of a digital exhibition of the museum’s permanent collection.

The Michigan Street African American Heritage Corridor Commission will increase staff capacity and access to collections for five historic locations: the Michigan Street Baptist Church, Nash House Museum, Historic Colored Musicians Club and Jazz Museum, WUFO 1080 AM Black Radio History Collective, and Michigan Street African American Heritage Corridor. To improve collections care and access, the organization will hire a new full-time Museum Collections and Interpretive Assistant to develop and coordinate exhibition content and programming.

The Louis Armstrong House Museum will solicit oral histories from the local community about Louis and Lucille Armstrong to add to the Armstrong Archives and utilize in expanded programming. Located in Louis Armstrong's former neighborhood, the museum staff will gather accounts of the Armstrong family from surviving community members about Armstrong’s life, work, and community impact. Staff will record one-on-one and group interviews, catalog those interviews within a searchable database, and make the database accessible online for public use.

The National Jazz Museum in Harlem will create educational videos and provide artist-led workshops for students. Educational resources will focus on introducing jazz and improvisation to grade 1-3 students and multimedia workshops will serve fourth and fifth-grade students. Following each workshop, the museum will solicit detailed feedback from teachers. Staff will work with a team of educational consultants to create and post online videos for teachers to show their classes before visiting the museum to prepare students for their visit and videos for after students visit the museum to stimulate classroom discussions and reinforce concepts learned at the museum.

Since its establishment in 2006, the program has provided $35,714,804 million in funding to over 250 African American museums and Historically Black Colleges and Universities. By investing in these institutions, IMLS helps ensure that their histories are preserved and that their students have opportunities to explore the museum field.

Click here to learn more.

"Conference Experiences and Reflections" –Mari Irizarry

Tue, 04 Jun 2024 21:02:57 GMT

Mari Irizarry is the Director of the Three Village Historical Society, a small museum in Setaukey on Long Island. We asked Mari and the other twenty-one museum professionals from across New York State who received a scholarship to attend the 2024 annual conference "Giving Voice to Value" in Albany this past April to reflect on and write about their conference experience.

Please note that this conference essay have been edited for clarity and/or length.

As a queer, LatinX, female director of a small museum, attending the "Giving Voice to Value" conference in Albany this April was a profound experience. The event's title resonated deeply with me, encapsulating my journey as a museum professional over the past eight years. Each day, I confront challenges that test my resolve, yet I find solace and strength in my identity and leadership role within my community.

The conference provided a platform for hundreds of museum professionals from across the state to converge and engage in meaningful dialogue. For me, it was not just an opportunity to learn but a reaffirmation of the values guiding my work and my museum's spirit. At our institution, we (the staff) believe in "checking our ego" at the door, allowing each other's strengths to shine through. We embody the principles of giving voice to value daily, striving to challenge the status quo and affect positive change in our community.

Conference capstone experience at Ten Broeck Mansion

One of the central themes of the conference was the role of historical societies and museums play in addressing racism, bias, and other injustices in American history and contemporary society. As a cultural organization dedicated to archiving and preserving our local history, we recognize our responsibility to amplify marginalized voices and educate the public about the injustices they have faced.

Throughout the conference, I was inspired by the stories and experiences my fellow museum professionals shared. We discussed strategies for fostering inclusivity, confronting bias, and centering marginalized narratives in our institutions. There was a sense of solidarity and determination in those rooms as we collectively recognized the urgency of our mission.

The conference isn't just about exchanging ideas and insights; it celebrates collaboration and togetherness. I eagerly anticipate reconnecting with our counterparts from across the state, knowing that moments of pure enjoyment await us amidst the hustle and bustle of our professional duties. Picture this: colleagues and friends from different corners of the state gathering together to ride a historical carousel, laughter echoing against the walls of our state museum in earshot of the capitol. It's a scene that encapsulates the spirit of the conference – a perfect blend of work and play. In these moments, connections deepen, ideas flourish, and memories are made.

Meeting up with old friends at the conference. From L to R: Mari Irizarry, Three Village Historical Society, Anna Conlan, The Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art

But perhaps the highlight of it all is the after-hours adventures – exploring majestic historic mansions and gardens, and wandering through the corridors of museums, each step a journey through time. It's these experiences that remind me why I love my job – not just for the work we do, but for the moments of joy and discovery we share with colleagues who feel like long lost friends. As a leader, I left the conference with a renewed sense of purpose and resolve. I am committed to doing more, listening more, and educating more to combat injustice and support marginalized and underserved communities. This means not only diversifying our collections and programming, but also creating a workplace culture that values and celebrates diversity in all its forms.

The Museum Association of NY – Giving Voice to Value conference was not just a professional development opportunity; it was a reaffirmation of my identity and values as a BIPOC museum professional. It reminded me that every day, we have the power to make a difference and give voice to the values that define us.

Experiencing the partial eclipse with friends at Empire State Plaza. Front to back: Kimberly Phyfe, Three Village Historical Society, Janna Rudler, Preservation League of NYS, and Peter Hyde of Peter Hyde Design.

Mari thoroughly enjoying the carousel ride at the New York State Museum

Click here to read other Conference Experiences and Reflections

Next Stop for the Smithsonian Exhibition “Voices and Votes”: Sackets Harbor Battlefield State Historic Site

Mon, 06 May 2024 20:46:05 GMT

Voices and Votes: Democracy in America will be on view at Sackets Harbor Battlefield State Historic Site from May 18 through June 29

The New York State tour of the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service Museum on Main Street Program Voices and Votes: Democracy in America exhibition will travel to Sackets Harbor Battlefield State Historic Site. The site interprets the War of 1812 story through its mid-19th-century Navy Yard as an internationally recognized War of 1812 battleground. The exhibition will be on view at the historic Union Hotel building. Sackets Harbor is one of twelve museums that will host Voices and Votes for six weeks each through January 2026, offering museum visitors across New York State a unique cultural experience.

“We are thrilled to have Sackets Harbor Battlefield State Historic Site as the second stop of the New York State tour of the Voices and Votes exhibition,” said Megan Eves, MANY Assistant Director for Programs & Communications and Project Director. “As New York State Parks and Historic Sites celebrate their centennial this year, historic sites across New York are searching for ways to engage their local communities with connections to our nation’s history, especially at Sackets Harbor, an important site during America’s Second War for Independence.”

“The Sackets Harbor Battlefield, together with its partner organization, Hay Memorial Library, is proud and excited to serve as the only site in the North Country region to host this exceptional exhibit,” said Constance Barone, the Battlefield’s site manager. “The exhibition coincides with New York State Parks Centennial Celebration, amplifying the Bureau of Historic Sites mission and Guiding Principles,” she added.

Sackets Harbor Battlefield State Historic site staff began installation of the local exhibit component for the Smithsonian’s traveling exhibit “Voices and Votes: Democracy in America.”

Voices and Votes will serve as a community meeting place for conversations about democracy, the freedoms, and responsibilities of citizens, participating in government, and more.

A series of local exhibition-related programming and free events include an OurStoryBridge oral histories gathering project, a lecture by guest historian Dr. Melissane Schrems, Humanities NY Reading and Discussion Series and Community Conversation and music program, and National Trails Day StoryWalk.

Supporting this traveling exhibition are Sackets Harbor and North Country local stories. “The local components of the exhibit complement the broader historical narratives of Voices and Votes, connecting North Country people, our local history, and our place in history,” says Library Board President Christine Eggleston. “Programs and discussions weave together stories of civic commitment, cultural heritage, and the rich history in our own backyard.”

Adapted from American Democracy: A Great Leap of Faithcurrently on display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, Voices and Votes includes historical and contemporary photographs; educational and archival video; engaging multimedia interactives; and historical objects like campaign souvenirs, voter memorabilia, and protest material.

Each museum will display the Smithsonian exhibition and produce an exhibition drawn from their own collection that relates to their community’s role in the development and advancement of democracy in America. Smithsonian resources available to the twelve museums include digital learning curricula and communication tools. MANY staff is organizing the exhibition travel, and will help each museum plan, implement, and evaluate the exhibitions and interpretive programs.

MANY was awarded $494,284 from the National Endowment for the Humanities to support humanities discussion program series “A New Agora for New York: Museums as Spaces for Democracy” produced in partnership with Humanities New York. The series will use Voices and Votes as a launching point to support the work of the twelve museums and their communities to explore, reflect on, and tell the story of their role in the evolution of American Democracy.

“The Voices and Votes exhibition and “A New Agora for New York: Museums as Spaces for Democracy” humanities discussion programs will create spaces in museums in which communities can learn together and participate in humanities discussions grounded in texts and objects of material culture,” said Eves.

This tour is supported by a Market New York grant awarded to the Museum Association of New York by Empire State Development and I LOVE NY/New York State's Division of Tourism through the Regional Economic Development Council initiative.

Additional funding from the William G. Pomeroy Foundation supports public events, community exhibitions, free public lectures, workshops for teachers, and community discussion programs.

Learn more about the New York State tour of the Voices and Votes exhibition: https://agoranewyork.org/ and preview the full schedule of programming and events happening at Sackets Harbor Battlefield State Historic Site.

“A New Agora for New York: Museums as Spaces for Democracy” humanities discussion programs are made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

About Sackets Harbor Battlefield New York State Historic Site and Hay Memorial Library

Sackets Harbor’s strategic location on the eastern end of Lake Ontario made it the only possible site for the American military command during “The Second War for Independence.” This natural harbor became a hub of activity for shipbuilding and the war effort. Today, the Sackets Harbor Battlefield is recognized by the National Park Service as one of the ‘top War of 1812 sites’ in the nation due to its remarkable integrity. Educational programming, living history, environmental and historic structures stewardship make this site a North Country destination.

Hay Memorial Library, located in the historic Village of Sackets Harbor, is a full-service, modern library providing creative, educational programs and onsite collection services to our community and the surrounding township. The library is delighted to be a program partner for the exhibit, and encourages visitors to explore, collaborate, gather, and connect with the programs and community. Visit the library on Facebook, Instagram, and at haymemoriallibrary.org

For additional exhibits, trails, and programs in the community, visit:

Pickering Beach Museum
The Sackets Harbor Visitor Center www.visitsacketsharbor.com
The Old Stone Chapel (a Sackets Harbor Historical Society preservation site) sacketsharborhistoricalsociety.org
War of 1812 Bicentennial Trail

Welcome MANY Interim Director Sheila McDaniel!

Thu, 18 Apr 2024 17:22:41 GMT

What can I say about Erika Sanger? Actually, quite a bit. While most of you already know, I wanted to mention a few:

Doubled membership
Doubled earned income
Grew attendance at our Annual Conference
Raised over $2.5M to support NYS Museums
Shepard through and strengthened MANY during COVID-19

Erika is a force. Because of her passion and vision, many have gotten involved with MANY, including myself. She has transformed MANY and, as a result, the museum sector in New York State. We are better because of her.

As I take on the Interim Director role, my commitment is to do Erika's legacy justice and keep the important and vital work of MANY going while we find our new leader to move us forward, standing on the tremendous foundation Erika has given us.

I am deeply grateful for the warm welcome and congratulations I received at our Annual Conference this month. Your support and engagement are invaluable to us, and I am eager to continue working with you, our members, and member institutions in the coming months.

Onward!

Sheila McDaniel, Interim Executive Director

2023 Annual Report

Thu, 18 Apr 2024 17:21:35 GMT

In 2023, MANY's membership grew to 732 members from every REDC region, a 14% increase over the past three years. We are grateful to all of our individual, organizational, and industry members whose support keeps us on track and able to serve the field.

We welcomed 438 museum professionals, industry partners, and student to Syraucse in April for our annual conference "Finding Center: Access, Inclusion, Participation, and Engagement."

From February to November, MANY staff traveled 3,000 miles across New York State to deliver 10 in-person discussions and meet-ups cetnered around preparing for the post-pandemic museum based on the collection of essays: "Change is Required: Preparing for the Post-Pandemic Museum" thanks to funding from the New York State Council on the Arts.

Lastly, the 2023/24 New York State Budget included $1M in funding for The Museum Study Act. The Department of Economic Development, in conjunction with other departments and entities, will conduct a comprehensive study of public and private museums and report their findings and recommendations. We thank the bill sponsors Assemblymember Barrett and Senator Cooney, the legislature, and Governor Hochul for their support of this forthcoming study.

Click here to download the 2023 Annual Report.

Letter from Erika: Signing Off

Thu, 04 Apr 2024 18:59:12 GMT

Dear Members, Friends, and Colleagues,

Like the place where a rainbow blends into sky, MANY’s work can barely be seen from our office on the banks of the Hudson River in Troy. It takes all of you to make what we do visible. I will never know the full extent of the impact I have made at MANY in my decade of service, first as a member of the board of directors and then as executive director. But I do know that brilliant colleagues, creative problem solvers, generous collaborators, visionary leaders, and steadfast supporters of museums have served as my inspiration and my compass.

Your emails, note cards, and phone calls with thanks and good wishes have offered a glimpse into the difference I have made and I will admit that my tears have been flowing freely. Thank you for taking the time to let me know. Thank you for sharing your successes and your challenges. Thank you for letting me carry your stories beyond the MANY office to give other museum people a way to look at their work through a different lens.

When I have taken the pen or the podium to speak out for New York’s museums I have done so with the confidence that you are there with me. If you have not been comfortable with advocacy in the past, I am asking you to help continue my work by making one call or writing one letter this year to thank your legislative representatives for their support, invite them to your museum, or let them know the challenges you are facing as a community anchor, an economic driver, and an organization that stewards and interprets our state’s history, art, architecture, and culture.

We used our collective intelligence to build MANY into an organization that helps people who work in museums solve complex problems by integrating collaboration and creativity with digital communications. Together we gathered and synthesized our knowledge, experience, and resources to turn some of our darkest and most difficult times into a community that helps each other succeed.

I look forward to talking to as many of you as I can at our 2024 annual conference which is just days away. Meaningful connections created at MANY’s annual conference, at other programs across the state, as well as those that happen during our virtual programs have forged a vital web of connections that support the field. I leave MANY in the hands of thousands who will keep this web strong and growing.

With thanks for all of your support,

Erika Sanger, Executive Director

Preservation Long Island is the First Venue in New York State to Host the Smithsonian Traveling Exhibition Examining Democracy in America

Mon, 25 Mar 2024 16:16:10 GMT

Voices and Votes: Democracy in America will be on view at Preservation Long Island in Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island from March 22 through May 3, 2024

Photos from the Installation Workshop at Preservation Long Island, Cold Spring Harbor, NY

The Museum Association of New York (MANY) is excited to announce that the New York State tour of the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service Museum on Main Street Program Voices and Votes: Democracy in America exhibition will debut at Preservation Long Island. A regional not-for-profit organization headquartered in Cold Spring Harbor, Preservation Long Island maintains and interprets historic sites and collectionspertaining to Long Island’s history. It is one of twelve museums that will each host Voices and Votes for six weeks through January 2026 that will offer museum visitors across New York State this unique cultural experience.

“New Yorkers and their histories are deeply connected to the founding of our nation and the continuing evolution of our democracy,” said Erika Sanger, MANY Executive Director. “As we approach the 250^th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, museums are searching for ways to engage their local communities with connections to our nation’s history. Preservation Long Island is an ideal first location for the Voices and Votes exhibition and ‘A New Agora for New York: Museums as Spaces for Democracy’ discussion programs.”

“Preservation Long Island is excited to serve as the inaugural site for Voices and Votes: Democracy in America,” said Alexandra Wolfe, Preservation Long Island Executive Director. “The exhibition’s focus on freedom, civic participation, and political engagement resonates strongly with our commitment to making the past relevant to the present.”

This project is supported by a Market New York grant awarded to the Museum Association of New York by Empire State Development and I LOVE NY/New York State's Division of Tourism through the Regional Economic Development Council initiative. Additional funding from the William G. Pomeroy Foundation supports public events, community exhibitions, free public lectures, workshops for teachers, and community discussion programs.

The exhibition includes a section that incorporates art and artifacts drawn from Preservation Long Island and other local collections. “The objects we chose connect the broader historical narratives of Voices and Votes with Long Island people and stories—addressing themes such as the ways people make their voices heard, who is left out of the conversation, and the roles and responsibilities of citizens,” said Lauren Brincat, Preservation Long Island Curator.

Among the local highlights that visitors will be able to see in the exhibition is an original essay by Jupiter Hammon (1711–ca. 1806), America’s first published African American poet, written while he was enslaved at Joseph Lloyd Manor in Lloyd Harbor shortly after the American Revolution, advocating for the citizenship of Black New Yorkers in the new nation. Other items include a bracelet and ring made from scrap sheet metal by women aircraft factory workers on Long Island as the United States fought to preserve democracy abroad during World War II, and the drawings and models for the national monument to African American civil rights leader and women’s rights activist, Mary MacLeod Bethune (1875–1855), created in 1974 by Long Island artist, Robert Berks (1922–2011).

“Voices and Votes allows us to reflect on Cold Spring Harbor and the surrounding community historyand explore what it means to be an active participant in the governance of not only the country, but also this community,” said Andrew Tharler, Preservation Long Island’s Education and Engagement Director.

The series of local exhibition-related programming and free events include a community quilt project, curator-led exhibition and walking tours, lectures, community conversations and an oral history series.

Learn more about the New York State tour of the Voices and Votes exhibition: https://nysmuseums.org/Project-Participants-and-Host-Sites and preview the full schedule of programming and events happening at Preservation Long Island: preservationlongisland.org/voices-and-votes.

“A New Agora for New York: Museums as Spaces for Democracy” humanities discussion programs are made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

About the Museum Association of New York

The Museum Association of New York is the only statewide museum service organization with more than 780 member museums, historical societies, zoos, botanical gardens, and aquariums. MANY helps shape a better future for museums and museum professionals by uplifting best practices and building organizational capacity through advocacy, training, and networking opportunities. Visit www.nysmuseums.organd follow MANY on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn @nysmuseums

About Preservation Long Island

Preservation Long Island is a not-for-profit organization that works with Long Islanders to raise awareness, appreciation, and support for the protection of our shared past through advocacy, education, and the stewardship of historic sites and collections. Visit preservationlongisland.org.

Preservation Long Island maintains and interprets historic sites and collections that embody various aspects of Long Island’s history including:

Joseph Lloyd Manor, Lloyd Harborpreservationlongisland.org/joseph-lloyd-manor/

Custom House, Sag Harborpreservationlongisland.org/custom-house/

Sherwood-Jayne Farm, Setauket preservationlongisland.org/sherwood-jayne-farm/

Old Methodist Church and Exhibition Gallery preservationlongisland.org/methodist-church/

Voices and Votes: Democracy in America Makes its New York State Debut at Preservation Long Island

Fri, 08 Mar 2024 19:58:35 GMT

Old Methodist Church building, headquarters and exhibitions gallery for Preservation Long Island. Photo courtesy of Lauren Brincat, Curator, Preservation Long Island

The Museum Association of New York is the designated partner for the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum on Main Street Program, circulating Smithsonian-created exhibitions across New York State. From March 2024 to January 2026, MANY will travel the exhibition “Voices and Votes: Democracy in America” to 12 museums in 9 NYS REDC regions. With funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, MarketNY, and the William G. Pomeroy Foundation, MANY will help the museums attract visitors, expand their programming, and grow their donor base.

Each museum will host the exhibition for six weeks as well as the creation of a responsive exhibition telling the story of democracy in their communities using objects and location-specific stories. Museums will use the Smithsonian exhibition as a launching point for “A New Agora for New York: Museums as Spaces for Democracy” humanities discussion series to explore the context and main controversies behind our democratic system including the principles and events that inspired the writers of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, the struggle for civil rights, voting rights, and equal participation in our democracy. This project will support the work of each museum and their communities as they explore, reflect on, and tell the story of their role in the evolution of American democracy.

“Voices and Votes” opens at Preservation Long Island in Cold Spring Harbor this March. We spoke with Preservation Long Island Curator, Lauren Brincat, to learn more about how the exhibition will impact programming, museum capacity, and amplify Long Island’s role in American democracy.

Museum Association of New York (MANY): Why did Preservation Long Island apply to host Voices and Votes?

Lauren Brincat: It was the connection between the exhibition themes and the work that Preservation Long Island is doing, particularly the story of Jupiter Hammonand the larger enslaved community at Joseph Lloyd Manor where we’re seeing an increase in dialogue and discussion that is bringing people together. It’s become a main focal point for us

We saw connections between our local story of democracy to the Smithsonian’s exhibition. The Smithsonian exhibition will provide greater historical context to what's happening on Long Island –especially as we move towards the 250th, Jupiter Hammon is certainly, for New York, someone to talk about as a voice who is writing about speaking about liberty and freedom during and after the American Revolution.

MANY: Can you tell us more about the story of Jupiter Hammon and how Preservation Long Island hopes to amplify this story while it hosts Voices and Votes?

Lauren Brincat: Jupiter Hammon is the first known published African American poet. He was one of only two enslaved individuals to have their works published in North America during the 18th century, so he provides a really rare perspective on this critical moment in our country's founding. He was born into slavery on Long Island and did some of his most well-known and significant writings that confront these ideas of liberty, freedom, and enslavement in the new nation on Long Island.

We will incorporate Jupiter Hammon's story into our responsive exhibition that I'm curating. Our responsive exhibition will include two original copies of Hammon’s published works. The first, “An Address to the Negroes in the State of New York.” was written in 1786 and Hammon references the American Revolution and how many lives were lost. It was the Patriot's calls for liberty that inspired him to advocate for the freedom and citizenship of Black New Yorkers. The second published work, “A Winter's Peace,” was written while Hammon was in exile in Connecticut during the war because Long Island was occupied by the British during the Revolution.

Our Project Scholar, Dr. David Waldstreicher, Professor of History at City University of New York, will deliver a free, public lecture about Jupiter Hammon and Phillis Wheatley

MANY: What other objects are you going to have in the responsive exhibition that will be from your collection?

Lauren Brincat: It's a little bit of a mix. The two Jupiter works we’re borrowing from the East Hampton Library.

We will include a bracelet and a ring from our collection made by a female factory worker at one of the large aircraft plants on Long Island during World War Two. While men were fighting for democracy abroad, women were filling factory jobs at home and gaining greater agency in their lives, albeit for the short term. After the War, women were expected to give up their jobs for returning veterans but foundations were laid for future calls for equality.

Other objects include a silver tankard made by Elias Pelletreau who was a Long Island silversmith. Referred to as Captain Pelletreau, he was an older man who led a militia of senior citizens in Southampton during the Revolutionary War.

A tea table that was owned by William Floyd, a Long Island Signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Needlework done by the daughter of Henry Packer Dering. He was one of the first customs and postmasters for the port of Sag Harbor, the Custom House is one of our historic houses. It was also a location where they administered oaths of citizenship. Her needlework was done at the Litchfield School in Connecticut. It’ll focus on the idea of Republican Motherhood and what that meant in this period.

We also want to focus on the building where the exhibition will be located. It was built in 1842, and shortly thereafter visited by Sojourner Truth during her time on Long Island. We’re looking forward to exploring her connection to this actual site.

We are including an 1860 signature piece quilt done by members of the Dutch Reform Church in Manhasset. We’re not sure why this was made but lots of signature piece quilts were made during this period and were done to support the ongoing Civil War. This is the inspiration for a larger program, our community quilt project that we are doing with North Shore Quilting and Fiber Art. Members of our community are making blocks which will then all be signed and sewed together and will be on display in the exhibition and then will become a part of our collection.

Some more contemporary things we will include are a protest blanket that was made by an artist in 2020 that was part of an outdoor art memorial to Black Lives Matter. The exhibition was organized as a way for people to show support while continuing to social distance during the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a way for people to participate and show support through creating art which created a living memorial. This blanket was a part of that installation.

A big part of our mission is advocating for historic preservation. We want to focus and highlight ways that people can advocate and use their voices to support historic preservation in their communities.

We’re including three photographs in our exhibition by Shinnecock Fine Art Photographer Jeremy Dennis. Called the Sacredness of Hills, these photos confront the desecration of a sacred Indigenous burial site in Southampton due to development on the East End prior to the passing of the Unmarked Burial Site Protection Act in New York just last year.. It's a powerful series that connects the history and experiences of the Shinnecock People on Long Island with preservation advocacy work.

MANY: You mentioned a walking tour with Cold Spring Harbor Whaling Museum and getting items loaned from the East Hampton Library, tell us more about the partnerships you’re forming as part of the exhibition.

Lauren Brincat: Yes, the Cold Spring Harbor Library will host our scholar lecture. The community quilt project is a partnership with the local businesses here on Main Street and they are supporting that entire project.

MANY: What are some of the goals for Preservation Long Island, short-term and long-term?

Lauren Brincat: It's exposing more people to the wide variety of work that Preservation Long Island does. We have an expansive mission, and people know us for the different kinds of work that we do whether it’s our preservation advocacy, exhibitions, or our publications. This is an exciting opportunity to bring all of this work together, especially through a Smithsonian exhibition and a responsive exhibition that will explore historic preservation and ways to join advocacy efforts on Long Island and beyond.

We want to generate more interest in what Preservation Long Island does. We’re a regional organization and we’re also a local institution and a place where people can go to have discussions about different topics and learn about history.

MANY: In addition to hiring gallery attendants, how are you and the Preservation Long Island team preparing to host Voices and Votes?

Lauren Brincat: We are boosting our part-time staff who will work in the gallery so that we can be open more regularly, consistently, and reliably. I think that this exhibition has gotten all of us to work more collaboratively than we have before. For example, I’m working with our preservation director to give a presence to the work she does in the exhibition itself.

MANY: How many staff members does Preservation Long Island have?

Lauren Brincat: We have about 10 people on staff, 8 full-time.

MANY: What is something that you hope a visitor might take away with them after visiting this exhibition?

Lauren Brincat: We hope that it will spark curiosity to learn even more. It’s an opportunity to have a hyper-local focused exhibition in response to a Smithsonian exhibition where we can highlight Long Island alongside the larger history of democracy in America.

I would hope that it will inspire visitors to learn more and to seek more information.

MANY: What are some other changes that are happening because you are participating in this project?

Lauren Brincat: Partnering with more community organizations for programming and events to increase our capacity and their capacity as well. It’s been very much an all-hands-on-deck kind of project for us. Being part of this project has been an exciting way for us to all work together towards the exhibition’s success, requiring us to think more strategically and to plan further in advance, which is great!

Learn more about Voices and Votes: Democracy in America and “A New Agora for New York: Museums As Spaces for Democracy” at Preservation Long Island.

Museum Professionals Awarded Scholarships to Attend the Museum Association of New York’s 2024 Annual Conference in Albany this April

Fri, 08 Mar 2024 19:46:41 GMT

The Museum Association of New York (MANY) is proud to announce that 22 museum professionals from across New York State will attend the 2024 annual conference “Giving Voice to Value” in Albany, NY, April 6-9 with full scholarship support. Scholarships include conference registration, travel, hotel accommodation, workshop or special event registration, and complimentary individual MANY memberships for one year.

Scholarship recipients were selected through a competitive application process. Applications were reviewed by a panel that included MANY’s board members, staff, and local conference committee members. “We look forward to welcoming these exceptional professionals to Albany and express our sincere gratitude to our donors for helping MANY to expand our service to the field,” said MANY Executive Director Erika Sanger.

2024 Scholarship Awards

BIPOC Museum Professional in Museum Administration

Awarded to a Black, Indigenous, or Person of Color working in museum administration who has played a leadership role in advancing the capacity and sustainability of their museum.

Mari Irizarry, Director, Three Village Historical Society

Cassetti Scholarship

Awarded to a museum professional who has demonstrated creative leadership and has affected significant, positive change in the ways in which their museum engages with audiences.

Lauren Nechamkin, Director of Education, Museum of Chinese in America

William G. Pomeroy Foundation Scholarship

Sponsored by the William G. Pomeroy Foundation for museum professionals working in a history-related NYS museum with an annual operating budget of $250,000 or less and who have not attended a MANY annual conference in the past.

Michael S. Bennett, Lincoln Depot Museum

Terry Britton, Woodstock Museum

Rebekah L. Clark, National Memorial Day Museum

Susan Colson, Percy Grainger Society

Scott R. Ferrara, Three Village Historical Society

Elliott Gnirrep, Waterford Historical Museum and Cultural Center

Susan M. Ouellette, Hudson Mohawk Industrial Gateway/Burden Ironworks Museum

Jamie Robinson, Museum Village of Old Smith’s Clove

Kristin D. White, Dunkirk Historical Society

Kayla Whitehouse, National Bottle Museum

Robert D. L. Gardiner Foundation Scholarship

Sponsored by the Robert D. L. Gardiner Foundation for museum professionals employed by museums and historical societies on Long Island with an annual operating budget of $250,000 or less and who have not attended a MANY annual conference in the past.

Courtney Chambers, Sea Cliff Village Museum

Phyllis Chan Carr, Sagtikos Manor Historical Society

Jeremy Dennis, Ma’s House & BIPOC Art Studio, Inc.

Stefan Dreisbach-Williams, Waterfront Museum

George Fleckenstein, Pan Am Museum Foundation

Ariana Garcia-Cassani, Montauk Historical Society

Claire Hunter, Montauk Historical Society

Denice Sheppard, Oyster Bay Historical Society

Amy Vacchio, Rock Hall Museum

Museum Professional in a Facilities Position Scholarship

Sponsored by Fireline Corporation, this scholarship is awarded to a museum professional working in a facilities position at a NYS museum.

Josh Engel, Associate Director of Support Services, Long Island Children’s Museum

Annual Conference

The 2024 Annual Conference “Giving Voice to Value” will be held in Albany from April 6 to 9 and features over 100 presenters in 25 concurrent sessions, pre-conference workshops, and capstone experiences discussing and sharing new ways to communicate the value of museums to stakeholders, funders, legislators, visitors, and communities. Online registration ends March 31. To learn more, visit: https://nysmuseums.org/annualconference

MANY Board Interview: Sophie Lo, Deputy Director, Museum at Eldridge Street

Thu, 07 Mar 2024 16:43:18 GMT

Sophie Lo at The Museum at Eldridge Street

Sophie Lo has more than a decade of experience working at the intersection of arts and culture and education. She is currently the Deputy Director at the Museum at Eldridge Street, directing museum operations and strategic initiatives. Her prior experiences include overseeing public programs and events at The Institute of Fine Arts at NYU and managing public programs and communications at the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA). She has freelanced for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI), consulted on diversity initiatives for young adult novels and children’s education materials at Scholastic Inc. Sophie was an Art Commissioner for Queens Council on the Arts from 2021-2022 and selected for New York Foundation for the Arts Incubator for Executive Leaders of Color Program, an initiative aimed to foster equity and diversity in the arts industry. She earned her B.A. in Culture and Media Studies from The New School, her M.S. in Human Capital Management and Organizational Effectiveness from NYU, and received a certificate for Managing Diversity and Inclusion in the workplace from Cornell University.

Lo joined the Museum Association of New York Board in January 2024. We spoke with her to learn more about her museum career journey.

Museum Association of New York: Where did you begin your museum career? Can you share your career journey to your current position as the Deputy Director at the Museum at Eldridge Street?

Sophie Lo: I begin my career story at my immigrant parents’ modest small businesses–my father’s Chinese American restaurant, my mother’s paper goods store. I owe so much to those early experiences wrapping crab rangoons and tabling art fairs. That’s where I learned to communicate with customers, negotiate with suppliers, solve problems economically, and just plain work hard.

Fast forward a couple dozen years, I have the pleasure and privilege of serving as the Deputy Director of the Museum at Eldridge Street, which is actually where my museum career began in college, as an intern. Back then, I didn’t know working in museums was a viable career option! I remember I was at a career fair and saw an opening at a museum housed in a historic synagogue. I actually spent my childhood going to the Jewish Community Center after school, and as a kid, was very close to our landlady and her family who are Jewish, and therefore had spent a lot of my youth celebrating Jewish holidays and traditions, despite not being Jewish. My mother is an artist, so I was exposed to museums and the arts from a young age. Finding myself drawn to the Museum at Eldridge Street felt really natural. The biggest shock however, was showing up for my interview and realizing I was in the middle of present day Chinatown. I didn’t know this neighborhood one hundred years ago was once home to millions of Jewish immigrants, or that it was once the most densely populated Jewish community in the world. Though my parents were born in Taiwan, I was born and raised in the United States and always lived in areas without a strong Asian community, so there was also a desire for me to find a way back to my roots. This is what made Eldridge seem like such a beautiful fit, even back then–it felt like home. I interned there for two years before I pursued other opportunities at other museums, higher-ed, and even a film company and start-up. I came back to Eldridge at the tail-end of 2020.

It’s nice to have that full circle moment where the place you began and had such a big impact on your museum and non-profit career to return as Deputy Director.

Lo: Right, and I didn’t see it coming because when I was just starting out, I don’t think I really knew what working at a museum could mean. Yes, museums can be about paintings and sculptures, but it can also be about preserving cultural heritage and amplifying people’s stories. There’s been such a reckoning in the museum world, particularly in the last ten years and it makes sense for many museum professionals to question what it means to be a museum or cultural worker and what kind of impact we want to make through our work.

What are some of the things that motivate you in your current role as Deputy Director at the Museum at Eldridge Street?

Lo: It’s the people. My team motivates me. I work with an incredible, dedicated, and grounded group of people whom I love learning from and learning with. I think so much of working within our museum spaces is working with people who feel passionately about what they do and especially the content. It brings great energy to our day-to-day work. I don't think I could do the work that I do without their excitement and commitment about wanting to create great content and make an impact. I think that this all translates into a positive visitor experience. It translates through everything else.

The Museum at Eldridge Street has undergone a massive restoration/ preservation transformation and recently was awarded more than $280K from the New York Landmarks Conservancy. What is happening next and what are some of your goals for the museum?

Lo: I see us in a really exciting place right now. We’re on an upward trajectory with some pretty exciting projects in the works that we will announce soon.

What’s been so rewarding is that in the past two years, we’ve had visitors from all 50 states and over 90 countries. We are breaking our attendance records and seeing engagement unlike ever before. We want to continue to welcome everyone and connect with people of all backgrounds through the story of immigration and community, within the lens of our incredible architecture.

Would your 18-year-old self imagine that you would be where you are today?

Lo: Not at all! I wasn’t one of those people who knew exactly what I wanted to be “when I grew up.” Even though that caused a lot of angst, and in some ways still does, I’m grateful I jumped into life with open arms and an open mind.

Can you tell us about where you grew up? What was it like growing up there?

Lo: People are often surprised to learn that I was born in Nebraska! I also lived Los Angeles for a brief time, but I consider Providence, Rhode Island to be my “home town.” It’s where I grew up before moving to New York City when I was eighteen. Providence is a beautiful little city and I think I’m lucky to have grown up surrounded by a vibrant and artsy community. It probably helped that my mother went to art school and sometimes brought me to class or the studio with her so I was literally surrounded by artists all the time!

Can you describe a favorite day on the job?

Lo: Any day when I need to spend time in our historic sanctuary. Even though I’ve had a relationship with this institution for so many years, when I stand in the middle of the sanctuary with light spilling in from the stained glass windows, I still get goosebumps and I still feel emotional. The building has so much history and represents so much hope and resilience.

Do you have any mentors?

Lo: Growing up as an Asian American woman working within the arts and culture sector, it’s well known that it has not historically been a diverse field. When I was a young professional, there weren’t many examples of successful women of color in leadership positions. That being said, I am so lucky to have had the opportunity to have several mentors in my life who were able to teach me about what it means to be a professional in general but also within a homogenous field. They gave me a chance when they hired me and then taught me how to create that culture of inclusion and how to in turn give opportunities to other young professionals starting in the museum world. Another mentor is my mother. She is an immigrant who’s worked hard raising me as a single mom and has gone on to have a flourishing career of her own. She will often say to me that she wishes she had a mentor which makes me all the more appreciative of her and the mentors that I’ve had.

Conversation with Ben Garcia, Executive Director, The American LGBTQ+ Museum

Thu, 07 Mar 2024 16:19:53 GMT

Rendering of the New-York Historical Society’s expansion project, as seen from Central Park West. Photo courtesy of Alden Studios for Robert A.M. Stern Architects

Scheduled to open at the New-York Historical Society in 2026, The American LGBTQ+ Museum will occupy 5,000 square feet within the 80,000 square feet new wing expansion. Designed by Robert A.M. Stern Architects, the new wing will be a five-story structure called the “Democracy Wing.” It will complete the New-York Historical Society’s complex on Central Park West, providing additional space for educational programs and storage as well as a new exhibition gallery, courtyard, and rooftop garden terraces.

The American LGBTQ+ Museum will be New York City’s first museum dedicated to national, and local LGBTQ history and culture. Through exhibitions, contributions from scholars, public programming, and collaborations with other LGBTQ institutions, the museum will aim to act as a “school for activists” by highlighting the lives of queer people who are not ordinarily reflected in our cultural institutions today.

We spoke with Executive Director Ben Garcia to learn more about this unique partnership and the role of The American LGBTQ+ Museum will play in amplifying queer history from across New York State and beyond.

Museum Association of New York: We are excited to learn more about The American LGBTQ+ Museum. I think it’s an interesting and unique partnership with the New-York Historical Society. What do you anticipate or what do you hope the visitor experience will look like?

Ben Garcia: We have a plan for four avenues of impact with visitors because we want to make sure that as a museum of American LGBTQ+ history, we are reaching people around the country. These four platforms include active public programs and partnership work with partners around the city, the state, and the country that we’ve already begun engaging with.

The second platform is a series of robust traveling exhibitions that we intend to create around national stories of interest to queer people and partner with museums around the country and offer that exhibition to them at no cost with the provision that they build out the local aspect of that story in partnership with local LGBTQ+ organizations and archives. It’s a model that the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Services (SITES) is piloting right now. As important as it is for people to be able to come to a national queer museum here in New York City, it is equally important that they go to their local history museum and see queer history represented regularly.

The third platform is unsurprisingly, digital engagements, experiences, and exhibitions. We want to make sure that we’re meeting people around the world and people around the country who won’t be able to access a physical experience. We think that this will be our largest audience. This is the place where we, potentially, will have the most impact because we’ll be reaching people in the states and parts of the world where they cannot share aspects of their identity, where they still need to remain closeted, or they don't have access to reliable information about queer history or queer lives.

The fourth is what we’re going to be doing here in New York, our home base. Our home at the New-York Historical Society will be a museum within a museum, two separate 501c3s sharing space in their new addition and we expect the visitor experience there to be primarily what you would expect visiting an exhibition in a national museum. The exhibition will be semi-permanent, on view for 10 to 15 years. We’ve engaged Ralph Applebaum & Associates to help lead the process of developing that exhibition and experiences. We think it will be a mix of artifacts and histories as well as space for a memorial to people who died (or were killed) because of their queer identities.

We will also share classroom space, an auditorium, and programmatic and event spaces to allow for regular public and school programming.

We hope to regularly partner with the New-York Historical Society to present rotating exhibitions in other galleries around the building to address a wider range of topics than we address in the core exhibition. And we will also have traveling exhibitions that we’ll create with other museums around the city, state, and country.

Can you describe what you imagine the core exhibition will focus on?

Garcia: I don’t know specifically the stories that we will focus on because we want to let community engagement and interpretive planning determine that, but we want exhibitions that focus on the history of the movement for LGBTQ+ liberation and the ways in which that intersects with other liberation movements. We want exhibitions that point people to where queer lives are currently under threat and provide people with reliable information about current situations in the world and share ways for people to get engaged if they want to support people in those situations.

The other category of exhibitions will be those that focus on the contributions of LGBTQ+ people to culture and the history of the United States in the arts, entertainment, athletics, enterprise, politics, etc. This will be a chance to celebrate figures from history who are well known, but, also a chance to tell the stories of people who may be not as well known.

We want to build a community-engaged, collaboratively built experience, where stakeholders will be able to contribute names and stories.

The museum will have an interesting partnership with the New-York Historical Society. What will that relationship look like?

Garcia: At the highest level, it will be a partnership centered on interpreting nuanced and inclusive history. Our shared space will lead to many partnership opportunities with their education and curatorial teams. Many of the details are still being worked on through a process of drafting a memorandum of understanding. However, we anticipate that our core exhibition will be used in their school programs, and vice versa. We hope to co-curate exhibitions, and to continue to co-present public programs—something we have been doing for the past two years.

There are other logistics that we are still working on like figuring out operating procedures, admissions policies, collecting and fundraising approaches. Our goal is to ensure that we are providing the greatest possible access to the American LGBTQ+ Museum and our exhibitions.

Cross-section of the New-York Historical Society’s expansion project. Photo courtesy of Robert A.M. Stern Architects

But you will have complete curatorial control in your space?

Garcia: Yes, we will work independently as two separate museums with complete curatorial independence. If we want to present an exhibition together in one of the rotating galleries, then that is something we will co-curate together. We have a 30-year commitment to work with the New-York Historical Society.

What will your collection storage look like? Or will the museum be a collecting institution?

Garcia: One of the early decisions that we made was to only to collect in support of our core exhibition, since it will be on display for ten to fifteen years and we don’t want to have to regularly change out what will be exhibited. Therefore, most of what we collect will be on display apart from materials like paper that will not always be on view due to conservation considerations.

We made the decision not to be a systematic or research collecting institution, at least in this first phase of our existence, for a couple of reasons. The first was that as we talked to colleagues in some of the 200-plus LGBTQ+ archives and collections around the country, we heard that there wasn’t a need for another large collecting institution. What was needed was a better way to support the existing archives and collections that were already in existence.

We want to make sure that we are entering the museum landscape in a way that recognizes and centers the work of those who’ve been doing the work already. And making sure that we come up with strategies that lift the tides for all of us together. We agreed that we wouldn’t collect (except to support our core exhibition) and instead we would borrow from existing archives and collections. Some of what we will include in our rotating and traveling exhibitions will come from the New-York Historical Society’s collections, but most will come from community-based or academic libraries and archives around the country. The American LGBTQ+ Museum will pay the lending institution a loan fee and, where necessary, conserve and digitize artifacts. We’ll also provide an additional platform for access to collections for our lending partners.

With this arrangement, we hope to strengthen the existing network of LGBTQ+ archives and collections.

You’ve mentioned a few goals for the museum, even before it physically opens to the public, but what are some of your short-term goals?

Garcia: Short-term is pre-opening, because we anticipate opening in late 2026 or 2027. Our pre-opening goals are to establish strong partnerships as we’ve made a commitment to do all of our programmatic work in partnership. We built our team to center programmatic staff who focus on partnership building. Another short-term goal, pre-opening is to raise awareness among our peers and learn we what need to learn. It’s a lot of community engagement work with focus groups and advisory conversations. That’s all the early work alongside raising the funds to make it all happen.

Can you share more about what funding looks like for the museum?

Garcia: We’ve created a $30 million dollar campaign over the next four years to raise money to build out our space in New York, create traveling exhibitions, create digital exhibitions, and build programs and partnerships. This campaign also includes our operating costs.

What have you learned in your role about the process of creating and opening a museum?

Garcia: One thing I learned is that the need for better understanding of queer history and identity is as strong within the community as it is in the broader culture. When I started I assumed that the spaces we convened would serve as a home and sanctuary for queer people, and that the heavy educational lift would be for people who do not have a queer identity. But what I found out in the first two years in this job is that there is a great need within the LGBTQ+ community for greater understanding of the lives of queer people, especially trans and gender queer folks and BIPOC queer folks. It should not have surprised me, as none of us grew up learning queer history, but we have a lot of work to do within the queer community to make sure that we understand our shared history inclusive of a lot of people and stories that haven’t been included previously.

This is also my first job as an executive director and there’s a lot of learning that comes with that. The reason that I wanted to be an executive director was to use my position to create structural equity and I’ve learned so much about those challenges in this role. It has been incredible to work with a staff and board that seeks to build an institution that integrates the values of activist movements, equity, and inclusion internally so that the external work resonates authentically.

We are looking forward to joining us in Albany this April from our opening keynote discussion with Jennifer Scott, Executive Director of the Urban Civil Rights Museum, for the 2024 Annual Conference “Giving Voice to Value.” I hope you’re excited to join this conversation!

Garcia: I’m really excited to attend because I think the program looks amazing. I’m so impressed with the conversations that the Museum Association of New York is engaging with.

The American LGBTQ+ Museum is anticipated to open late 2026, early 2027. To learn more about the museum, visit https://americanlgbtqmuseum.org/.

Ben Garcia will join Jennifer Scott, Executive Director of the Urban Civil Rights Museum in an opening keynote discussion, “Slow Cooking: Recipes for Centering Value in Museums” moderated by MANY Executive Director Erika Sanger at the 2024 annual conference in Albany, NY on Sunday, April 7 at 3 PM in Chancellor’s Hall, The New York State Education Department Building. To learn more and to register for the conference, visit https://nysmuseums.org/annualconference.

MANY Announces Change in Leadership with Departure of Executive Director Erika Sanger

Fri, 01 Mar 2024 13:56:30 GMT

Sheila McDaniel Appointed Interim Director

After eight years in the role of executive director and two prior years as a member of the board of directors Erika Sanger departs the Museum Association of New York with strong leadership in place to carry the organization forward. Sanger’s focus on building organizational structure, securing fiscal responsibility, strengthening membership services, and expanding programming has grown the organization immeasurably.

After the April 6-9, 2024 annual conference she will take the role of Executive Director of Opera House Arts, a performing arts and cultural center in Stonington, Maine. In this new role, she will focus her talents and energies on advancing the work of this community-centered arts organization that offers a year-round schedule of professional theater, music, film, dance, educational programs, community events, and more in a National Register Historic Theater.

“We celebrate Erika’s decision to take the next step to live and work in a place close to her heart, but will miss her vision, decisiveness, integrity, and dependability; ability to teach and mentor; and her communication, interpersonal, and problem-solving skills that met the needs of the organization when it was in crisis, doubled the organization’s membership, and helped MANY exceed goals established in two strategic plans,” said MANY Board President Georgette Grier-Key.

“I will continue to hope that museum professionals grow pride in their work and communicate their value authentically,” said Sanger. “I hope museums give themselves time to experiment, reach beyond comfort zones, set new standards for financial sustainability, and grow support for endangered historic structures that welcome visitors and house collections. I hope museums will listen to feedback courageously and design engagement strategies that deepen connections with their communities. I know that with digital tools and training, museum professionals will tell stories in ways unimaginable a decade ago. I know MANY will be there for years to come to help museums achieve their vision for the future.”

In the past three years, Sanger has raised nearly $2.5 million for programs, direct services to the field, and regrant partnerships that have directly impacted the work of 450 museums and their staff. She also prepared and organized the organization’s sixty years of files that were acquired in 2023 by the Special Collections Library of the State University at Albany, making MANY’s history accessible for generations to come.

In 2022, she was awarded an Advocacy Leadership Award from the American Alliance of Museums for her exemplary leadership in advocacy for the museum field. In January of 2024, Sanger was selected as one of City & State’s Fifty Over 50 honorees.

Under Sanger’s tenure and with the help of bill sponsors Assemblymember Didi Barrett and Senator Jeremy Cooney, “The Museum Study Act” passed the New York State Legislature almost unanimously in 2022. In 2023, Governor Hochul included $1 million for the study in the state budget. The study will be conducted in 2024 by Empire State Development’s I LOVE NY division.

“With strong leadership on the MANY board and dedicated staff who excel at their jobs and exceed expectations, MANY is ready to continue its unprecedented growth and its exceptional service to the field,” said Sanger.

MANY’s board of directors has appointed Independent Museum Professional Sheila McDaniel as Interim Director. Sheila has served on MANY’s board of directors from 2018-2020, as Administrator of the National Gallery of Art, and as Deputy Director of Finance and Operations at The Studio Museum in Harlem. “Sheila’s experience in these leadership roles will be a strong bridge as she works with MANY staff to sustain programs and operations during the search for MANY’s next Executive Director,” said Grier-Key.

MANY’s board of directors will be making an announcement soon about the search process for the organization’s next Executive Director.

We hope you join us in celebrating Erika’s accomplishments at MANY’s 2024 annual conference in Albany April 6-9 and wish her the best in her next role.

Museum Association of New York Announces 2024 Awards of Distinction

Thu, 08 Feb 2024 17:30:23 GMT

Museums, museum professionals, industry partners, and legislative leaders will be recognized for their exceptional achievements at MANY’s 2024 annual conference “Giving Voice to Value” in Albany, New York this April. The fifteen awards celebrate unique leadership, dedicated community service, transformational visitor experiences, community engagement, and innovative programs that use collections and resources to support museums and to tell stories of everyone who calls New York home.

2024 Awards of Distinction Winners

Excellence in Design

This award acknowledges extraordinary achievement in design in three categories: Publications/Graphics, Media/Marketing Campaigns, and Exhibition Design.

Publications & Graphics

Munson

“Munson Rebranded and Redesigned Bulletin Newsletter”

In 2023, the Munson announced a rebrand and new name for the 104-year-old institution to commence its next chapter. Munson staff met with hundreds of community members, surveyed visitors and members, and hosted focus groups to gain a better understanding of what is important to its constituents and what they value in the organization. The Munson marketing department redesigned the Member Bulletin using the new brand identity to express the organization as being a welcoming community center with constant activity and opportunities for people of all ages to interact with art in a variety of ways.

Media & Marketing

Buffalo AKG Art Museum

“New Graphic Identity”

Following a $230 million campus development and expansion, the Buffalo AKG Art Museum’s Communications Department was tasked to inform the community about the construction project to expand the museum to more than 50,000 square feet, introduce the museum’s new identity, inspire people to attend the museum’s opening in May 2023, and continue to visit the expanded museum. The Communications Department guided the design and implementation of the museum’s largest advertising campaign to date which included print, digital, social media, radio, podcasts, and billboards.

Exhibition

Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College

“What Now? (Or Not Yet)/Body Matters”

“What Now? (Or Not Yet)/Body Matters” was a two-part physical exhibition designed to engage the campus and community to reflect on how collections change and evolve and how artists help us see or shape the past and future. The first version of this exhibition opened in January 2023 and was curated by John Murphy and Alyx Raz. Simultaneously, six Vassar students worked to “re-curate” the same object list. These students reimagined the exhibition, changed the layout, and highlighted different perspectives through new pairings and interpretive text, wall color, exhibition graphic design, and title to “Body Matters.”

Virtual Exhibition

Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

“A Dark, A Light, A Bright: The Designs of Dorothy Liebes”

“A Dark, A Bright, A Light: The Designs of Dorothy Liebes” is the first monographic exhibition dedicated to Dorothy Liebes (1897-1972) in over 50 years. The exhibition demonstrated the full spectrum of Liebes’ contributions to American design, reinserting her name and her work into the story of mid-20th-century design in the United States. The virtual exhibition prioritizes storytelling, both visual and written, inviting visitors to choose a topic to explore her impact on interiors, fashion, film, and industrial design, and meet some of the studio weavers who contributed to the success of the Dorothy Liebes Studio.

Engaging Communities

These awards celebrate organizations that use exceptional and resourceful methods to engage their communities and build new audiences. Awards are made based on the size of an organization’s operating budget.

Volunteer - $99,999

Conference House Association

“30th Anniversary Wards Point/Aakawaxung Munahanung Site”

To commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Ward’s Point Archaeological National Site on Staten Island, the first NYC Landmark specifically recognizing the many generations of Indigenous peoples who lived on Aakawaxung Munahanung (Island Protected from the Wind) Archeological Site, the Conference House Association partnered with NYC Parks, the Tottenville Historical Society, the Delaware Tribe of Indians, and the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians to create a Wisdom Walk at Conference House Park. The Wisdom Walk is intended to honor, remember, and focus on the Indigenous People who were the original inhabitants of Staten Island and Tottenville.

$100,000 - 250,000

John Brown Lives!

“Adirondack Family Book Festival”

The Adirondack Family Book Festival is an annual public event that has reached more than 1,000 people, bringing together children and young adult authors and illustrators to the John Brown Farm State Historic Site in Lake Placid, NY, providing an opportunity for families to come together and experience the joy of reading through interactive author and illustrator talks, a youth panel, and hands-on art making. This event fosters conversation around critical and timely topics through in-person interactions with authors and illustrators, and experiential activities.

$500,000 - 999,999

Syracuse University Art Museum

“Take Me to the Palace of Love”

Inspired by “Take Me…to the Palace of Love” a 2003 art installation by contemporary artist Rina Banerjee about home and diaspora, Syracuse University Art Museum used art selected from its collection as well as from other Central New York museums in conjunction with Banerjee’s “Viola, from New Orleans” a work that explores inter-racial marriage in America and “A World Lost” an installation that critiques climate change. The museum invited the University community, new Americans, and under-represented communities in the city of Syracuse (a resettlement city for Afghans, Nepalese, Bhutanese, Somalians, and Syrians) to document their own stories about identity and place -individually and collectively- in dialogue with Banerjee who was the University’s Jeannette K. Watson Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Humanities.

$1,000,000 - 4,999,999

The Long Island Museum

“SOMOS/ WE ARE: Latinx Artists of Long Island

The Long Island Museum’s first exhibition to be presented entirely in English and Spanish, “SOMOS/WE ARE: Latinx Artists of Long Island” was a collaborative exhibition with associated programming focusing on the rich cultural heritage and artistic contributions of the Latinx community on Long Island that featured 82 regional artists and explored their diverse styles, media, personal stories, and familial national origins. In addition to bilingual exhibition text, the museum’s education staff published a bilingual Family Gallery Guide and offered Spanish language tours, including one for the Long Island Latino Teachers Association which contributed to an increase in school tours from school districts on Long Island with a high percentage of Latinx students, including Hempstead, Springs, Copiague, Tuckahoe, North Babylon, and Brentwood. The museum also hosted a ¡ESTAMOS! symposium that featured an artist discussion and performances as well as a free Family Fun Day in October which set a record 600 person attendance for Día de los Muertos, many of whom were first-time visitors.

Over $5M

Museum of Jewish Heritage –A Living Memorial to the Holocaust

“Holocaust Educator School Partnership”

Piloted in the 2022-2023 school year, the Museum of Jewish Heritage’s Holocaust Educator School Partnership expanded New York City public school student’s access to Holocaust education by recruiting and selecting interns from undergraduate and graduate students currently studying in the New York City metropolitan area to teach Holocaust history in local schools and lead exhibition tours. The program is expecting to serve more than 10,000 NYC public school students during the 2023-2024 school year

Individual Achievement

The Individual Achievement Award honors a dedicated museum professional or volunteer who played a significant role in advancing their organizations.

Emily Stewart

Senior Director of Education & Curation, Milton J. Rubenstein Museum of Science & Technology (MOST)

In 2017, Emily Stewart joined the MOST as a program assistant while finishing her PhD before being promoted to Senior Director of Education & Curation. Stewart quickly applied her background as an interdisciplinary historian to better connect museum visitors to science and technology. She doubled the education staff from four to eight and created a new Inclusion Programs Coordinator role to increase awareness and participation in the community. Stewart led several new hands-on programs that focus on STEM education including “Future Innovators” for Black, Indigenous, and Students of Color connecting local BIPOC STEM professionals with hands-on sessions with kids and mentoring them on succeeding in technology careers and “Future Women in STEM” which connects middle school girls with female STEM professionals which all have contributed to a new 2023 museum attendance record.

Rising Star

The Rising Star award celebrates museum professionals with five years or less experience who think creatively, inspire change, spark innovation, and exemplify leadership.

Julia Butterfield

K-12 Programs Coordinator, Historic Hudson Valley

Julia Butterfield joined Historic Hudson Valley (HHV) as a part-time Museum Educator in 2018, leading tours and field trips at Philipsburg Manor, one of HHV’s colonial properties and the site where HHV has interpreted the history of Northern slavery for two decades. She has demonstrated tremendous commitment to the practice of public history and to the particular stories of the enslaved individuals who lived and worked at Philipsburg Manor. In 2022, Butterfield was promoted to the full-time position of K-12 Programs Coordinator, where she strengthened her leadership skills by assisting new educator training, advocating for expanding accessibility initiatives, and creating more inclusive documents such as social narratives for disabled visitors and bilingual materials.

Anne Ackerson Innovation in Museum Leadership

The Anne Ackerson Innovation in Museum Leadership Award honors a museum professional who made significant contributions to the museum field or to their organization. Award winners are selected for their commitment to accessibility, equity, and inclusion, and their dedicated work towards community engagement, relevance, and sustainability.

Heidi Hill, Historic Site Manager, Crailo and Schuyler Mansion State Historic Sites

Under Heidi Hill’s leadership, Schuyler Mansion State Historic Site has undergone extensive preservation and restoration projects, initiated new interpretation to include more underrepresented voices in Schuyler Mansion’s narrative, partnered with local organizations such as Historic Cherry Hill and Underground Railroad for joint school tours, and hosted community events including “Pinkster” a holiday that was celebrated over several days by African and Dutch New Yorkers throughout the 1700s. Under Hill’s leadership, this festival was revived at Crailo State Historic Site and Schuyler Mansion State Historic Site to increase awareness of this historic event that documented early African cultural expression in New York State and welcomed more than 400 people. During Hill’s tenure, she has amplified the voices of the enslaved people who lived and worked at the Mansion and led her staff through groundbreaking research uncovering the history of Alexander Hamilton as an enslaver.

Prior to her almost 19 years at Crailo and Schuyler Mansion State Historic Sites, Heidi was the Interpretive Programs Assistant at Clermont State Historic Site and at Olana State Historic Site.

Board of Directors Special Achievement Award

The Board of Directors special achievement award is given to individuals or museum projects that deserve exceptional attention.

The Strong Museum of Play

“The Strong Neighborhood of Play”

The “Neighborhood of Play” is a $100 million neighborhood development project that features a 90,000 sq. ft. expansion of the Strong Museum of Play; a new 1,000-space parking garage; a new nationally branded contemporary hotel with 175 rooms; four mixed-use apartment buildings totaling 328,500 sq. ft. and 150 units; and a 6,300 sq. ft., single-story retail building.

The project is centered around and built upon the international brand of the Strong Museum of Play, which attracts more than 500,000 visitors to downtown Rochester annually and generates more than 4.5 billion media impressions worldwide.

The highly visible project is in the heart of Rochester on land formerly occupied by the Inner Loop highway. The design balances the needs of each of the three development teams partnering on the project, including challenges with construction schedule, phasing, and staging in a high-density urban environment.

Distinguished Service to Museums Award

This year, MANY is honored to award Senator James Cooney (SD-56) and Assemblymember Didi Barrett (AD-106) for their exemplary support for museums in New York State.

MANY is deeply grateful for the efforts of bill author and sponsor Assemblymember Barrett and Senate bill sponsor Senator Cooney whose actions helped the nearly unanimous passage of The Museum Study Act which Governor Hochul included in the 2023/24 New York State Budget with $1 million in funding.

Award winners will be honored during the 2024 annual conference “Giving Voice to Value” at the Albany Hilton Downtown on Monday, April 8 at 12:30 PM. Media inquiries are welcome for photo opportunities and interviews with awardees.

Awards of Distinction are supported by Lighting Services, Inc.

Building a Social Justice Museum: In Conversation with Jennifer Scott

Wed, 31 Jan 2024 14:09:20 GMT

Scheduled to open in 2025-2026, the Urban Civil Rights Museum in Harlem will be New York’s first museum dedicated to civil rights. The museum planners are considering how museums can inspire the social change that we want to see happen, and how we build a museum that can activate civic engagement and support democratic practices. These are crucial questions for the museum’s inaugural director and chief curator Jennifer Scott.

Future headquarters of the National Urban League and Urban Civil Rights Museum in Harlem on 125th St., Harlem, New York. Image courtesy of National Urban League

Scott joined the organization in 2022 to develop and lead the museum from vision to actualization. She previously served in senior roles at history and other social justice museums, including the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit, one of the earliest and most significant African American History Museums in the country, and Jane Addams Hull-House Museum in Chicago, a feminist and immigrant rights museum and historic landmark. In Chicago, she co-chaired the Chicago Monuments Project–a commission and city-wide initiative created to help rethink the city's monuments and public art collection. Earlier in her museum career in New York, she was the Vice Director and Director of Research at Weeksville Heritage Center in Brooklyn where she helped recover a hidden history, launched the oral history program, and helped build a new $40 million interpretive center.

Museum Association of New York [MANY]: Thank you for speaking with us today and for sharing more about the Urban Civil Rights Museum. It feels like a long time coming for the creation of a physical museum by the National Urban League in Harlem. Where did the vision for this museum begin and how did it start?

Jennifer Scott: The museum is part of a larger building project that will allow the National Urban League to return home to Harlem more than 100 years after it was founded. The museum will be a way for the Urban League to not only return to Harlem but to extend the league’s mission, which, historically, has been to support underserved communities, primarily through social services. The organization began as people fled the South during the Great Migration, as a way to provide them with resources, help them find jobs, obtain an education, secure housing and civil rights, and, in general, support people and families seeking safety.

In the last 20 years, under the leadership of President and CEO Marc Morial, the Urban League has expanded its social justice mission and its focus on policy, creating an “Equitable Justice” division. The museum is the vision of President Morial who recognizes the importance of history in understanding the possibilities of social justice. The museum will serve as a space that will share the civil rights work of the Urban League and the work of many other non-profit and grassroots organizations and activists in the North who have contributed to the long fight for social change.It’s the Urban League’s first major entrée into arts and culture, and we are all excited to be a part of this new direction.

MANY: Right, because this will be the first Civil Rights Museum in the North?

Scott: Yes, most Civil Rights Museums are located in the South, giving the impression that the story of Civil Rights is primarily a Southern story. The fact that the museum is being built in New York, in Harlem, and in the North is super exciting because so much work toward civil rights happened here and in other Northern areas. Those are the stories we want to highlight to expand the narrative. And, we’re not just looking at the traditional era of civil rights in the 1950s and ‘60s, but also more than two centuries earlier - back to the early roots of the African American presence in the North when people migrated North as Free people or as fugitives from enslavement. The museum will address the long history of the struggle for civil rights – sharing stories of abolition, anti-slavery, the development of free black settlements, the Great Migration, the Harlem Renaissance, and much more. We will also bring this history up to the present era, sharing recent stories of activism and community organizing that happened in the last 20 years, including the Black Lives Matter movement.

MANY: You have stated that this museum will be a call to action and that it will interpret, document, and explore the long and ongoing struggle for justice and civil rights in Northern urban environments going back to the 1600s and into the 21st century. What else can you tell us about what the visitor experience will look like?

Scott: We want the museum to provide a vibrant educational experience that inspires visitors in New York and beyond to become agents of change in the ongoing movement for equity and justice. We’re hoping to create an engaging, participatory, and inspirational experience for visitors that will connect to diverse audiences –students, educators, activists, artists, political officials, community organizers, local residents, and tourists - anyone who’s thinking about social change and those who aren’t quite there yet. We are hoping that as people explore the museum, they will reflect upon how they can learn from history - how powerful lessons of the past can help them transform their understandings of the present and the future.

We’re also very aware that we will be located in our new home in Harlem, and we want to welcome and immerse visitors as much as possible in Harlem at the heart of the visitor experience with a strong sense and respect of place and history. We also welcome Harlem residents, their stories, and memories of Harlem.

MANY: You mentioned the importance of place, Harlem, which is not only important in the Urban League’s history but also in the greater story of African Americans who made this neighborhood their own. How do you anticipate the museum engaging the Harlem community?

Scott: Similarly to many communities in New York City, Harlem is experiencing tremendous change, demographic changes, and gentrification. As people move away from neighborhoods, their important experiences and stories of all that they contributed become threatened of getting lost or overshadowed. One of the ways that a museum can help preserve these stories and memories is through inviting in and collecting oral histories.

MANY: And you have a background in oral histories.

Scott: Yes, I’m a trained oral historian and have contributed to many oral history projects. I have learned how important it is to preserve our stories and memories because these stories often disappear as people leave the area if they are not recorded. Ideally, we want people to stay and to figure out how we can help them to stay in the neighborhood. And additionally, we want to make sure their voices are heard and preserved so that we continue to tell our own histories. We want to elevate these community stories and give them more space.

MANY: Reflecting on your comment about wanting people to stay, the building where the museum will be is a mixed-use building that includes 170 units of affordable housing, below-market rate office rental space for non-profits and community groups like One Hundred Black Men of New York, United Negro College Fund New York, and the Harlem-based Jazzmobile, and retail space. What do you anticipate will be the impact of this building on the community?

Scott: The bigger real estate project of the National Urban League, indeed, brings retail investment, office space, and affordable housing to the area. I think the museum, in particular, can help support the history, arts, and culture that already exists in the neighborhood and has existed for a long time, and the museum can work with neighborhood residents to expand arts and culture in the area even more.

There will be many possibilities to help activate the power of place. We want to support local artists, activists, students, and others by being a place to convene, have conversations, and host public forums. We want to be a place where people can connect, network, and organize together when possible. The museum will be a neighbor and a partner with local residents and other historic community organizations in the area, including theatres, libraries, churches, schools, arts centers, and other community organizations. We are interested in joining and contributing to the rich and wonderful Harlem cultural ecosystem in the neighborhood.

MANY: What have you learned being part of this process?

Scott: I’m fortunate and very privileged because this is not the first museum I’ve helped build from the ground up. I enjoy helping to envision a project like this that supports a higher cause, bringing it to fruition, and seeing what’s possible. One thing that I’ve learned over and over again in this process is that it’s never a solo project; it takes many, many people (and lots of time and effort) to build something meaningful. When I walk into any project like this, I, thankfully, become part of a larger collaborative. It’s motivating, inspiring, and humbling to work with such dedicated teams. I learn a lot, and am honored to know that I am a participant in such a potentially impactful project and a steward of this important legacy.

MANY: How does the museum communicate all of this to the public?

Scott: I think with the increase in activism in the past several years, and especially since the brutal murder of George Floyd, there’s a heightened awareness of the need for change and an elevated sense of conscience. As a museum focused on social justice, we hope to connect and communicate with the people, communities, and initiatives that are interested or becoming interested in fighting for change and learning more about the history of these struggles in the past.

MANY: I think a lot of museums are asking a similar question –how can museums inspire social change? What are your thoughts?

Scott: Our hope is that the museum will be a place where one can see and feel the work of the many people who fought for justice in urban centers in the North, and reflect on past civil rights efforts so that we can imagine and inspire new possibilities of collective action.

Part of the museum will serve as a resource where visitors can learn more about the different grassroots movements in the past and present, various civil rights legislation that people have fought for, and contemporary initiatives and tools that are available to fight inequities and injustice. The museum plans to host public and education programs that allow people to reflect on democratic ideas and ideals and that will encourage people to engage with one another in public forums and conversations, especially through culture and the arts.

I also believe that you can help inspire social change when you elevate and support narratives that have been historically marginalized and that continue to face threats, distortions, and erasures. There is a lot of power in narrative.

MANY: I think we underestimate the power of narrative.

Scott: I feel that narrative and our power to change the narrative is still an untapped resource at museums and cultural sites.

MANY: What do you want or hope audiences will take with them after visiting the museum?

Scott: It’s always hard to guarantee what visitors will take away. We would love for people to leave with a better understanding of the role that the urban civil rights movement had in the long fight for social change and in the development of Northern cities. We would like people to see the significance of coalitioning and the power of collective action. Although we will also highlight individual leaders of the Civil Rights movement, we would love for visitors to also see, learn about, appreciate, and celebrate everyday people who contributed to the fight for justice and civil rights.

I hope people will have a better understanding of how everyday people and communities went about pursuing, securing, and maintaining economic, political, social, self-reliance, equity, and justice from generation to generation in creative ways.

MANY: We’re excited to have you join us in Albany this April as part of our opening keynote discussion with Ben Garcia, Executive Director of The American LGBTQ+ Museum for the 2024 Annual Conference “Giving Voice to Value.” When was the last time you attended a MANY conference?

Scott: Thank you! I’m looking forward to it. I feel that it will be kind of a homecoming for me because I think the last time I was at a MANY conference was when I was working at Weeksville almost 11 years ago! I’m excited to connect with my New York State colleagues and to be able to reflect on our work and share resources. I noticed recently that MANY is a different organization today than it was then. It seems to be much more diverse in membership and in programming, with many more relevant and interesting programs - in-person and virtual. I’m also looking forward to reuniting with my friend and colleague Ben Garcia in our keynote conversation. It feels like such a privilege to be able to be in conversation with another colleague who is also building a museum in New York and to share the challenges and possibilities with him and with our New York colleagues.

—

The Urban Civil Rights Museum is scheduled to open in 2025/2026. To learn more about the museum, visit https://nul.org/news/national-urban-leagues-innovative-urban-civil-rights-museum-will-bring-little-examined-corners.

Jennifer Scott will join Ben Garcia, Executive Director of The American LGBTQ+ Museum in an opening keynote discussion, “Slow Cooking: Recipes for Centering Value in Museums” moderated by MANY Executive Director Erika Sanger at the 2024 annual conference in Albany, NY on Sunday, April 8 at 3 PM in Chancellor’s Hall, The New York State Education Department Building. To learn more and to register for the conference, visithttps://nysmuseums.org/annualconference.

Testimony of the Museum Association of New York Submitted to the 2024 Joint Legislative Budget Hearing

Wed, 31 Jan 2024 13:48:59 GMT

Below and linked is the submitted written testimony. Please share this testimony with your legislative representatives and thank them for their continued support of museums.

Click here to find your NYS Assembly Member

Click here to find your NYS Senator

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Testimony of the Museum Association of New York

Submitted to the 2024 Joint Legislative Budget Hearing

January 30, 2024

Dear Chairpersons Krueger, Weinstein, Ryan, Stirpe, Serrano, O’Donnell, and members of the Senate and Assembly finance committees,

On behalf of the board of directors of the Museum Association of New York, our 750 members of every museum discipline and budget size in every region of our state, and our dedicated staff, I respectfully present this testimony with gratitude for the legislature’s steadfast support of New York’s museums. In doing so, I also seek your esteemed leadership in addressing three critical areas: 1) Providing financial support for museums, 2) Advancing the results of The Museum Study Act to tackle sector challenges, and 3) Securing funding for NY250 along with promoting inclusive representation in our cultural narratives. Your leadership in these areas is pivotal for the continued flourishing of our state’s rich cultural history.

Museums are inextricably linked to New York State’s identity, economy, and history. Too many operate in a culture of scarcity, struggling to pay bills and wondering each year how they will keep their doors open. Museums need support to protect their collections and historic structures, to strengthen their roles as community education partners chartered by the State Education Department, and to grow their role as economic engines generating more than $5.37B to the state’s economy.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Legislature for your support of The Museum Study Act. The report generated by the research will, for the first time in our state’s history, give us an accurate picture of our museum sector. It will provide information about the sufficiency of public and private funding sources, inform policy making, and help communities, legislative representatives, and individual supporters learn about the missions, audiences, and funding needs of our state’s museums.

When the American Alliance of Museums announced the results of its 2023 survey of the field, MANY received permission to use the same questions to survey New York’s museums to see how they are faring in comparison to other museums in our nation.

The good news is that attendance at New York’s museums is 25% higher than the national average.

The not such good news is that 43% of New York’s museums have yet to recover pre-pandemic attendance numbers and are still averaging 66% of their 2019 attendance. Almost 20% were forced to decrease their budgets in the face of the highest inflation rates of this century. More people visited an art museum, science center, historic house or site, zoo, or aquarium in 2018 than attended a professional sporting event. Museum attendance and especially visits by school students, remain far from the “before times” numbers.

With COVID relief funds fully expended, cuts to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s Zoos, Botanical Gardens and Aquaria (ZBGA) and funding to New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) in the Governor’s budget dropped to 2019 levels, my fear that the most vulnerable museums would be in danger of financial failure in the wake of the pandemic may likely come to pass. The tragedy we are seeing unfold at MiSci in Schenectady is our canary in the coal mine. With this testimony, I ask you to restore NYSCA and ZBGA funding to 2023 budget levels to ensure that our sector remains a viable contributor to our state’s economy.

We need to not only reestablish our staff and our services but build our capacity to serve our communities. Our museums need consistent, long-term investments to achieve economic stability so that when the next flood, fire, or pandemic hits, one quarter of our museums are not at risk of shutting their doors permanently. We need to change the funding systems to museums to help them address equity, diversity, access, inclusion, and justice and incorporate the work and voices of historically marginalized communities.

In 2026, our nation will mark the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Ten of the original thirteen states along with 25 others have fully seated, active commissions. Our neighboring states have allocated millions of dollars to help ensure that as many voices and stories as possible are represented in the commemorative activities. Connecticut anticipates a $30M appropriation and New Jersey $28M. Massachusetts spent $1.5M to observe the Boston Tea Party’s anniversary on December 16, 2023.

New York needs prompt action to promote NY250 as a priority and allocate funding so that museums, historical societies, historic sites, and historic battlefields can share their cultural resources with their communities and tourists. We must take this opportunity to expand our notions of whose history is worth honoring and equally incorporate the stories of Indigenous Nations, BIPOC, and new Americans to shape a full identity for New York in time for the celebration of our democracy. MANY is grateful to the Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic, & Asian Legislative Caucus for recognizing this important opportunity and for including $10M to fund NY250 in the People’s Budget. The gap between interest, intent, and implementation looms large. Legislative action to include funding for NY250 in this year’s budget will ensure that the stories we tell in 2026 are far more inclusive than the stories we told in 1976.

Thank you for your interest, your time, and your support.

Erika Sanger

Executive Director, Museum Association of New York

Letter from Erika: I think I can I think I can I think I can

Wed, 20 Dec 2023 16:43:29 GMT

NYCRR Train Engine #999 Scale Model, 1952, Frank DeSantis, Painted metal, glass, wood, Albany Institute of History & Art

Dear Friends, Colleagues, and Supporters,

When I close my eyes, I can picture the small bookcase in the corner of the apartment bedroom I shared with my brother when we were young. It sat behind a low, round, brown, Formica table held up by chipped chrome legs. At unexpected moments, the words of the authors and pictures by the illustrators will still bubble up in my thoughts. I was fortunate to be raised in a home and a culture where education was valued, books were gifted on holidays, and our weekends included a trip to the public library. I strongly suspect that many museum people were raised in similar environments.

2023 has been a difficult year for many friends, family, and colleagues. Social, political, humanitarian, and climate crises are converging to make civil discourse and media consumption a challenge. I know I had perhaps too many batons to juggle on unsteady feet this year, but I am grateful to those who lent me the strength I needed so that when I did drop one (or two) I was able to pick them up and try again.

I know I owe a debt of fortitude to “The Little Engine That Could,” a children’s book written 96 years ago by a man who immigrated from Hungary to the United States. The 1954 edition with bold black text and a blue train engine printed on a cream fabric hard cover looks very familiar. Like many immigrants, the author, Arnold Munk, used the pseudonym “Watty Piper” to camouflage his identity. In Watty’s story, an engine pulling train cars filled with toys and treats for children breaks down and needs help. After two strong engines decline requests for assistance, a little blue engine carries the train cars over the mountain repeating the phrase “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.”

At MANY, we continue to learn and share new ways to overcome adversity while taking time to redefine and celebrate success with as many people as we can. We have made mistakes, but did not let them weigh us down, apologized quickly, and then moved on without allowing fear to guide our decision making. We are getting better at asking for help frequently and specifically and then thanking generously. We encourage people who ask for our help to take time to rest, heal, and realign thoughts, work, and lives to the world in which we now live. Your feedback lets us know we have made a difference and helped plant seeds for future success.

When I hear people say that MANY is “small but mighty,” I think of Watty Piper’s little blue engine. With your help, MANY can continue to grow, share resources, and connect museum professionals across the state and the nation. If you are not yet a member, please join us, we welcome as many different voices in our community as possible. With exciting plans ahead, we need all the support we can gather to help sustain MANY’s programs and advocacy in 2024. Please donate today and help us get over the mountain that was 2023.

With thanks and best wishes for the new year,

Erika Sanger

Executive Director

Letter from Erika: Full Moon and Sunrise

Wed, 29 Nov 2023 14:01:49 GMT

Moon rise and sunrise at Great Camp Sagmore in the Adirondacks

Dear Members, Friends, and Supporters,

My heart is full with all you have done to support the Museum Association of New York, our programs, our staff, and the museum professionals who share their experience and expertise to keep us informed, connected, and relevant. I am grateful to our partners, sponsors, donors, and our board members who help make our work possible. I am writing now to ask that you make a donation to support our work in the coming year so that we can continue to offer opportunities for us to gather and learn from each other.

MANY is stronger today than ever before. Together, we have redefined what it means to be a museum association. We created new ways to support museums and broadened our conversations to shape a shared vision for the future of museums in New York. With over 25,000 followers on social media, we lead the museum association community in leveraging digital media to share model programs and amplify voices that might get lost amongst the algorithms. Our advocacy work in Albany is building awareness for the needs of museums across the state. I am excited to share the news that the work on the survey for The Museum Study has begun. The resulting data and report will help paint a picture that will show the full range and impact of New York’s museums.

MANY is committed to representing and including all museums and museum professionals in our programs. With our annual conference and roundtable discussions in every region of our state, in 2023 almost 700 museum professionals were able to gather in person, strengthen connections, and learn together about innovative ways to reach audiences and stakeholders. Over 1,700 people from more than 800 organizations in 45 states and 17 countries joined us for webinars. All the educators, historians, curators, fundraisers, administrators, visitor service staff, executive directors, facility managers, board members, and volunteers we met with this year know they are not only working to inspire their visitors today and tomorrow, but building their museums to serve generations to come.

If you have attended a webinar, joined us for a discussion, called the office for assistance, or used our website to find resources, we know you value the work we do. I hope you can help us now by clicking here to make a donation in any amount to sustain our work into 2024 and create opportunities for us to help you for years to come.

With thanks,

Erika Sanger

Art-Lending with the Hechscher Museum of Art and the Town of Huntington

Wed, 29 Nov 2023 13:59:16 GMT

This past summer, the Heckscher Museum of Art launched Heckscher@Home, an art lending program in partnership with the Town of Huntington's Cultural Affairs Department. With this short-term loan initiative, the museum hopes to strengthen its shared stewardship with the Town of Huntington and connect community members with its collection while sharing behind-the-scenes work including conservation and management.

The museum first opened to the public in 1920 with a donation of 185 artworks from August Heckscher’s private collection. Most of the early works in Hecksher’s collection were by Eastern European Artists, but he also collected many Long Island-based and Hudson River School artists. “From the beginning, the museum has had a diverse collection. We’re not really regionally focused, but as we have been reviewing and growing our collection through donations and acquisitions, we think our niche is American Modernism,” said Executive Director Heather Arnet. Twenty-five years ago, dozens of modern American works of art were donated to the museum from the private collection of artists Arthur Dove and Helen Torr who lived in nearby Centerport. “Their donation included dozens of modern paintings by American artists like Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia O’Keefe. This twentieth-century modernist movement is important for our collection. They are artists of national and international importance whose paths intersected on Long Island and that is the niche of our collection,” said Arnet. Today, the museum has nearly 3,000 works in its collection thanks to an acquisition fund. “We are intentionally expanding and diversifying the collection to represent more artists of diverse lived experiences and a focus on women and BIPOC artists.”

There are actually two acquisition funds. There is a Town acquisition fund and a nonprofit acquisition fund, but both are stewarded by the nonprofit museum. It’s part of a unique partnership between the Town of Huntington and the museum. “The Heckschers built the museum and gave it to the Town to be enjoyed by the people of Huntington,” said Arnet. The Heckschers created the Heckscher Trust in 1920 for the building, collection, and park. By the 1950s the Trust could no longer maintain the building, collection, or park. “At that point, there was an agreement drafted between the Trust and the Town where the Trust gave the building, collection, and park to the Town in exchange for the Town agreeing to take care of all of these things in perpetuity. Shortly thereafter a nonprofit museum was created to manage the museum, collection, and acquisition fund.”

The Town of Huntington was interested in pursuing more collaboration between the Town and the museum. “The museum wanted to find innovative ways to connect community members to art,” said Arnet. “We wanted to find a way to strengthen our relationship with the Town and our shared stewardship. There are a lot of different types of partnerships in museums but we have a shared relationship with a public entity and we’re always trying to figure out how to strengthen this partnership outside maintenance.”

The public-loan program idea started when one of the museum trustees mentioned a similar program in the Netherlands. “There are other examples of this type of art-lending program stateside happening at several college campuses like at Oberlin College. Seeing these examples inspired our museum board to give it a try,” said Arnet.

For the first year, as part of a pilot program, the museum wanted to identify one group to lend art from the collection. “The idea to work with local veterans in this pilot year came from Town Supervisor Ed Smyth,” said Arnet. “When we began talking about the program, we concluded that it would make sense to focus and identify one constituency for the first year of this program. Smyth quickly recommended working with veterans here in Huntington.”

Chief Curator Carlie Wertzelbacher and Museum Registrar Carolyn Blea identified prints by Jeffrey Lundstedt that would be among the works of art included in the program. Lundstedt was from Huntingtown, and class president of Walt Whitman High School his graduating year. He was drafted and died in the Vietnam War. “We felt that these prints were a great connection and a natural fit to be included,” said Arnet. “We’ve had his prints in our collection since he passed. There was an exhibition shortly after he passed but they have not been exhibited since then. Working with the Town of Huntington’s Curatorial Affairs Department we’re sharing how the collections team cares for artworks in storage so that now, 50 years later, these artworks can be prepared and loaned to the public.”

The museum’s curatorial staff identified several prints that were in good condition and could easily be loaned. The identified artworks were created by people from Huntington and have not been on exhibition in recent years. “We felt like these particular pieces could safely be loaned to people in ways that we felt comfortable through a partnership with the town,” said Arnet.

Other artworks included in the program are by artists Fannie Hillsmith, Jean Sariano, and Dimmitri Berea. Each artwork that is part of the loan program is loaned for six months. The loan is accompanied by a statement about its t history and a care sheet. The Town provides the insurance for each artwork, with no cost to any of the participants.

“We wanted to develop this initiative together from the beginning with the shared goal of providing a unique service to the community,” said Arnet. “This project has helped us educate the Town on what we do here at the museum. There are a lot of new faces at the council building and through this partnership, we’ve been able to answer questions about the museum like ‘why isn’t the entire collection on view?’ or about collections storage. It’s a really good example of how this project has helped with that sort of learning journey.”

Want to learn more about how to get a program like this started in your community? Contact Heather Arnet at the Heckscher Museum of Art.

NYSCA Awards Over $4 Million to 120 NYS Museums

Tue, 28 Nov 2023 22:07:48 GMT

In their latest round of funding for FY2024, the New York State Council on the Arts (NSYCA) awarded more than $4 million in 129 grants to 120 museums in nine Regional Economic Development Council (REDC) regions. In total, NYSCA awarded more than $46 million to over 1,000 nonprofit organizations and 500 individual artists.

NYSCA is still accepting applications for $37 Million in grants for the Capital Projects Fund through January 11, 2024. NYSCA's Capital Projects Fund supports arts and cultural nonprofits seeking State funding for investments in capital improvements to allow organizations to sustain and expand cultural programming for diverse audiences, promote accessibility and environmental sustainability, preserve and create jobs, and ultimately contribute to the growth of New York's dynamic arts and tourism sectors. Visit the NYSCA website for details.

NYS Museums Awarded NYSCA FY2024 Funding

Listed Alphabetically by REDC

Capital Region

$558,500 to 14 museums

Albany County Historical Association, $49,500

Albany Institute of History & Art, $40,000

Columbia County Historical Society, $30,000

FASNY Museum of Firefighting, $40,000

Historic Cherry Hill, $49,500

Historical Society of Saratoga Springs ,$40,000

Museum Association of New York, $49,500

Rensselaer County Historical Society (Hart Cluett Museum), $30,000

Saratoga County Historical Society, $30,000

Schenectady County Historical Society, $30,000

Shaker Heritage Society, $60,000

The Children’s Museum at Saratoga, $40,000

The Hyde Collection, $40,000

Underground Railroad History Project of the Capital Region, Inc, $30,000

Central NY

$179,500 to 6 museums

Canal Society of New York State, $30,000
Cayuga Museum of History and Art, $59,500
Erie Canal Museum, $10,000
Oswego County Historical Society ,$10,000
Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center ,$30,000
Seward House Museum, $40,000

Finger Lakes

$155,000 to 6 museums

Genesee Country Museum, $10,000

Geneva Historical Society, $30,000

George Eastman Museum, $40,000

Ontario County Historical Society, $25,000

Rochester Museum & Science Center, $10,000

Susan B. Anthony House, $40,000

Long Island

$354,000 to 12 museums

East Hampton Historical Society, $49,500

Friends of Raynham Hall, $40,000

Heckscher Museum of Art, $49,500

Hofstra University Museum of Art, $15,000

Long Island Museum, $30,000

Long Island Music Hall of Fame, $25,000

Nassau County Museum of Art, $25,000

Sagtikos Manor Historical Society, $10,000

Southampton History Museum, $30,000

Southold Historical Museum, $30,000

Suffolk County Historical Society, $40,000

The Whaling Museum of Cold Spring Harbor, $10,000

Mid-Hudson

$400,000 to 13 museums

The Museum at Bethel Woods, $40,000

Boscobel, $30,000

D&H Canal Historical Society, $30,000

Edward Hopper Landmark Preservation Foundation, $30,000

Hammond Museum, $30,000

Historic Hudson Valley, $40,000

Huguenot Historical Society, $30,000

Katonah Museum of Art, $40,000

Mid-Hudson Children’s Museum, $25,000

Neuberger Museum of Arts, $40,000

Percy Grainger Society, $15,000

The Haverstraw Brick Museum, $20,000

Westchester Children’s Museum, $30,000

New York City

$1,473,500 to 43 museums

American Folk Art Museum, $40,000

American Museum of Natural History, $40,000

Amigos del Museo del Barrio, Inc., $40,000

Asia Society, $40,000

Climate Museum, $49,500

Dyckman Farmhouse Museum Alliance, $40,000

Franklin Furnace Archive, Inc., $50,000

Friends of Alice Austen House, Inc., $40,000

Friends of the New York Transit Museum, $40,000

Fund for the City of New York, $20,000

Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, $30,000

Historic House Trust of New York City, Inc., $40,000

International Center of Photography, $25,000

International Print Center New York, $40,000

Intrepid Museum Foundation, $40,000

King Manor Association of L.I., Inc., $49,500

Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, $10,000

Morris-Jumel Mansion Inc., $40,000

Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts, $40,000

Museum of Jewish Heritage, $40,000

Museum of Music & Entertainment in New York City, $20,000

National Lighthouse Museum, $30,000

National September 11 Memorial and Museum, $30,000

New York Hall of Science, $40,000

Old Merchants House of NY, Inc., $25,000

Old Stone House of Brooklyn, $20,000

Pace University Art Gallery, $20,000

Poets House, Inc., $40,000

Rubin Museum of Art, $40,000

Seaport Museum New York, $25,000

Skyscraper Museum, $40,000

Snug Harbor Cultural Center & Botanical Garden, $25,000

Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, $30,000

Staten Island Historical Society, $25,000

The Bronx County Historical Society, $10,000

The Frick Collection, $30,000

The Green-Wood Historic Fund, $50,000

The Hispanic Society of America, $40,000

The New York Botanical Garden, $40,000

The Society for the Preservation of Weeksville and Bedford Stuyvesant History, $59,500

Ukrainian Museum, $25,000

Washington Street Historical Society, $20,000

Wave Hill, $35,000

North County

$289,00 to 7 museums

Essex County Historical Society, $40,000

Fort Ticonderoga Association, $40,000

Sagamore Institute of the Adirondacks, $49,500

St. Lawrence County Historical Association, $30,000

The Natural History Museum of the Adirondacks (Adirondack Experience), $40,000

Village of Potsdam Public Museum, $40,000

Southern Tier

$299,000 to 9 museums

Artnot Art Museum, $40,000

Chemung County Historical Society, $40,000

Chenango County Historical Society, $49,500

Corning Museum of Glass, $40,000

Corning Painted Post Historical Society, $30,000

Roberson Museum and Science Center, $30,000

Sciencenter Discovery Museum, $10,000

The History Center in Tompkins County, $49,500

The Rockwell Museum, $10,000

Western New York

$354,500 to 10 museums

Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society, $40,000
Buffalo Fine Arts Academy (Buffalo AKG Art Museum), $40,000
Buffalo Maritime Center, $30,000
Buffalo Society of Natural Science (Buffalo Museum of Science), $40,000
Carousel Society of the Niagara Frontier, $40,000
Explore & More Children’s Museum, $30,000
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Martin House, $49,500
Niagara County Historical Society, $25,000
Roger Tory Peterson Institute of Natural History, $30,000

2023 REDC Funding to NYS Museums

Tue, 28 Nov 2023 21:22:14 GMT

29 museums from across New York State received a total of $8,564,033 from Round 13 of the Regional Economic Development Council initiative.

Capital Region

Historic Cherry Hill

$ 100,000.00

Historic Cherry Hill (HCH), a cultural attraction and historic site in the South End of Albany, will construct a parking area and update existing paved surfaces to make the site more attractive, accessible, welcoming, and walkable. Updates will improve visitor experiences and accommodate attendance growth.

The Albany Institute of History & Art

$ 51,000.00

The Albany Institute of History & Art will use grantee funds towards the marketing of Two Worlds: The Dutch and Mohican Commemoration Project, the Albany Institute of History & Art’s upcoming commemoration of 400 years of Dutch culture in the region, including the founding of Fort Orange, the first permanent Dutch settlement that developed into the city of Albany.

Museum Association of New York

$ 135,500.00

Museum Association of New York will use tourism funding to produce an interactive website and execute a comprehensive and targeted marketing campaign to attract over 50,000 visitors to 12 museums across NYS, promoting a special Smithsonian Institute exhibition “Voices and Votes: Democracy in America.”

Albany County Historical Association (Ten Broeck Mansion)

$ 119,952.00

The Albany County Historical Association will acquire, plan, and restore critical contributing elements to the Ten Broeck Mansion historic landscape. Acquisition involves the permanent protection of part of the 1764 Ten Broeck Mansion land plot, including a burial lot and orchard, preserving a viewshed of the historic grounds. Planning and archaeological surveys allow the installation of accessible walkways, stabilization, interpretive signage and Phase 1 of the historic orchard restoration.

Underground Railroad History Project of the Capital Region, Inc.

$ 1,107,457.00

The Interpretive Center is a new net zero energy building that includes reuse of salvaged materials, geothermal HVAC, and solar. The Center will incorporate CORE Living Building Challenge Standards whose sustainability goals include energy efficiency, reduced carbon emissions, sustainable materials, and universal access. The building will be a model of carbon-neutral performance in addition to being the go-to place for educational opportunities related to African American history.

Central NY

Discovery Center of Science and Technology (The Museum of Science and Technology, MOST)

$ 300,000.00

Discovery Center of Science and Technology will build out currently unused space to support the MOST's mission. The new space will create more classrooms for the MOST's day camps and programs, STEM Library, and education offices.

Friends of the Rosamond Gifford Zoo at Burnett Park

$ 432,000.00

Friends of the Rosamond Gifford Zoo at Burnett Park will use grant funds to construct a Botanical Garden and replace the existing Sound/Visual System with a state-of-the-art enhanced system. This project will enhance the zoo as a destination and key attraction for visitors to the CNY region of NY.

Finger Lakes

The Strong Museum

$ 131,250.00

The Strong Museum will use the grant funds to support a portion of the costs to market and promote a Canadian focused marketing initiative to significantly increase tourism from the Toronto region to the museum and surrounding Finger Lakes region.

Genesee Country Museum

$ 71,450.00

Genesee Country Museum will use funding to host and promote special events, including unique solar eclipse related events, at this tourism attraction promoting visitation to the Genesee Valley and Finger Lakes region, and increasing spending per visitor

Rochester Museum & Science Center

$ 263,157.00

Rochester Museum & Science Center will use capital grant funds to construct a Treehouse Village in the iconic Red pine forest at the Cumming Nature Center (CNC). The Treehouse Village will be a one-of-a-kind space for educational programming and events and will grow the CNC as a year-round recreational and tourist destination.

George Eastman Museum

$ 500,000.00

The George Eastman Museum, a National Historic Landmark, will address necessary and urgent repairs to the Rock Garden’s Grape Arbor so that it may be safely enjoyed. Significant accessibility improvements will provide a welcoming experience for all visitors and community members. Restoration work will ensure that this key structure in the original Rock Garden design is sustained for future generations.

1816 Farmington Quaker Meetinghouse Museum

$ 481,592.00

The 1816 Farmington Quaker Meetinghouse Museum will restore the nationally significant 1816 Meetinghouse for use as an interpretive center and community gathering place. Highlighting the national importance of movements for equal rights in the Finger Lakes region, the restored Meetinghouse will enhance the quality of life for residents and promote regional economic development through heritage tourism.

Long Island

The Whaling Museum & Education Center at Cold Spring Harbor

$ 150,000.00

The Whaling Museum will use a portion of the funds for the expansion of the new Conservation Pavilion, which will house New York State's first Sperm Whale skeleton; the opening of the historic 1894 Wright House to public visitation; and the renovation of the existing gallery space and gift shop.

Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame

$ 125,000.00

The Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame will use tourism marketing funding to host and promote a year-long exhibition featuring the life and music of world-renowned music artist Billy Joel with the debut of the "Billy Joel-My Life" exhibit.

Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum

$ 500,000.00

The Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum will stabilize and restore its shuttered, deteriorating boathouse, and adapt it for educational and recreational use. The project will preserve an important piece of history for future generations to enjoy. The stabilized boathouse will attract heritage tourism, benefit local businesses, and stimulate economic growth. It will serve as an educational resource, with programs and events that promote maritime history and cultural learning.

Mid-Hudson

Boscobel

$ 250,000.00

Boscobel is a nonprofit museum established sixty years ago and is now an esteemed Historic House Museum containing one of the finest collections of decorative arts from the Federal period. Boscobel Restoration, Inc. has a larger campus-wide capital improvement plan they will be undertaking intending to secure Boscobel as a thriving cultural site and community resource, focused on serving a wider audience through programming that explores nature, design, and history. This phase of the project will increase public access and safety; become a hub for regional visitors; and improve traffic congestion by streamlining vehicles entering and departing the site. To improve climate resiliency and mitigate flooding, Boscobel will convert a significant portion of its site to a native planting meadow in addition to installing a new maintenance barn with photovoltaic panels.

Dia Beacon

$ 1,397,000.00

Dia Art Foundation will use tourism capital funding to support a portion of the costs to develop a landscape design project that will convert the museum’s large south lawn space into a public outdoor area with walkable connections to the Beacon Train Station and the regional trail network.

Storm King Art Center

$ 141,750.00

Storm King Art Center will use the funds to support marketing efforts promoting both the opening of the Capital Project and our 2025 Season, the first full season to make use of the Capital Project

Hudson River Museum

$ 50,000.00

Hudson River Museum will use grant funds to develop and promote solar eclipse related programming to increase visitation to this attraction and to the overall Mid-Hudson region.

Mohawk Valley

National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum

$ 232,500.00

National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum will be launching a marketing initiative focused on Japanese baseball, coinciding with Ichiro Suzuki’s first year of being eligible for election into the Hall of Fame. Known simply as Ichiro by baseball fans around the world, his Induction would be a first for a Japanese player.

Greater Oneonta Historical Society

$ 82,500.00

The Greater Oneonta Historical Society (GOHS) is a non-profit organization that works toward a mission of promoting Greater Oneonta’s past by collecting and preserving authentic objects and documents, disseminating knowledge, and providing stimulating educational experiences through dynamic programs and exhibitions. The Historical Society will replace the brickwork on the Oneonta History Center building located in Downtown Oneonta to adequately secure and protect the building’s exterior and structure, and to keep the center open and accessible.

New York City

National September 11 Memorial and Museum

$ 216,925.00

The National September 11 Memorial and Museum will be used to support a portion of the costs to host a commemorative public art installation on the night of September 11, an iconic symbol that both honors those killed and celebrates the unbreakable spirit of New York.

American Museum of the Moving Image

$ 150,000.00

MoMI will present Welcoming the World through Film and Media at MoMI, a year-long marketing campaign to increase regional, national, and international audiences. This marketing will drive visitors to Queens for exhibitions, festivals, film screenings, and promotional events, bringing economic benefits to MoMI and the region.

North Country

The Fort Ticonderoga Association

$ 660,000.00

The Fort Ticonderoga Association will create a marketing plan to promote and market northern New York historic sites, including Fort Ticonderoga, Saratoga, and other New York State Historic Sites as part of the national 250th commemorative period

Historic Saranac Lake

$ 115,000.00

Historic Saranac Lake will perform repairs to the historic slate roof at the Saranac Laboratory Museum in Saranac Lake, New York. The repairs will protect and stabilize this architecturally and historically important building that is a center for downtown revitalization.

Southern Tier

Tanglewood Nature Center

$ 600,000.00

Tanglewood Community Nature Center, Inc. will use the capital tourism grant funds to support a portion of the costs to construct a Canopy Walkway in the heart of the Southern Tier REDC and Finger Lakes Tourism Region, providing residents and tourists with a new perspective of the natural environment, bringing people eye-level with the tree canopy and its many inhabitants.

Western New York

Frank Lloyd Wright's Martin House

$ 50,000.00

Frank Lloyd Wright's Martin House will use grant funding to increase marketing efforts to boost off-season visitation to this exceptional historic site and the Western NY region during the off-season months.

Old Fort Niagara Association

$ 50,000.00

Old Fort Niagara Association will be used to support a marketing campaign focused on raising awareness of Old Fort Niagara, a significant historical attraction in Western NY, keeping the Fort top-of-mind for locals and tourists.

The Aquarium of Niagara

$ 100,000.00

The Aquarium of Niagara will use grant funds to amplify the Aquarium of Niagara’s planned marketing efforts to celebrate the opening of Great Lakes 360. This campaign will drive local, regional, and international visitation towards the Aquarium’s largest expansion, connecting guests with wildlife found in the Great Lakes region.

The application for Empire State Development Grant funds remains open, and applications are being reviewed on an on-going basis until funds are exhausted. Applicants with strong, shovel-ready projects that align with the state and region's economic development priorities can apply through the Consolidated Funding Application.

Learn more: https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-announces-more-57-million-awarded-through-round-xiii-regional-economic

Rebuilding a Museum, Brick by Brick: The Haverstraw Brick Museum

Thu, 26 Oct 2023 13:58:31 GMT

The Haverstraw Brick Museum is rebuilding its facilities in a $3 million renovation project to create a state-of-the-art museum. The renovation will increase the museum’s capacity to offer educational and public programming and restore the original 19th-century structure. It will add space for the museum’s collection, archives, staff offices, a terrace roof garden, and an ADA-compliant back entrance. They will also create the “Center for Innovation,” a space dedicated to examining historical and contemporary fine art and architectural tradecrafts that use clay as a creative and construction medium.

“The original concept for the expansion and renovation began as part of the $10 million Downtown Revitalization Initiative awarded by Governor Hochul in 2022 to Haverstraw in partnership with the Village of Ossining,” said Rachel Whitlow, Executive Director of the Haverstraw Brick Museum. “Haverstraw and Ossining are sister villages located across the Hudson River from each other. The idea was that both waterfronts and main streets would berevitalized together. The museum was awarded $1.5 million from this grant.”

Founded in 1995, the Haverstraw Brick Museum preserves the history of the brick industry of North Rockland County. The museum is located on Main Street and is within walking distance to the Village Hall, schools, and the community center. “There is three miles of unused riverfront,” said Whitlow. “The remaining riverfront property is included in the Downtown Revitalization project with a hotel, restaurant, and housing development , connecting Main Street with the riverfront. Because the museum is located on Main Street, we are part of this revitalization.”

In 1815, brick-making was one of the Hudson River Valley’s most profitable and largest industries with brickyards stretching as far north as Albany. By the 1880s, there were over 40 brickyards in the Haverstraw area with brick-making the dominant profession. With easy access to New York City via the Hudson River, and to the west via the Erie Canal, over 300 million bricks from 41 brickyards were shipped out of Haverstraw each year. Building construction in New York City was using one billion bricks annually from the Rockland County area.

“Bricks from this small village created the infrastructure for two thirds of New York City,” said Whitlow. “New York City is home to some of the largest infrastructure construction and residential buildings in the world. It’s the Lincoln and the Brooklyn Battery tunnels, and neighborhoods like the Upper West Side and Harlem. Most of Harlem was built with bricks from Haverstraw.”

With new programming and this expansion, the museum plans on sharing more of the stories of the brick workers as well. “The Village of Haverstraw is one of the oldest continuously integrated Sanctuary Towns that provided an opportunity for foreign immigrants and African Americans who came North in the The Great Migration to work and live. Their combined labors contributed to building one of the greatest cities in the world.” During the Great Migration in the early 20th century, Black Southerners were recruited by brickyard owners, who would pay for their travel expenses. 60% of the workforce in the brickyards of Haverstraw were Black. “This is significant information that we want to share, especially with people who live in New York City. It will be a main focus on the first floor of the new museum.”

The Building

“Our project theme is ‘learn the past, discover the future.’ The museum design incorporates this perspective with the front of the building restored to the 1800s and the rear incorporating more contemporary brick designs.”

The collections storage and kilns for the museum’s Center for Ceramic Innovation will be located in the basement.

The first floor is designed around a large central space exhibition space dedicated to Haverstraw’s history from 1616 to the 1940s. It will focus on brickyard history, immigration and migration, steam-driven innovations, geology, and earth science, and will host community programs.

The second floor’s Center for Innovation is designed for hands-on learning and includes the Center for Ceramic Innovation, a 3D printing lab, classroom space, and artists in resident exhibition spaces. The National Endowment for the Arts awarded $40,000 to the museum to create this maker space for ceramic art and new brick construction. “Our goal is to draw visitors and tourists from all over the world as the brick industry once did,” said Whitlow. “Through the Center, we will offer after-school programs, residency programs for visiting artists and architects, and hands-on learning for our local students and community center. “ It’s going to be our place to experiment and play.”

The third floor is dedicated to the museum’s research library, paper and photo archives, staff offices,and meeting rooms. “Our archives go back to the 1700s and only about 1% are on display now. We hope to create a public research library for our paper and photographic archives.”

The roof design includes sculptures, native plants, a butterfly garden, and “New Brick” living sculptures from the collection. “The fourth floor will be our place of discovery and our environmental teaching center will focus on telling the story of the impact of the Hudson River as an economic driver and as an estuary. Most of the brickyards along the Hudson River are now underwater. Years of use had a tremendous impact on the environment and the shoreline of the Hudson. ” Haverstraw hopes to join other New York climate-smart communities by focusing on renewable energy throughout DRI building initiatives.

The museum previously underwent a $45,000 renovation in 2019 that included building repairs as well as an exhibition reinstallation. The museum currently operates in a 2,000-square-foot space. “Sometimes being small can be an advantage because you can pivot quickly,” said Whitlow. It also allowed the museum to focus on strategic partnerships with the Croton Aqueduct for exhibitions and programming. The museum gets about 4,000 visitors annually, many of them from school groups. “The strongest part of our programming is our STEAM education. The idea of play is part of our philosophy that innovation comes from exploration. How do we give students today the ability to do that?”

Whitlow anticipates it will take six years to complete the project. “Being in the heart of downtown makes us a resource for the local community and that aligns with our mission that includes providing a unique perspective into America’s cultural heritage.We are excited for this project to attract more visitors to the museum and to Haverstraw.”

Learn more about the Haverstraw Brick Museum: https://www.haverstrawbrickmuseum.org/

The Co-Creation Model for Inclusive Interpretation at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Thu, 26 Oct 2023 12:58:55 GMT

In 2021, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden (BBG) was awarded a $178,668 Museums for America grant from Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) in the Lifelong Learning category to expand its Interpretive Master Plan with the goal to become a more inclusive, living museum. The expansion project titled, Inclusive Master Plan, helped the Garden include a broader cross-section of perspectives and achieve its goals to become a more welcoming, urban museum. The project formalizes inclusive practices such as providing staff professional development, amplifying community voices, and expanding storytelling about the Garden’s history and collections through its staff and volunteers while strengthening the Garden’s ability to serve the public.

The first interpretive plan created in 2006 (also funded by the IMLS) focused on interactive interpretation and was heavily visitor-driven. “It was the first interpretive plan that the Garden had and it coincided with the Garden’s strategic planning process,” said Kate Fermoile, BBG’s Director of Interpretation and Exhibitions. “It was from this strategic planning process that the Garden established an interpretation department and hired its first Director of Interpretation, Sonal Bhatt.” Bhatt, now Vice President of Education and Interpretation, leads this new project with Fermoile. “[Bhatt] oversaw the first interpretive plan and its subsequent update in 2008. We updated the plan internally when I joined BBG to reflect more of the educational practices we were interested in, including more informal learning, more educational pop-ups, and conversations with visitors.” The first interpretive plan coincided with the Garden’s “Campaign for the Next Century” which added four new acres of garden space, new amenities, and permanent exhibitions. This Campaign invested more than $3 million in new interpretive signage and rotating exhibitions that focused on the intersection of art, science, and plants. The plan also created dialogue-based interpretation to support the Garden’s new “living classrooms.”

“I felt like we achieved almost all of the goals in the original interpretive plan,” said Fermoile. “And now, with this next interpretation or expansion, the Garden is looking from the perspective of where the world is in the 2020’s and BBG wants to be a community garden, not just a place for the community - but of the community. We need an interpretive plan to reflect that and to tell the stories that we know haven't been told.”

A visitor demographic survey conducted by BBG in 2015 found that 34% of its visitors are People of Color compared to an American Community Survey’s 2019 census data, cited by BBG in its IMLS grant application, 77% of Brooklyn Community District 9, 65% of Brooklyn, and 57% of New York City are People of Color. BBG wants this new interpretive plan to expand its representation of diverse experiences, to increase the opportunity for visitors to find relevance and connection to the Garden and its mission, and “to connect people to the world of plants, promote environmental stewardship, and engagement in science.” BBG also cited a 2017 Culture Track report by La Placa Cohen which suggests that one of the main reasons people choose not to visit a cultural institution is that they feel it is “not for them.” The same sentiment has been echoed in BBG surveys.

Fermoile hopes that this work will strengthen BBG’s ability to serve the public by using a co-creation model starting with BBG staff and volunteers. “We submitted this IMLS grant two years ago, in the midst of the pandemic, so what we were thinking about doing at the time ended up not being feasible in 2021 when we embarked on the project.” BBG originally planned on bringing in groups of community members and organizations for roundtable discussions and conversations. “But it was really hard to do in 2021 when so many people were still working remotely.” Instead, after a few internal conversations, BBG decided that it could start with the staff. “The Garden staff are also the community. They live and work in Brooklyn. We have 150 full-time and part-time staff and volunteers. We decided to turn our attention inward to start with the BBG community, thinking about a co-creation model where we would work with not just the heads of the Interpretation Department, or just a few people deciding on what stories we were telling, but to develop a model where we’re all co-creating together, telling stories that are important to all of us.” This co-creation model utilizes community feedback and shared perspectives from across the BBG staff and volunteers to create new public offerings from new viewpoints while still remaining focused on the Garden’s mission and shared goals.

The Garden hired Makalé Cullen, an ethnobotanist consultant with a background in folklore to work with people to gather and tell stories together. “Makalé put together a number of listening sessions with the staff and volunteers who are involved with our children’s programs, “Community Greening” (urban greening through education, conservation, and creative partnerships), and with teenagers who visit the Garden on a regular basis. In these sessions, she talked with the teenagers about the stories that interested them and asked if they would like to tell these stories themselves or if they would like to tell other stories that aren’t being told at BBG.”

The Inclusive Master Plan includes creating and developing an “Inclusive Community Engagement Guide” for staff and community constituents that will include a listening tool kit that includes recommended facilitation techniques, survey methods, conversation prompts, and additional criteria to ensure that inclusion and equity are prioritized in the process of co-creating multi-dimensional stories that will impact BBG’s approach to program development and exhibitions in the future. “We’re currently in the process of editing down a draft of this co-creation guide into something that the entire staff at BBG could use as part of the work they’re doing,” said Fermoile.

BBG is already piloting a number of stories that came from the staff listening sessions. “Something that we heard repeatedly in these sessions was that people wanted to see their culture reflected in the stories that we’re telling in the Garden. Brooklyn is a super diverse place and the Garden is 52 acres in the middle of this borough and borders Caribbean neighborhoods. BBG has Caribbean trees and plants and people would like to see themselves and their plants and stories told, not from a colonial perspective, but from their own perspective.”

Shelley Worrell of I Am CaribBEING and Meera Jagroop and Chelsea Forgenie of Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Photo by Michael Stewart. Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Fermoile brought in Chelsea Forgenie, BBG’s School Workshops Coordinator and Meera Jagroop, Director of Youth Programs (who are Caribbean Americans) to co-curate “Trees of Little Caribbean,” an exhibition that celebrates trees and treelike plants cherished by the Caribbean people that spark stories of rebellion, resilience, spirituality, and joy. The exhibition, located in the Steinhardt Conservatory, teaches people about native Caribbean trees like papaya, guava, soursop, and allspice as well as non-native plants, like the banana, that were brought from across the globe under colonization. “BBG partnered with Shelley Worrell, Co-founder of I AM CaribBEING, a cultural venue in Brooklyn that illuminates the Caribbean experience and communities throughout New York City that use our permanent collection to tell these stories,” said Fermoile. “It’s been a huge success for the creation of these partnerships, both with BBG staff and different cultural organizations in our community, and we’ve also seen a shift in visitorship since this exhibition opened in February. It’s hard to tell with quantiative statistics, but anecdotally through programming, we know this has increased the visitorship of people from the neighborhood. We’ve heard from our education staff that students are delighted to hear about plants and stories from their culture. It was a huge success to work with internal curators who do not typically do that kind in their day-to-day work. The exhibition is a whole different perspective and different voice.”

Signage for the Trees of Little Caribbean exhibit. Photo by Michael Stewart.

In addition to creating a broader cross-section of perspectives through exhibitions and programming, BBG received additional funding from a private donor to hire a researcher to investigate the history of the land and organization. “I came to this position after being the Vice President for Exhibits and Education at the Brooklyn Historical Society and Tenement Museum as the Education Director, so I’m a history person and now I’m a history person who loves to talk about plants,” said Fermoile. “When I first started working here, I was amazed that when we would give tours and discuss how the garden, the 52 acres, was part of the terminal moraine Wisconsin glacier that created this space, and then we would jump to the early 19th century when people were using this space as an ash dump, and then it became a garden. They skipped a lot of important history about the people who first worked this land. There was so much we didn't know and we’re able to tell now. This additional funding allowed us to hire a historian to research primary sources and helped us uncover this history so we can include it in the stories that we’re telling and collecting.”

The Garden is also working with the Lenape Center, an organization founded in 2009 led by Lenape elders with a mission of continuing Lenapehoking, the Lenape homeland through community, culture, and art. “We’ve been working with them to develop a living land acknowledgment and to help weave their stories into the stories we’re telling here.”

BBG plans on introducing a draft of their Inclusive Community Engagement Guide at an all-staff retreat next February. They will continue to work with the interpretive committee that changes year to year based on different themes, and will hire an evaluator to assess the impact of the past two exhibitions developed using this co-creation model.

“I always learn so much from working with a team of people who are smart and creative and have great stories to tell,” said Fermoile. “Working with my colleagues this past year has been a joy and I've learned a lot. Our programs are richer and I think we’re headed in the right direction.”

Learn more about the Brooklyn Botanic Garden here: https://www.bbg.org/about

Letter from Erika: Giving Voice to Value

Wed, 25 Oct 2023 12:11:39 GMT

Dear Members, Friends, and Supporters,

I was reminded last week that in the Capital Region’s hardiness zones, tulip bulbs are planted in October and November – about eight weeks before a hard frost. They then need another 120 days of freezing temperatures before blooming in April. I can’t grow tulips. The deer that share our yard think they are fall snack offerings, so I forget that at this time of year so many friends have their hands in the soil and their minds on spring blossoms.

The MANY staff will soon shift our work from travel around the state to planning our 2024 annual conference. This year our timeline mimics the tulips gathering energy below ground, with about 160 days before the 2024 conference in Albany. Although it may look quiet behind the door to our office, we are busy gathering everyone’s ideas to shape the conference. The Call for Proposals went out last week and the Nominations for Awards of Distinction was sent on Monday. In about a month, we will challenge our Capital Region planning team to create workshops, tours, and special events that will help Albany shine amongst the tulips that will bloom around us in April.

MANY’s annual conference helps museum professionals build a network to share perspectives, tools, and skills that develop excellence across the field. Our goal is to nurture a community of practice, advance institutional change, and create an inclusive and expansive New York team of collaborators that learn together. We welcome proposals that share new perspectives on issues we all face, encourage open and thoughtful conversations, model collaboration, and illuminate the complex conditions under which we sustain, thrive, and support the history, art, and culture of New York State.

If you have questions about the theme or how to submit a proposal, please send an email to conference@nysmuseums.org.

With hope that you will join us in Albany to share your ideas about how we can build a better future for New York’s museums,

Erika Sanger

Executive Director

P.S. We know there is a small global event happening on Monday, April 8 called a total solar eclipse. The city of Albany is in the 96.6% “totality” zone. The conference schedule will include time - and glasses - to view the eclipse.

2023 Snapshot of NYS Museums

Wed, 04 Oct 2023 19:31:30 GMT

Data fielded August 1 - 18, 2023

116 New York State museums responded to the Museum Association of New York's survey from all ten REDC regions, with representation from museums of multiple disciplines and budget sizes.

MANY compared this data to the American Alliance of Museum's 2023 National Snapshot of United States Museums, fielded in March and April 2023 by Wilkening Consulting with 340 museum responses.

While NYS museums are trending at the same rate as nationally reported data in some areas, in other areas they are lagging behind.

43% of responding NYS museums have yet to recover to pre-pandemic attendance numbers, averaging a 66% attendance rate compared to pre-pandemic.
28% reported a decrease in staff size, an additional 16% loss in staff since 2019
36% of NYS museums are actively recruiting for positions
17% reported a decrease in their museum's operating budget, while 33% reported an increase. 50% reported that their museum's operating budget remained relatively the same as it was pre-pandemic which is 13% higher than the national data.
More than half of responding museums received some type of federal pandemic relief funding.

Click here to read and download the full report.

Taking Initiative: Fort Ticonderoga and the Creation of the Northern Department

Thu, 28 Sep 2023 13:04:34 GMT

Fort Ticonderoga, New York. Photo by Roy Johnson/Alamy

More than fifty organizations, museums, and historic sites from across New York. Vermont, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Canada have joined together to create the 250^th Northern Department, an initiative led by Fort Ticonderoga as part of its plans for the national 250^th commemoration of the American War for Independence. This initiative will promote and market regional historic sites during the commemorative period from 2024 to 2027 through print and digital content. “Fort Ticonderoga was in a great position to take the lead, as a private nonprofit, a major destination, and historically the hub of the Northern Department^[1] ” said Beth Hill, Fort Ticonderoga President and CEO. The Fort will build, fund, develop, and serve as the lead organizer for this multi-state and US-Canada partnership.

Built by the French between 1755 and 1757 Fort Ticonderoga, played strategic roles in the Seven Years’ War and other conflicts between Great Britain and France during 18^th century, and again during the American War for Independence. To interpret this history, Fort Ticonderoga takes a year-by-year approach. “One of our biggest challenges is being strategic with our interpretation because there is so much history and so many stories to share,” said Hill. The concept was created by Stuart Lilie, Fort Ticonderoga’s Vice President of Public History. “The whole concept of a year-by-year interpretation has allowed us to do what many museums do with rotating exhibitions.” This strategy allows the Fort to tell different stories year to year and attract repeat audiences.

Planning for the year that is selected begins 1 to 3 years in advance. It starts with the collections management team to make sure collection objects are ready and accessible for the Fort’s Graduate Fellows to research and prepare for visitors. “The fellows research, develop tours, develop what historic trades will be happening at the fort and the material culture which is a large part of our front facing programs. It includes our teacher institute and other education-related work as well as our preservation work. This approach really does touch every aspect of what we do and because Fort Ticonderoga has such a complicated and rich history, there really is no other way to approach it in our opinion. This has been masterful for both our staff to be focused and strategic as well as proving this content to our visitors.”

Map of Fort Ticonderoga, on Lake Champlain. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

To maximize the 250^th, Fort Ticonderoga is applying this same method of interpretation and calling it “Real Time Revolution.” In 2024, historical interpretation will center on 1774 and the British guard from the 26^th Regiment of Foot under Captain William Delaplace who was stationed there. They will focus on peacetime garrison life for soldiers and families contrasted with growing political dissent. “We’re going to dive into this time period and understand the context of who was here, the women and the children, and carry that story forward in time.”

“Real Time Revolution” will end in 2027, interpreting the year 1777, portraying soldiers from different regions and nations from around the Atlantic as Ticonderoga historically changed hands between armies.

Ahead of 2024, Fort Ticonderoga decided to partner with organizations from throughout the Northern Department including NYS Parks, Vermont State Parks, Saratoga National Park, and Parks Canada. “We’re excited about the opportunity to raise awareness for the 250^th,, but also for cultural tourism that will increase in economic impact,” said Hill. “Taking the initiative is a wonderful position for us to be in because, in a way, it empowers us to determine our own fate and get our own resources to develop programs.”

Hill said that they are in the early stages of acquiring additional funding, both private and public. For now, funding for the 250^th Northern Department is being built into Fort Ticonderoga’s operational budget. “We’ve been communicating with leadership and building support by looking at the American Battlefield Protection Program from the National Park Service and other avenues to build support and receive funding. We’re looking at all sources of potential support to be able to make the 250^th Northern Department possible and to amplify not only what we do, but create a lasting legacy,” said Hill.

In 2022, Fort Ticonderoga was awarded a $237,630 Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) Museums for America grant to focus on interpretive components, exhibition design, and digital resources. “This grant will help us highlight the interpretive themes that we’ve developed around the 250^th.” Those five key themes are Power of Place; Subjects, Citizens, Service; Revolutionary Possibilities; Manufacturing Independence; and Shaping Nations, Forging Identities.

Organizations participating in the 250th Northern Department anticipate hundreds of thousands of visitors to the region during the commemorative period. “The next step is engaging people and inspiring them to learn more about local history because our local history is of an international scope. We wanted to take action and make it happen so that we’re ready for this commemoration.” Hill hopes that with the creation of the Northern Department and Fort Ticonderoga creating content centered around the new interpretive themes, these sites will broaden their audiences and make a lasting impact on people’s memories through connections to our nation’s stories. “It’s the diverse stories of our nation that we’re really excited about,” said Hill. “This is a landmark initiative that will help define Fort Ticonderoga for generations.”

Learn more about the 250^th Northern Department:https://www.fortticonderoga.org/news/fort-ticonderoga-announces-the-creation-of-the-northern-department/

^[1] The Northern Department (also known as the New York Department) was one of six regional departments of the Continental Army of the American Revolution organized for command and administrative purposes. The Northern Department was those parts of New York north of New York City. It was first called the New York Department, but after the Highlands Department was created on November 12, 1776, it was always referred to as the Northern Department. This department was the only one to remain after the war. The last elements of the Continental Army were kept to guard the western frontier outposts.https://revolutionarywar.us/continental-army/military-departments/

Letter from Erika: Ask the Governor to Support New York’s History

Tue, 26 Sep 2023 14:27:26 GMT

Photo ID:Trojan Greens Officer's Coatee, Troy, New York, wool, brass, silver, 1809-1815, Collection of Fort Ticonderoga

Dear Members, Colleagues, and Friends,

The strength of our combined voices is our superpower. When we come together to speak out on an issue, we can be loud and we can be heard. Sometimes advocating for New York’s history, art, and cultural organizations is the most gratifying part of my job. Other times, it is the most challenging work I do. Sue Storm bends light to become invisible, Superman steels himself with his cape, and Wonder Woman’s bracelets deflect projectiles. On days when I feel like there are huge obstacles separating our state’s history, art, and cultural organizations from those who can help, I close my eyes, and in my imagination, I put on the coat pictured above, tuck all of you in my pockets, take a deep breath, and start again. One of the biggest challenges I have faced in the past year is raising awareness of the critical need for a Semiquincentennial Commission in New York. I am asking you to add your voice now before New York’s contributions to our nation’s history are left behind in the 2026 commemorations.

Some of us have gathered resources to move ahead without a NY250 commission.

In MANY’s September newsletter, you can read about Fort Ticonderoga’s 250^th Northern Department which will promote and market regional historic sites during the commemorative period from 2024-2027. The Office of New York State History created a Field Guide that aligns with themes established by the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) in their Making History at 250: The Field Guide for the Semiquincentennial. The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation is investing in the preservation of historic sites with the help of the National Park Service’s Semiquincentennial Grant Program. In partnership with Humanities NY and the Smithsonian Institution, and the support of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the William G. Pomeroy Foundation, MANY will launch Voices and Votes: A New Agora for New York in March of 2024. But without a NY250 Commission, most of New York’s history will remain untold.

I know that advocacy work does not come easily to some people. But with this letter, I am asking you to gather whatever you need -- a coat, a cape, or bracelets -- to find a few minutes and the place within you to speak up for New York’s history. Please write to Governor Hochul and ask her to complete the appointments to seat the NY250 commission. Tell those representing you in the New York State Assembly and Senate why the Semiquincentennial is important to you and your community. New York needs to support our history, art, and cultural organizations to produce commemorative activities that can tell an inclusive story of our state’s essential role in the Revolutionary War and all of the struggles for civil rights and justice that followed.

With thanks in advance for sharing your superpower,

Erika Sanger, Executive Director

IMLS Funding Opportunities: Inspire! Grants for Small Museums and Museums for America

Tue, 29 Aug 2023 15:07:12 GMT

The Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is the primary source of federal support for the nation’s approximately 120,000 libraries and 35,000 museums and related organizations. In 2022, the IMLS awarded $44.7 million in 280 grants to museums; $7.1 million was awarded to 37 museums in New York State. We spoke to three New York State museums who were awarded an Inspire! Grants for Small Museums or a Museums for America grant in FY2022 about their project goals and advice for museums interested in applying.

Inspire! Grants for Small Museums

Inspire! Grants for Small Museums are a special initiative of the Museums for America grant program and are designed to reduce the application burden on small museums and help them address priorities identified in their strategic plans. Recipients focus on lifelong learning experiences, institutional capacity building, and collections stewardship and access.

New for FY2024, the IMLS will fund two different project types, small projects: $5,000 - $25,000 with no cost share required and large projects: $25,001 - $75,000 with a 1:1 cost share required.

The Edward Hopper House Museum (EHH) was awarded $49,500 to work with professional conservators to complete conservation treatments on fragile objects in its collection. The museum took a two-phase approach to this project. The first phase was funded by a 2020 National Endowment for the Humanities CARES Act Grant. This grant provided the museum with funds for a digitization plan and the digitization of 135 collection items. “It created a detailed conservation survey that provided some of the treatment plans for Phase 2 that was funded by the IMLS Inspire! Grants for Small Museums,” said Kathleen Bennewitz, Executive Director of the Edward Hopper House Museum & Study Center.

In Phase 2 the museum worked with book, paper, and photographer conservators at the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts in Philadelphia to complete treatment on 27 items that were identified as extremely fragile, rendering them currently inaccessible for use in exhibitions, programming, and research. “As an IMLS “Collections Stewardship and Access” request, this project is strengthening EHH’s ability to serve its public by advancing the management, care, access, and uses of their collections through conservation treatment,” said Bennewitz.

Images from Edward Hopper's Nyack High School Zoology notebook, c. 1896-1899 ; The Sanborn-Hopper Family Archive, Edward Hopper House Museum & Study Center, Nyack, NY

Conservators will document the treatment in photographic and written reports. The project will result in access to stabilized objects that can be used by researchers, scholars, curators, and students studying Edward Hopper’s career and art. “This stewardship project will benefit our visitors to the Edward Hopper House Museum, as well as provide previously unavailable access to this material for researchers, scholars, curators, and students studying Edward Hopper’s career and art, the history of the Nyack community, and life and industry along the Hudson River circa 1880-1910.”

Preservation Long Island (PLI) was awarded $45,137 for an assessment of its inventory practices to improve access and the long-term care and maintenance of the collections displayed and stored at its historic sites and facilities—the PLI Headquarters building in Cold Spring Harbor, Joseph Lloyd Manor and Collections Storage in Lloyd Harbor, Sherwood-Jayne Farm in Setauket, and the Custom House in Sag Harbor. “The goals of the project were to work with a professional collections consultant to test and establish standardized procedures for doing regular collections inventories and then to hire a project collections assistant to accomplish a baseline inventory of PLI’s entire objects collection,” said Lauren Brincat, PLI Curator. .

Located in the present-day Town of Huntington, Joseph Lloyd Manor was completed in 1767 for Joseph Lloyd (1716–1780). The house was the center of the Manor of Queens Village, a 3,000-acre provisioning plantation established in the late 17th century on the ancestral lands of the Matinecock Nation. Jupiter Hammon (1711–before 1806), one of the first published African American writers, was one of the many people of African descent enslaved at the site. The British occupied Joseph Lloyd Manor during the Revolutionary War, and it is where Hammon authored his most significant works about the moral conflicts of slavery and freedom in the early United States.

The collections inventory project will help bring to light new stories that can be told with the existing collections at PLI’s historic sites. In addition, with the information gathered through this project, PLI will be able to seek new acquisitions that help make PLI’s collection—and the public programs, exhibitions, interpretations, and digital content the collection supports—more relevant to more people while also enhancing public knowledge of unrepresented stories. “Another goal of this work is to share our experience and methodologies with local organizations to assist them in their own collections inventory work,” said Brincat. PLI will use Joseph Lloyd Manor and its collection as a pilot site. They will contract with a museum services firm to conduct a workflow assessment, develop inventory and staffing plans, and support staff in testing new procedures.

After testing is completed, PLI will hire a temporary collections assistant to employ the new protocols in inventorying collections at other Preservation Long Island sites. The project will result in an inventory manual, increased organizational knowledge of requisite staff capacity for routine collection inventories, and greater public access to objects related to the regional material culture of New York.

Brincat’s advice to other museums thinking of applying for an IMLS Inspire! Grant is to “create projects that have demonstrable sustainability and will continue to have an impact on the organization beyond the project’s duration. We plan to share the goals, process, and outcomes of the project through our website and public talks/workshops,” said Brincat. “To build upon this work, Preservation Long Island will address redundancies and gaps in its collection and will pursue further funding to assess its current collections management software and procedures and potentially adopt a new system that makes the organization’s entire collection more accessible to Preservation Long Island educators and the greater public.”

Museums for America

Museums for America supports projects that strengthen the ability of individual museums to benefit the public by providing high-quality, inclusive learning experiences, maximizing resources to address community needs through partnerships and collaborations, and preserving and providing access to the collections entrusted to their care.

Schenectady County Historical Society (SCHS) was awarded $87,100 to survey historical records created by individuals and organizations in the African American community of Schenectady County. “The primary goals of this grant project are to promote community stewardship of the historical records created by African Americans in Schenectady County, develop relationships between SCHS and community partners, support community custody of the archival collections, and increase access to primary sources for students and researchers, particularly Black students in the Schenectady City School District,” said Marietta Carr, SCHS Librarian.

A consulting project archivist will work with an advisory committee, museum staff, and student assistants to conduct site visits, review record collections, document those of enduring historic value, and log responses to survey questions from creators, collectors, and custodians of historical records.

“SCHS wants to serve as a resource for the preservation of African American historical records, but we must first understand what records exist and what the community needs from us in this shared goal,” said Carr. Public programs will promote the project and provide information to the community on topics such as preservation and family history. “We worked with a community advisory committee to develop our project priorities which included administering a community survey, creating a catalog of community-stewarded collections and preservation efforts, developing a youth engagement component, and hosting community-based events. Overall, a year after we were awarded the grant, we still have the same priorities. The youth engagement component has become more of a focal point of the project. We've developed the Sankofa Youth Collective to employ at-risk youth in the community in delivering the community survey and events and established an "each one teach one" model of engagement. While the catalog component is still a priority, we're reconsidering the parameters and format.”

The project team will analyze the survey data and develop a searchable online catalog that identifies the location of records, their condition, and whether they are accessible to the public. This project will encourage community stewardship of historical records, engage the community to foster archival preservation, and strengthen relationships between the museum and community partners.

“Give yourself plenty of time to work on the application materials,” said Carr. “Once you have a concrete idea and plan and have reviewed the application documentation, schedule a meeting with the program officer to discuss your project idea and methodology. Talking with the program officer was extremely helpful in wrapping my head around the application materials and process.”

Applications for these and other IMLS grants are due November 15, 2023. Learn more about the IMLS and how to apply: https://imls.gov/

Learn more about NYS museums awarded in FY2023: https://nysmuseums.org/MANYnews/13237616

Letter from Erika: Priority Item #1: NY250: Tell the Whole Story

Tue, 29 Aug 2023 14:33:06 GMT

Instead of a traditional Letter from Erika, this month Erika shares the text she wrote for the Museum Association of New York’s priority request to the New York State Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic, and Asian Legislative Caucus’ 2024 People’s Budget.

Priority Item #1: NY250: Tell the Whole Story

In 2026, our nation will mark the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Ten of the original thirteen states along with 25 others have fully seated, active commissions, New York remains without. New York needs a commission and legislative action that will promote this opportunity as a priority and will allocate funding so that museums, historical societies, historic sites, and historic battlefields can begin to share their cultural resources with their communities and beyond. We must take this opportunity to welcome and incorporate equally the stories of Indigenous Nations, BIPOC, and new Americans.

Chapter 732 (signed by the Governor on 12/2021) acknowledges that “American Revolution itself was imperfect and many, including women, African Americans, and Native Americans, did not benefit from its ideals of liberty and freedom. However, the struggle to fully realize the ideals of the Revolution has continued over the past 250 years as is evident in New York's leading role in such revolutionary civil rights movements as the women's rights and abolitionist movements, the underground railroad, and the LGBTQ movement.”

The legislation requires a special commission to develop and deliver a strategic plan to the governor about New York's celebrations within one year of member appointments. Until the commission is fully seated and funded, the preliminary work of a strategic plan cannot begin. This delay may cause New York to lose national recognition of our prominent place in the American Revolution and a chance to tell the full story of New York’s role in the development of American democracy.

Speaker Heastie appointed the Vice-President of MANY’s Board of Directors, Dr. Georgette Grier-Key, Eastville Community Historical Society, Executive Director and Curator, to serve on New York State’s 250th Commemoration Commission. She is eager to work with the commission to help ensure that as many voices and stories as possible are represented in the commemorative activities.

The Museum Association of New York helps shape a better future for museums and museum professionals by uplifting best practices and building organizational capacity through advocacy, training, and networking opportunities. With 755 members representing museums of every discipline and budget size, from every county, we know that New York’s museums, historic sites, and historical societies are already working with their communities to expand our notions of whose history is worth honoring and remembering. They are ready to make history relevant to all of our communities and acknowledge the accomplishments and sacrifices of those who have fought for civil rights and our democracy, whether 250, 25, or 5 years ago. They recognize the structural deficits and inequities of the more traditional origin stories of our nation and with dedicated funding, are ready to shape an identity for New York that reflects those diverse stories in time for the America250 commemoration.

The support of the Caucus in this effort will be essential to its success.

The William G. Pomeroy Foundation and America250

Tue, 29 Aug 2023 14:22:50 GMT

Earlier this month, MANY Executive Director Erika Sanger spoke with Deryn Pomeroy, Trustee and Director of Strategic Initiatives at the William G. Pomeroy Foundation. The William G. Pomeroy Foundation is committed to supporting the celebration and preservation of community history, and working to improve the probability of finding appropriate donor matches or other life-saving treatments for blood cancer patients. Deryn does a lot of public facing work on the Foundation’s behalf, speaks to audiences about the Foundation’s grant work and attends programs and conferences. The William G. Pomeroy Foundation partnered with MANY to establish the Pomeroy Fund for NY History which distributed $297,808.72 to 103 museums in relief assistance during the pandemic. The Pomeroy Foundation recently awarded MANY a grant of $120,000 for its “Voices and Votes: A New Agora for NY" project that is helping twelve museums and their communities commemorate America250 and tell the story of their community’s role in the development of American Democracy.

Deryn Pomeroy, Trustee and Director of Strategic Initiative at the William G. Pomeroy Foundation speaks at the 2023 conference in Syracuse NY. Photo by Daylight Blue Media.

What types of programs do the Pomeroy Foundation typically fund in a given year?

The Historical Markers grant program is a big passion of the trustees and my father and I’m excited to say that we will be diving deeper in with more markers in the future. In addition to markers, we offer Special Interest grants that cover both the “For History” and “For Life” sides of our mission. On the “For Life” side, we primarily fund bone marrow registries or those organizations that set up bone marrow registry drives. Diversifying the bone marrow registry has been important to the Foundation since my dad received his stem cell transplant. For instance, if you are African American, you have a 25% chance of finding a match vs. an 80% chance for caucasians.

On the “For History” side of the foundation, we have been evolving the special interest grants. We are especially interested in smaller organizations with a history focus, those with a smaller budget or a smaller staff that may need a little extra assistance. More recently we have been focusing on digitization projects especially where digitization allows records to be publicly accessible without charge.

I’ve noticed that the Foundation’s grant-making has become more responsive and flexible in recent years, can you talk about that?

Flexibility is part of the Trustees’ overall thinking and the evolution of funding has been responsive and about public access. We are looking closely at smaller, more rural communities without a traditional funding base, or those communities with interest in preserving their collections and telling their stories who don’t have the expertise or the funding available. We learned during the pandemic that we had to adapt and respond quickly to needs in a way we have never seen before.

Is there a program that you funded in the past year that stands out in your mind where the foundation made a real difference?

On the “For Life” side, we have been funding “Be The Match” to recruit potential bone marrow donors on HBCU campuses. We are really proud that those programs have increased the number of diverse donors on the registry program. As a result of efforts like these, Pomeroy funded drives have produced at least 149 donor/patient matches. On the “For History” side, we recently funded a roof restoration project, which is not something we usually do, at a national historic register property in Western NY. The nonprofit Cracker Box Palace operating at Alasa Farms is now a sanctuary for neglected farm animals and other small animals. But they have a historic 600+ acre property and farm, an excellent application, and they have made a lot of progress keeping the farm true to its roots while bringing a new focus on animal care and bringing attention to animal abuse.

How has your historical marker program developed and grown nationally over the past three years?

The Historical Marker Program started in 2006 in Onondaga County. The program was well received because there was nothing like it in New York State, and my dad saw it as an excellent opportunity growing out of his entrepreneurial nature. It started in the town of Pompey, NY restoring some of their original 1930s NYS markers and it grew from there. We added the National Register program to provide public properties and historic districts on the Registry with markers and then added the “Legends & Lore” program. “Legends & Lore” was born out of the foundation receiving applications for the NYS marker program based on stories that were important to the communities, but didn’t fit the guidelines. We partnered with New York Folklore Society to create that program which is now in 13 states and we are trying to take it to all 50. “Hungry for History” markers are food history related and in 2023 we launched “Hometown Heritage,” a national marker program for historic people, places, things and events for places outside of NY state. “Hometown Heritage” is similar to the New York State Marker program, with a different look and template for the 49 other states.

Photo above Dr. Georgette Grier-Key, Executive Director and Chief Curator at the Eastville Community Historical Society with Amistad Commemoration sign at Culloden Point in Montauk, NY

Patriot Burial Marker

Why has the foundation invested in programs that support the America250 commemoration?

Our enthusiasm for the 250th has been of interest for a very long time.

It was always something we were looking forward to jumping into because of our direct and indirect ties to that history. It is the birthday of our nation and there are Pomeroy family ancestors who fought in the Revolution. George Washington tried to appoint Seth Pomeroy to Brigadier General, but he was an older man at that time and turned down the commission. He participated in a smaller role and passed away while bringing troops down to Washington, DC. Another relative, Daniel Pomeroy was killed at the Bloody Morning Scout, prior to the Battle of Lake George, my father could tell you much more about them!

What are the foundation’s goals for funding America250 programs? Are there specific outcomes that you would like to see?

Helping people celebrate and commemorate their history is part of our mission and this major milestone in our nation’s history falls in line with what we like to fund. We knew that we wanted to be involved and we have been surprised and disappointed with the disorganization and lack of support that we have seen at the federal level, and even at the state level. We had planned to jump on board with whatever that state and federal planning was going to be. We didn’t initially think we had to take such a proactive role in seeking out opportunities for funding.

We initiated our support for the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) after seeing their “Making History at 250” booklet. They were structuring a plan to help organizations, so we reached out to them to provide them with a grant to republish that booklet and make it available to organizations across the country. After that grant, they reached out to us to discuss the issues they were facing and the concerns of their members about the lack of direction coming from local, state, and federal governments. We were excited by their proposal, to bring another staff person onboard to build their capacity to better serve the museums and history organizations who needed that support. We were delighted to fund that proposal and they hired Madeline Rosenberg whose official title is Pomeroy Foundation Semiquincentennial Manager. She is going to have four years in that position to provide support to the field through 2026.

We are still trying to find ways that we can help both at the NYS level and the national level, and MANYs “Voices and Votes” was another great program that we saw could help organizations bring in people to connect with the idea of the 250th and talk about how they will be able to participate. We like the way “Voices and Votes” will help foster those conversations. We are still looking for other ways we can make a difference, there are pockets of people doing different things and we are looking where we can fit in.

How will the partnership with AASLH help museums and historic sites?

Madeline provides outreach and direction in a number of ways, with webinars and other types of assistance both in the office and out of the office. We are pleased and are excited to be going to the AASLH conference in Boise, Idaho this fall. It is great to see the dialog stimulated during the AASLH webinars, people from all over the country can come together virtually, people who have a real passion to commemorate the Semiquincentennial. The AASLH is showing how organizations can work together to reduce roadblocks, they offer peer support, have resources available, and help organizations to learn that they are not alone in trying to do this. I know there are a lot of organizations across the country who feel they have been left to their own devices and they may feel overwhelmed, especially those small organizations who might not be able to do anything. There is a lot to discuss and thoughtfully plan.

What comes after America250? How does the foundation sustain engagement and support to the field as we approach other critically important anniversaries?

Celebrating milestones is important to us. We put a lot into the “National Votes for Women'' trail that got shifted a bit during the pandemic, and we will be looking at future national and state priorities. Our next strategic plan will help us identify what might be important and we want to hear from the community about what is important to them. They should bring their ideas to the foundation so we can continue the responsive nature of the foundation. We want to see more ideas around the 250th.

Is there anything else you would like to share with us and our readers?

We are working on two other historical marker partnerships related to the Semiquincentennial.

One partnership is with the Sons of the American Revolution commemorating patriot burial sites. It was initially just in NY but it is now in 7 states and growing nationally. The second partnership is with the Daughters of the American Revolution. Called “Revolutionary America” it is a marker series designed to highlight stories of underrepresented populations, new Americans, women and Indigenous peoples, whose stories are part of the Revolution but have not been told.

We hope that our involvement with MANY and AASLH will spearhead more ideas and community conversations and hopefully, we will see participation from other private funders as well. That is something that we haven’t seen thus far. We have been told that the Pomeroy Foundation is the largest private funder for America250 and it would be great if we could help inspire other foundations similar to ours to step up, it is a big deal for our nation!

Learn more about the William G. Pomeroy Foundation: https://www.wgpfoundation.org/

Institute of Museum and Library Services: Funding to NYS Museums

Mon, 07 Aug 2023 17:49:56 GMT

36 NYS museums were awarded a total of $6,108,821 in the latest round of grant funding to museums from the Institute of Museum and Library Services’ Inspire! Grants for Small Museums, Museums for America, and Museums Empowered. A total of $31,509,007 was awarded to 218 projects across the nation by the IMLS from 568 applications requesting $73,685,100.

The Antique Boat Museum in Clayton, New York was awarded $50,000 from the IMLS Inspire! Grants for Small Museums to increase staff capacity.

The FY 2024 Notices of Funding Opportunity for these three programs will be posted later this month. The anticipated application deadline is November 15, 2023. For more information, please visit https://www.imls.gov/.

Inspire! Grants for Small Museums

Inspire! Grants for Small Museums are a special initiative of the Museums for America grant program and are designed to reduce the application burden on small museums and help them address priorities identified in their strategic plans. Recipients focus on lifelong learning experiences, institutional capacity building, and collections stewardship and access.

Antique Boat Museum, North Country

$50,000

The Antique Boat Museum will increase staff capacity to digitize two of its collections about the history of the Matthews Boat Owners Association and the Richardson Boat Owners Association. The Matthews Boat Owners Association collection contains approximately 30,000 documents and the Richardson Boat Owners Association contains approximately 5,000 documents, photographs, and works on paper. Project staff will catalog materials from these collections and make the collections digitally accessible online with a searchable collections database for the benefit of maritime historians and the public.

Castellani Art Museum (Niagara University), Western NY

$48,201

The Castellani Art Museum of Niagara University will develop a traveling exhibition, “Old/New Threads” about the intersections of traditional art, economy, and community-building. The exhibition will explore this topic through the case study of Stitch Buffalo, a textile arts-based organization serving primarily refugee women within the local community. This project will support a Project Manager and a paid intern, who, in consultation with humanities experts, will conduct new ethnographic fieldwork, develop interpretive panels and an exhibit catalog, create short-form videos, and design accompanying public programs such as artist-led workshops, demonstrations, and community celebrations. As a result, this project will recognize the efforts of diverse individuals and organizations that implement these opportunities for disadvantaged members of the community in the region, and contribute to improved refugee prosperity through increased visibility and awareness.

Cayuga Museum of History and Art, Central NY

$50,000

The Cayuga Museum of History and Art will complete the research phase of the museum’s planned permanent exhibit exploring the comprehensive history of Cayuga County. This project will support hiring a new curator and a paid intern who will create a new interpretive plan which will be used as the framework to inform the exhibit plan and final implementation of the new exhibit. Through this project, the museum will actively explore the narrative of historically excluded communities with the goal to create an inviting space for consistent engagement with regional history.

Children’s Museum of the East End, Long Island

$50,000

The Children’s Museum of the East End will expand Estrellas de Lectura/Reading Stars, a reading mentorship program that improves social-emotional learning skills, and restores and supports reading fluency in bilingual children that were disproportionately affected by learning loss as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Project activities will include gathering information through community meetings, recruiting and training reading mentors, updating the curriculum, and promoting the program through community partners. Students entering grades Kindergarten through fourth will meet with their reading mentors twice a week in the fall, winter, and spring at the museum’s Bridgehampton and Riverside locations. As a result, students will see improvements in their English reading fluency and general vocabulary, increased self-confidence, and improvements in social-emotional learning skills.

Historic Cherry Hill, Capital Region

$50,000

Historic Cherry Hill will design and fabricate a multi-site exhibit and related series of programs centered on William James Knapp, who worked in nineteenth-century Albany as a musician, piano tuner, music store clerk, porter, and nurse. In collaboration with the Underground Railroad Education Center, the African American Cultural Center, and Albany Barn, the project team will identify pop-up sites throughout Albany, conduct content research, and work with local artists to create site-specific interpretations of James Knapp’s life. As a result, visitors to any of the pop-up sites will experience relevant and accessible installations that foreground Black life in 19th-century Albany and recognize our diverse, shared past and its legacies.

Historic Saranac Lake, North Country

$50,000

Historic Saranac Lake will create catalog records for approximately 2,500 objects and archival materials to gain intellectual and physical control over its collection. Informed by a previous IMLS-funded pilot project to catalog records for approximately 2,000 photographs and postcards from the museum's collections, this project will also include photo documentation of objects and the creation of a plan for moving the collection to a new storage space. Project staff will work with a consultant to complete and evaluate the project. As a result of the project, the institution will produce a comprehensive moving plan for the collection, publish catalog records and images, and increase accessibility to the collection. The project will benefit students, researchers, and staff preparing for exhibits and programs.

Iroquois Museum, Mohawk Valley

$38,769

The Iroquois Museum will develop an exhibit of contemporary Iroquois art and offer related programming targeted at youth, young adults, and adults. The exhibit will showcase artworks that include suspended installation and projection, welded steel sculptures, comic-drama and Claymation, glass works, clay monoprints, graphic novel and video-game inspired illustrations, electronic music, and documentary photography. Related programs will include The Mush Hole, an offsite theatrical dance interpretation of the experience of Indian residential schools; an onsite pop-up welding workshop; the Iroquois Indian Marching Band; and artist talks. Through this project, the museum will dismantle conventional assumptions about what constitutes Native art by introducing visitors to the wide variety of expressions and ways in which Iroquois/Haudenosaunee culture is represented today. Haudenosaunee creatives will benefit by presenting their work in a dignified and receptive setting and by expanding their network of opportunities. Visitors will benefit by participating in an environment of mutual respect and open dialogue, and accessing an alternate lens through which to reconsider our shared past.

Livingston County Historical Museum, Finger Lakes

$49,945

The Livingston County Historical Museum will use funds to purchase and install archival storage equipment. The project builds upon planning documents created by a team of museum professionals, architects, and engineers, and will address issues of overcrowding and inaccessibility of objects in the current storage space. Informed by a previous Collections Assessment for Preservation (CAP) report, museum staff will consult with a conservator to implement best practices for collection storage. Improved collections care will benefit visitors and researchers, including the residents of Livingston County and the Western New York region.

Museums for America

Museums for America supports projects that strengthen the ability of individual museums to benefit the public by providing high-quality, inclusive learning experiences, maximizing resources to address community needs through partnerships and collaborations, and by preserving and providing access to the collections entrusted to their care.

American Folk Art Museum, NYC

$152,205

The American Folk Art Museum will work with neurodiverse artists whose artwork is part of the museum’s collection and create an online resource with information about neurodiverse artists. A collections associate hired for the project will receive training on the collections management system and assist with digitization and collections photography. The project will also include a convening of industry experts to develop a white paper that will serve as a guide for museums collecting and exhibiting works of art by neurodiverse artists.

American Museum of Natural History, NYC

$249,841

The American Museum of Natural History will broaden access to its vertebrate paleontology archive by creating detailed findings aids for eight of its collections. The archive consists of 820 linear feet of materials in 43 collections, including photographs, correspondence, and field notes. Building on work funded by previous IMLS grants, the museum will hire a project archivist and two paid student interns to process, rehouse, and digitize collections materials. As a result of the project, researchers from a variety of disciplines will be able to directly access catalog records describing the contents of the vertebrate paleontology archive collections. Project staff will share the results of the project online and at professional conferences.

American Museum of the Moving Image, NYC

$250,000

The American Museum of the Moving Image will undertake the next phase of developing a replacement for its 30-year old core exhibition comprising 13,000 square feet of gallery space. The new long-term exhibition will trace the history of the moving image from its origins in magic lantern shows and nickelodeons through media convergence and contemporary digital culture. Museum staff will work with scholars, educators, community liaisons, and an external exhibition design team to finalize the content and create a spatial layout, produce an artifact list, create a draft of exhibition text, conceptualize interactive experiences, and develop a full set of conceptual design drawings and floor plan. This project builds on an IMLS-funded planning project and will result in an accessible and innovative exhibition that promotes cultural and digital literacy to visitors from Queens, the Northeast region, and international audiences.

Brooklyn Children’s Museum, NYC

$249,980

Brooklyn Children’s Museum will partner with elementary school educators to create school programs for Nature’s Engineers, a new STEM maker space for children ages 5-10 that explores biomimicry (how nature influences human design) through hands-on projects and engagement with the 14,000 objects in the museum’s natural science collection. Project activities include creating an educator advisory council, developing five new STEM maker field trip programs, delivering those programs to Central Brooklyn public elementary schools at no charge, providing teacher professional development programs, and evaluating the programs for their effectiveness on learning outcomes and behaviors. The project will result in Central Brooklyn students making connections between engineering and nature that contribute to their constructed narratives about science, human design, and the importance of our natural world.

Brooklyn Museum, NYC

$250,000

The Brooklyn Museum will support 55 paid internships for students and early career professionals interested in careers in the arts and cultural institutions. The program will provide training opportunities, that put the lived experiences of these young people, whose identities are often underrepresented in the arts and museum sector, at the center of their work. Project activities include facilitating departmental placements, where interns will develop hands-on experience through real-world projects with the guidance of museum staff; conducting professional development seminars; and developing an intern mentor program to help interns achieve their career goals. Program participants will develop the skills and knowledge necessary for future employment and leave with new professional relationships and a structure to foster them.

Buffalo Museum of Science, Western NY

$242,925

The Buffalo Museum of Science will gain intellectual and physical control over its fluid-preserved ichthyological collection that documents the population of freshwater fishes in regional waterways. The museum will hire a collections assistant to work with student interns and volunteers to create a cohesive catalog as well as rehouse, photograph, and digitize the collection. Staff will also create and install panels at freshwater conservation areas in Western New York to promote education about freshwater fish at local waterways. As a result of the project, staff will make the newly completed catalog of the collection publicly available through open-access collection portals for research and educational purposes.

Dyckman Farmhouse Museum, NYC

$239,560

The Dyckman Farmhouse Museum will transform its winter kitchen into an immersive space that invites guests to more fully understand the history of enslavement in the Northern United States. Building on an IMLS-funded interpretive planning project, the museum will engage with a consultant to create an immersive projection on one or more walls of the winter kitchen. Images will include original footage of historic characters, contemporary community members, archival images, and illustrations. Graduate student interns will assist museum staff with research, implementation, and outreach. As a result, the museum will advance its mission to support the preservation of the historic site, to be a catalyst for engaging, adventuresome programming and to be a good neighbor and a dynamic resource for the community by providing new and fresh inclusive narratives in an engaging and accessible manner.

Fort Ticonderoga, North Country

$237,630

Fort Ticonderoga will implement a multi-year project that will provide visitors with new methods to understand the people and events of the American Revolution as the nation commemorates the 250th anniversary of the War for Independence. The project team will work with accessibility consultants to finalize the exhibition design, interpretive components, and digital resources. Four seasonal exhibit interpreters will be hired and trained to deliver new tour content. As a result, never-before-seen artifacts, tactile experiences, public tours, and a robust online presence with audio and video content will ensure universal accessibility and an enhanced understanding of the Revolution’s significance for all guests.

George Eastman Museum, Finger Lakes

$250,000

The George Eastman Museum will conserve and digitize fragile films from the Anwar Sheikh Pakistani collection created from 1950-1979. The Pakistani films in Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu languages were made after the partition of India. Building upon collection activities supported by a 2020 Museums for America award, staff will conserve the films to address deterioration. The museum will hire two full-time film specialists to work with staff to repair, clean, document, and stabilize the films. Once fully processed, information will be published in the museum's online catalog of film records for the benefit of researchers, scholars, and archivists.

Historic Hudson Valley, Mid-Hudson

$238,810

Historic Hudson Valley will undertake a project to digitize and fully catalog their collection of 3,500 manuscripts, transcribe selections from the collection, and create an online portal that will make the collection publicly accessible. As a result of this project, staff will be able to better understand, care for, and utilize the manuscript collection while reducing the risks of physical damage associated with regularly handling sensitive archival materials. Additionally, the collections portal will benefit researchers, students, educators, and curators who will now have the ability to search and discover digitized and transcribed manuscripts.

Hudson River Museum, Mid-Hudson

$124,930

The Hudson River Museum will digitize approximately 8,000 objects largely consisting of historical photographs representative of their local and regional communities, including photographs from the archives of the John Bond Trevor family, the Alexander Smith Carpet Factory, African American artist Alvin C. Hollingsworth, and photographer Rudolf Eickemeyer, Jr. The museum will use funds to hire and train a full-time digitization technician, a part-time digitization cataloging assistant, and two part-time digitization interns. With a more fully digitized archive, the museum will be able to inform scholarship, share their collection with a wider audience, and identify materials for use at the museum and by community partners in future exhibits, publications, and interpretation.

Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, NYC

$151,546

The Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum will pilot Inspiration Academy, a new teacher training and resources program designed to help K—12 educators teach inclusive STEM, history, and social studies, built on the museum’s decade-long experience developing teacher professional development and providing of continuing education credits to teachers in New York State. Project activities include recruiting early-career teachers from Title 1 schools; implementing professional development opportunities, including in-person and virtual seminars and institutes; and conducting a program evaluation. The project will address early-career teacher attrition rates by fostering a sense of belonging in the profession and rekindling the joy and inspiration which brought individuals to teach.

Long Island Children’s Museum, Long Island

$250,000

The Long Island Children’s Museum will launch the third phase of the development of “Saltwater Stories: The Sea and Me,” a new permanent exhibition that will engage family and school audiences in an exploration of the local maritime traditions that have shaped the historical, cultural, and economic development of Long Island. Building on previous grants, the project team will incorporate findings from the second phase to fabricate exhibition components with an outside contractor, develop seasonally informed programs and materials for families, develop website content, finalize and implement the exhibition marketing plan, and utilize a remedial evaluation of the installed exhibition to make adjustments. Exhibition content will correlate to several New York State Next Generation Learning Standards, and will extend the reach of humanities programming to key audiences, including underserved or recently immigrated populations from coastal communities in Mexico, Central America, and Asia. As a result, visitors to the museum will increase their understanding of Long Island’s maritime history and culture through participating in educational and intergenerational experiences.

Memorial Art Gallery (University of Rochester), Finger Lakes

$76,564

The University of Rochester's Memorial Art Gallery will continue its robust arts-based partnership with the Rochester City School District to bring students in grades 2-4 from five city schools to the museum for four weekly sessions of interactive, guided gallery activities followed by art-making experiences. Project activities include developing curriculum and activities, recruiting teaching artists and teaching assistants, training staff, and ordering supplies, holding sessions for five city schools; and project evaluation. The resulting program will provide participants with access to arts and cultural resources, complement and enhance classroom learning, encourage positive behaviors, supports social-emotional development, and empower students with a sense of purpose and belonging within the museum and their community.

Museum of Arts and Design, NYC

$205,050

The Museum of Arts and Design will use funds to upgrade its primary content management system (CMS) and photograph, review, and update its collection records to support greater access to its collection. This project will convert their current system to a cloud-based CMS, photograph new acquisitions, and support a full inventory of their collections toward complete record consolidation. At the end of the project, the museum will have a functional and user-friendly, publicly accessible database of its collection with artifact-based programming for K-12 audiences and lifelong learners of all ages.

Museum of Jewish Heritage, NYC

$231,000

The Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust will develop public programming for families and children ages 8-12 relating to the new exhibition “Courage to Act: Rescue in Denmark” the museum’s first exhibition for children. Project activities include organizing 19 public programs for children and families including guided tours, children’s book events, holiday celebrations, concerts, and theatrical performances. Project funds wills support building the museum’s internal capacity to serve children and families by onboarding a full-time family programs manager who will organize the events and lead the audience development strategy with marketing and outreach efforts. The project will build internal capacity and create a strategy for engaging children and family audiences. It will also empower program participants to become active bystanders in their community who counter hate and stand up for what is right.

New York Transit Museum, NYC

$148,200

The New York Transit Museum will develop a community-informed model for creating adult public programs and sustaining audience engagement. Museum staff will work with consultants to conduct an audience assessment as well as develop plans for improved digital communications. A full-time outreach coordinator will be hired to supervise the project and identify external stakeholders to serve as advisors for program development. This stakeholder advisory committee and partnering downtown Brooklyn cultural organizations will inform the resulting program planning framework, helping the museum better-understand and engage with its existing adult audiences, identify potential audiences that are not yet engaged, and collaboratively design programs that include community voices and input.

New-York Historical Society, NYC

$243,964

The New York Historical Society will create the Tang Academy for American Democracy Digital Curriculum, a free digital curriculum that blends the study of civics and history for middle school students. Building on the successful in-person version of the program for New York City 6th graders, the new digital curriculum will transform lesson plans and museum content into a free resource that teachers across the country can use in their classrooms. Project activities include digital curriculum creation, testing and evaluation, and program marketing and dissemination. The project will increase student understanding of democracy, how it works, and how to make a change in a democracy, and it will build a network of teachers across the country committed to teaching about democracy.

Parrish Art Museum, Long Island

$198,616

The Parrish Art Museum will evaluate, improve, and expand an existing gallery experience and art-making program that serves individuals with special needs, including cognitive diverse individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, individuals on the autism spectrum, people with physical disabilities, and people who have experienced severe trauma. The museum will work with an external evaluator to develop an evaluation plan as well as a community advisory panel with members from the program’s target audiences and partnering human service agencies to guide the project. Program evaluation will support the development and expansion of future community-informed museum programming to serve a wider audience and will leverage lessons learned to improve the museum’s overall service to special audiences in all of its programs.

Rochester Museum and Science Center, Finger Lakes

$123,801

Rochester Museum and Science Center will partner with Haudenosaunee stakeholders and artists to develop an exhibit that will present Haudenosaunee stories through contemporary and historic art, collections objects, multimedia presentations, and interactive, multisensory experiences. Funds will support the purchase of materials necessary to develop immersive, themed components such as a longhouse structure, as well as a professional conservator to assess and prepare collection items for display. The exhibit will be developed and curated by a Seneca artist and knowledge-keeper and will explore themes of Haudenosaunee cultural continuity and change, identity, and sovereignty. The project partnerships and resulting exhibition will make the museum’s collection more accessible, expand historical narratives, and celebrate the dynamic and active art, culture, and heritage of the Haudenosaunee people.

Rubin Museum of Art, NYC

$250,000

The Rubin Museum of Art will expand knowledge and understanding of Himalayan art and cultures through the development of a flexible traveling exhibition that presents the iconography, materials, and artistic and cultural practices of the Himalayan region. Presented in three modules with a variety of thematic access points, different museum communities will have the ability to modify the exhibition according to their needs. Project activities will include working with five university museums to adapt the exhibition, transporting and installing the exhibition at the host site, and refining an open-access digital platform to accompany the exhibition. The public will learn about the fundamental art forms and important universal ideas from the Himalayan region, such as compassion, karma, the cyclical nature of existence, and the interdependence of things.

Sciencenter, Southern Tier

$248,429

The Sciencenter will address its community’s need for outdoor family learning experiences and increase access to hands-on STEM education through the creation of four outdoor exhibit areas. The project team will use community input to drive the design and development of the exhibit areas, and create and test prototypes with a focus on accessible play-based activities to address learning declines resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Project activities will include meeting with the community and gathering input to define the learning goals, fabricating selected components of the exhibits, consulting with advisors and accessibility experts and testing prototypes, and continuing evaluation after the exhibits open to the public. As a result, the museum’s role as a relevant and welcoming resource for science learning will be evident, and local children and families will increase their social skills and knowledge of the science process.

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NYC

$244,785

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum will increase access to its collections and online educational resources for visitors with disabilities through a two-pronged approach: creation of a new digital museum map of the Frank Lloyd Wright building, and an in-depth review and remediation of the website design, development, and content to ensure usability. The museum’s digital experience team will start the map redesign process with user research before proceeding to design and release. A part-time project manager will be hired to oversee the website remediation, and will conduct website quality assurance from an accessibility standpoint, add access content, provide cross-departmental training, and serve as the point of contact for best practices in user accessibility. As a result, visitors will have access to a variety of digital platforms, such as websites and apps that support use by screen readers or other assistive technology; and accessible content, such as verbal description audio and American Sign Language video.

The Strong National Museum of Play, Finger Lakes

$188,359

The Strong National Museum of Play will use funds to improve the documentation, preservation, and accessibility of 15,000 trade catalogs from the toy, doll, puzzle, and game industries. Project staff will make collections-related information accessible and searchable online through its own website as well as through an external collection website. Enhanced documentation, preservation, and accessibility of the collection will advance the museum’s mission and benefit historians and researchers of American toy and game production.

The Wild Center, North Country

$175,711

The Wild Center will conduct a two-year outreach and summer program initiative to train a cohort of teen climate educators in climate literacy, enabling them to communicate climate change science and impacts as well as climate justice and solutions to museum visitors using the museum’s Science on a Sphere and Climate Solutions exhibit. Project activities include recruiting and onboarding the educators, developing and implementing training and mentoring plans, enhancing the visitor experience through exhibit-based engagement, working with the teens to develop and implement climate action projects for their school or community, and planning and hosting the Adirondack Youth Climate Summit. Project funds will also support purchasing high-quality projectors and two back-of-the-house computers to run the Science on a Sphere exhibit. The teen climate educators will lead interpretive programming, become active in community outreach and civic engagement, and support the youth-led planning and implementation of the Adirondack Youth Climate Summit.

Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC

$250,000

The Whitney Museum of American Art will launch a three-phase project to assess, update, and deploy interpretation strategies geared toward visitors with disabilities, particularly those who identify as D/deaf and hard of hearing, Blind and with low vision, with ambulatory disabilities, neurodivergent, and more. The project will develop new standards for accessible digital interpretation and implement them across new materials focused on approximately 50 time-based media works. A cross departmental museum team will work with an advisory committee, focus groups, and an evaluator to carry out a user-centered iterative evaluation process, including completing a needs assessment. As a result, the museum will have institutional guidelines for accessible interpretation and standards for preserving these digital materials. This project will also inform the museum’s future accessible digital interpretation for time-based media and all other forms of art.

Museums Empowered: Professional Development Opportunities for Museum Staff

Museums Empowered: Professional Development Opportunities for Museum Staff is a special initiative of the Museums for America grant program supporting staff capacity-building projects that use professional development to generate systemic change within a museum. Each of the 19 recipient institutions will focus their projects on one of four categories: digital technology, diversity and inclusion, evaluation, or organizational management.

Wildlife Conservation Society, NYC

$250,000

The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) will create a new training program for supervisors of internship programs in the five New York City wildlife parks operated by WCS — the Bronx, Central Park, Prospect Park, and Queens Zoos, and the New York Aquarium. The professional development training program will focus on positive youth development, cultural competence, supervising young adults, and mentoring and career support to help the intern supervisors develop the necessary skills to succeed in this important role. Project activities include hosting listening sessions with current intern supervisors to understand their needs, gathering existing training resources, developing a training curriculum, delivering supervisor training, and conducting training follow-up. The new training program will ensure the internship program is effective, inclusive, and supportive, transforming the zoo into a more welcoming place resulting in a broader representation of youth participating in the internship program.

Letter from Erika: How Are You? How Are You Really?

Mon, 31 Jul 2023 12:07:55 GMT

Broken Millstone, Whitney Plantation

Dear Members, Friends, and Colleagues,

At a friend’s birthday party last week, I had a conversation with someone who works at a food co-op about what it was like to be an essential worker at the height of the pandemic. After a rambling discussion, they said “can you believe we made it through that?” and since it was a party, I smiled and replied that I felt lucky to be here. What I didn’t say is that I know that many of us have mended, but have still not “made it through.”

As the MANY staff traveled around the state this year, we heard first hand that attendance at most museums has not returned to 2019 levels, that many are having trouble filling staff positions, and that operational changes are essential for the future of museums. We learned that recovery remains inconsistent from city to city, region to region, and discipline to discipline. We also learned that federal relief funding, grants from the state and private foundations, and community support made a real difference.

The reported statistics in the American Alliance of Museums 2023 Annual National Snapshot of United States Museum Survey, echo many of the stories we hear firsthand. The national data that AAM collects each year illustrates the continuing impact of the pandemic. It has been almost three years since MANY has asked our members and colleagues to share information about how the pandemic has affected your museum. But with the occasion of AAM’s publication, we thought it was the right time to ask (just seventeen questions, eleven are multiple choice) so we can compare data from New York’s museums with some of the national data.

Click here to respond to the survey using your information from 2022 or from the end of your last fiscal year. It may help to have your annual report with you when you answer the survey that should take less than six minutes of your time. A pdf of the survey questions can be found here.

The survey will remain open until 5 PM on August 18 and we will share the NY data in comparison to the national data soon after.

With thanks advance for sharing your information and hopes that you are taking time to enjoy the summer,

Erika Sanger

Executive Director

MANY Conference Summary: John Sapida

Mon, 31 Jul 2023 11:58:20 GMT

John Sapida is the Manager of Digital Initiatives at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City and the recipient of the BIPOC Museum Professional in Museum Administration scholarship to attend the 2023 conference "Finding Center: Access, Inclusion, Participation, and Engagement."

This scholarship is awarded to a Black, Indigenous, or Person of Color working in museum administration who has played a leadership role in advancing the capacity and sustainability of their museum. We asked John to share his conference experience.

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Now entering my sixth year as a museum educator and professional, I’ve faced plenty of challenges and opportunities for growth and innovation. One challenge is, of course, the COVID-19 pandemic. As an educator in a small team that manages the Museum’s learning management system as well as online learning, it felt as though multiple heads had turned to my direction when the shutdown happened. It was a lot of pressure, but it did give me an opportunity to lead. In my search for more opportunities to lead, I found the Museum Association of New York (MANY) Conference.

This year’s conference brought practical solutions and pedagogically sound innovations. MANY provided opportunities to network with other professionals to discuss important topics in our industry such as inclusion, accessibility, and belonging. At the same time, MANY highlighted its host city by providing access to many of the institutions nearby such as the Erie Canal Museum, Everson Museum of Art and the Museum of Science and Technology (MOST). Each session I attended welcomed an exchange of ideas between myself and my peers which made me feel like an expert in my practice while still allowing me to learn from others’ unique experiences. Reflecting on my overall experience, there were two strong threads that build access, engagement, and belonging in museums,

The first thread is partnership. I personally believe that the strongest programs out there involve partnership and collaboration. For example, in the session, Are you still lecturing? How to engage students with primary sources using Visual Thinking Strategies, I was able to learn from colleagues at the New York State Museum about their partnerships with the NYS Department of Education and also how they align the inquiry strategies we all know and love, their collections, and their educational programs to Science, Social Studies, and English Language Arts standards. In Relationship Building for Educating Our Community, we heard from the Vestal Museum’s key partnership with the Haudenosaunee community and how this collaboration provided opportunities for sharing, teaching, learning, and amplifying underrepresented voices. Such conversations are a testament to the power of storytelling and have great potential to provide guidance for the larger museum industry.

The second thread is consistency. Through these sessions, it became clear that the valuable work that comes from accessible digital and onsite projects should be approached proactively, not reactively. The session, Social Media Savvy: Thinking Big, Working Smart, brought together specialists that talk about the use of storytelling through social media and the importance of a consistent call to action and voice throughout the seeming endless of platforms museums may use to engage their audiences. Attending the session, Bringing Inclusive Digital Materials into the Classroom, introduced me to online expanded archives and repositories that provide primary and secondary resources that are ready to adapt for the classroom. This got me to start thinking about all of the science-rich digital resources that the American Museum of Natural History has on their website. Through this session, an idea for a professional development course came to fruition that I am now currently working on for the summer!

Looking through my notes from the weekend, I now feel a sense of urgency to put together the programming ideas inspired by the conference. The work continues!

–John Sapida, Manager of Digital Initiatives, AMNH

MANY Conference Summary: Melissa Kiewiet

Mon, 31 Jul 2023 11:51:46 GMT

Melissa Kiewet was a William G. Pomeroy Foundation scholarship recipient to attend the 2023 annual conference "Finding Center: Access, Inclusion, Participation, and Engagement". Scholarship recipients were asked to share their conference experience.

The William G. Pomeroy Foundation sponsored ten museum professionals working in history-related fields with an annual operating budget of $250,000 or less and who had not attended a MANY conference in the past.

Since writing this reflection, Kiewet was named the new Executive Director of the Dyckman Farmhouse Alliance.

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When I was notified in January of 2023 that I was awarded a scholarship for the annual Museum Association of New York conference, I did not yet know that my role at the Dyckman Farmhouse Museum would be changing. Shortly before the April conference, I was selected to be the museum’s Interim Director, and hopefully the permanent Director, as the former Director moved on to a new organization. The switch came as a surprise to me, but it was one that I felt I was ready to face. Coming to the conference now took on a new meaning. I went from expecting to learn from my peers about programs and development issues to networking and focusing on larger scope issues within museums. Attending a conference that focused on New York state allowed me to meet people who were potential partner organizations and whose service areas overlapped with my own. This differed from the larger regional and national conferences and it could not have been better timed.

Going into the conference with a new mindset, there were two sessions that really stuck out to me and made me think about how I could implement things in my home institution. The Panel “Tell Me What You Want (What You Really, Really Want): An Honest Conversation about Constituent Engagement,” was a case study about a funded grant project that did not go as expected. It was an open and vulnerable discussion about admitting failure and learning from it. I had never been to a session that examined failure, most tout their successes. The panel’s choice to focus on a project that did not go as expected brought down the guard of attendees and allowed the room to be vulnerable and talk about their own failed projects that resulted in big lessons. Obviously, we do not like to fail, but it is important to remember that failing often results in a better understanding of our projects. The other lesson that this session taught me was to ensure you have your constituents buy in before writing that grant. We cannot know what our constituents want without interacting with them and getting to know their needs. We can certainly guess, but then you risk creating an unsuccessful program.

The last session of the conference was particularly powerful. "Change is Still Required: What's Next?" was set up in a town hall style meeting, which I found uncommon for a museum conference. The panel consisted of five contributors to the book Change is Required: Preparing for the Post-Pandemic Museum. While multiple topics were covered, it was great to hear from a diverse group of museum professionals, from emerging to senior staff. It left me thinking about how, though I have worked for a change bringer for the last five years, I might be able to institute change during my own leadership. I am filling big shoes at Dyckman. Previous leadership created an institution that not only discussed Black history, but celebrates it year round, and engages closely with the community. I know I will continue these efforts, but what other contributions could I make? In listening to this session and speaking with colleagues, I found my professional mission. The museum industry is notoriously paying its workers at rates that make it nearly impossible to live. If I am to be the change I want to see in museums, I must pay my workers and pay them above what is average for museum workers. I received my first job in NYC six years ago for $38,000. That is not a living wage, but I did it for love of the industry and the promise on the horizon for advancement. I was privileged to be able to do so. If we want diversity in museum work, we have to pay, because divested communities cannot afford to take a job that pays so little just because they have a love for the field. They need to be compensated and, at least at my museum, I want to ensure that happens.

–Melissa Kiewet, Executive Director, Dyckman Farmhouse Museum Alliance

MANY Board Spotlight: Daisy Rodríguez

Mon, 31 Jul 2023 11:44:28 GMT

Daisy Rodríguez is a lifelong New Yorker. As the Executive Director of Government & Community Affairs for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) she oversees all NYC and State-based government and community engagement. Rodríguez is responsible for helping seek public funding (capital and expense) support for WCS. She engages elected officials, community members, and the public on the importance of conservation of wildlife and wild places.

Prior to her arrival at WCS in August 2017, she was the Director of Government Affairs at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), where she was responsible for seeking public support and funding, including helping with the outreach to communities throughout the five boroughs. Previous to joining AMNH, Daisy served as Community Outreach Director for U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer, and as the Senator’s Constituent Liaison helped to resolve numerous constituency concerns and expanded the Senator’s profile. She also served on the Senator’s campaign during his 2004 re-election.

She holds an MA in Urban Affairs from Hunter College of the City University of New York. She attended Manhattan College and received her B.A. with a dual major in Urban Affairs and Political Science, as well as a minor in Latin American and Caribbean studies.

We spoke with Daisy to learn more about her career, what motivates her, and what she hopes for the next generation of museum professionals.

Where did you begin your career?

Technically it began with US Senator Charles E. Schumer, as a very junior staffer working in his NYC office. I was the one answering all the calls that came into the office and dispatching them to colleagues, and doing basic administrative work. This was right after 9/11 and during the Iraq War and it was not easy, but that was my introduction into politics. I think I was answering around 300 calls a day. I learned how to be respectful to everyone and had to navigate a lot of different emotions from people at a young age. From there, I went into casework, worked directly with constituents across the state on a variety of issues, managed his intern program, staffed him as needed, worked on his campaign, and just wore many hats. It was a pivotal learning experience that I’ve learned to appreciate much more now as I’ve grown in my career.

Can you tell us about your journey from Community Outreach Director for Senator Schumer to AMNH to the Wildlife Conservation Society?

I always had an affinity for nature and the arts. It was always at the core of my identity. I would have never imagined working in the field I am now, much less helping to advocate for the arts or helping cultivate generations of STEM leaders. I learned early in my career that I didn’t have the drive to stay solely in that political world—I needed something else. Through the Senator’s office, I learned that “doing government affairs” is done at many organizations in one form or another, and it was a necessary skill. And I started looking at opportunities in museums across the city. It took a while but there was an opportunity at AMNH for a Government Relations Coordinator, so I went for it. It was certainly vastly different and yet familiar from my time at the Senator’s office. At AMNH I was able to develop professionally in my field while reconnecting with a love for science I thought I had lost. I never excelled in math or science in school but I had a secret love for biology and astrophysics. Because of my own frustrations with the subject and overall lack of mentorship at a young age to encourage me to pursue it, I ran away from it. And now, I work to ensure that youth don’t make the same mistake as I did. After AMNH, I found an opportunity to work at WCS. I went from the preservation of dead collections to live ones. But more so, it was an opportunity to run my own shop in both government and community affairs – I couldn’t pass up the opportunity.

These cultural spaces are very much healing places. I’ve always believed that and it felt like a confirmation of that, especially during COVID. I am part of a much larger coalition of people that are advocating for culture and the arts specifically in New York City and helping to ensure that this community received the funding that it needs to thrive is important to me.

What other experiences in your career journey have you found most helpful in your role now?

I credit a lot of my career growth to my personal upbringing and listening to people’s stories.

As a child of immigrants, I grew up quickly and needed to be my family’s advocate, mostly because I spoke English. It may have been a child’s English but nonetheless, I learned how to translate and begin to understand the complexities of real-world issues. I credit that role of being my family’s advocate to becoming involved in advocacy. Also, I always have been interested in the stories of “others” regardless of where they come from. I’ve learned that if you listen to these stories, there are always gems of advice scattered throughout them.

I have found this work to be challenging yet fulfilling because I see myself in visitors to our institutions and I know how it feels to be disenfranchised from the cultural world and disconnected from the scientific fields. In my work, I realized that my own personal story resonates in the narratives of why it is critical for communities of color to be represented in STEM careers. The way I speak, the community I come from, the way I connect to cultural and scientific institutions, and how I have advocated have been different and needed.

What are some of the things that motivate you in your current role?

The fact that I’m filling in a real need that requires a specific skill set. That I believe in the mission of the organization and I have colleagues that believe in this too. I’m also motivated because I get to foster the next generations of not only STEM leaders but also mentor those coming into my field of work. Encouraging them to do this work better than any of us who already are here. I believe strongly in succession planning. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for a community of people. And lastly, I have a great team who do amazing work and we trust each other’s leadership and vision.

What are some of your goals in your role as the Executive Director of Government & Community Affairs? What advice would you give to other museums and cultural institutions about communicating the value of their institutions?

I want to do this line of work differently. I like to take a genuine approach and want those that I lobby to care about the work that we do because it does have a real global and local impact. Cultivating the next generation of STEM leaders is pivotal in these times, and ensuring they also come from communities of color is personal for me because I was that kid that didn’t think she could do science or be in these spaces. I didn’t have the mentors and my parents didn’t have the resources to know even where to go. So I like to do my line of work as genuinely as possible and with real results.

As far as advice on how we communicate our value, I believe people outside of the institutions solidify our value and that line of engagement with the communities we serve and the ones we need to do better to serve are key. The work we do, and the collections we have are invaluable among our institutional communities but it is a different level of appreciation when we can take these collections to communities who become inspired by it and want to preserve and advocate for it.

Would your 18-year-old self imagine that you would be where you are today?

My 18-year-old self would be in awe to know that most mornings I have my coffee watching the lions stretch out and roar before the park opens to the public. She would be wide-eyed to know that one day she will get to learn and see collections that encapsulate the history of the Earth, our universe, be able to experience encounters with animals from across the globe in places she has yet to visit, meet with some of the brightest minds in the scientific communities and talented artists, be able to experience the halls of world-renowned institutions and still have to sometimes translate for her family too.

I did not visit a museum until I was in my teens even though I literally lived blocks away from AMNH. I never went as a kid because my mom didn’t know how to enter the building. She felt like it was such an overwhelming space with no clear direction. It was easier for her to take me to the Central Park Zoo. I’ve seen so many others go through this kind of experience as well, so when I entered this space as a museum professional, it was definitely something that fueled me to want to show people that these places are accessible. I want people to have a sense of belonging that these institutions are theirs because they’re city-owned, they belong to the people of New York and you should take advantage of them.

Can you tell us about where you grew up? What was it like growing up there? Where did you go to school and what did you study?

I was born and raised in NYC. I’m Caribbean and Central American, remixed with the Latino diaspora found throughout the City. My childhood was challenging but I was surrounded by love and empowered to succeed. I was heavily influenced by a variety of cultures, from language, food, music, and the arts. I loved to draw as a child and my father would also doodle on the apartment walls with me. He was a maintenance worker so he would cover up our mess with paint – no harm done. I think because of that influence, even as minor as that was, I was accepted to LaGuardia HS for Music & Art where I majored in art. The Metropolitan Museum of Art was and remains my favorite museum. It was the first one I ever visited because my school made me do a project there. Prior to that, I never went because neither I nor my parents knew how to visit these institutions. It wasn’t always a welcoming experience, there were language barriers, and these experiences fuel me today to do this work. I then attended Manhattan College where I studied political science with a minor in Caribbean and Latin American studies. I thought law school was the next step but after a few months working at a law firm, it wasn’t for me. Instead, I ended up working for Senator Schumer. While working for Senator Schumer I was pursuing a Master’s Degree in Urban Studies at Hunter College.

What was the first museum experience that you can remember?

I always had an affinity for animals. Maybe because I am an only child and was a latchkey kid, all I had were my animals. From a very young age, my mom would take me to the Central Park Zoo. It was a constant destination for us, but costly for my mother. She always made the investment in that excursion because it brought me the most joy. And here I am now working at WCS who also manages the Central Park Zoo and ensuring that we provide access to communities in need.

Can you describe a favorite day or more memorable moment on the job?

There are so many. I feel fortunate to even say that. One occurrence that tends to follow me that are the moments I treasure most, is when I have access to the spaces where I work before it opens to the public and after the public leaves. Whether that was walking the halls at AMNH alone or strolling through the Bronx Zoo or New York Aquarium, having that private experience in those spaces feels peaceful and gives me a deep sense of connection. It’s those personal moments of zen that I treasure.

Do you have any mentors or someone who has deeply influenced you? Has there been any advice that they’ve given you that you’ve held on to?

I’ve had a lot of mentors throughout the chapters in my career. Both good and rotten but all have been life lessons. The most pivotal lessons I carry throughout my career are to 1) Take up space even in places you may feel unwanted - I deserve and am needed to be there and 2) Pay it forward - I had my opportunities because of many of those before me.

What advice would you give to those interested in your career in government and community affairs for a cultural organization?

I’m a big believer in inviting people out for coffee and asking questions that can give you really good advice. I’m also a believer in getting some kind of experience in the field like the work I did with Senator Schumer. I don’t do that kind of work now, but it gave me a sense of the culture of government relations and a sense of the type of people I would work with.

I also believe that succession planning is vital in the non-profit world. It is so critical, especially amongst Communities of Color. We have to prepare the next generation. The time I’ve spent planting seeds everywhere that I’m starting to see all of those seeds blossom. I have former interns who are now elected officials doing amazing work. I want to see more of these successes.

NY Assembly and Senate Appropriations and Reappropriations to NYS Museums

Tue, 27 Jun 2023 19:33:16 GMT

During the most recent legislative session, the New York State Assembly and Senate allocated or reallocated $10,875,000 in program funding and economic development assistance to 51 museums, zoos, botanical gardens, and aquariums in Assembly Resolution 714 and Senate Resolution 1395, 1399, 1407, and 1408. Seventeen museums were allocated or reallocated $45,725,000 from the capital assistance program in Assembly Resolution 715.

The resolutions included reallocations from the prior year funding for those organizations that did not receive their full allocation of funding as well as those who were fully funded, i.e., both “old” and “new” money. The resolutions authorize New York State to meet any prior year funding obligation in full. If you have any questions about what you see below or on the more detailed list here, please contact your legislative representatives.

MANY would like to extend our sincerest thanks to our state legislative representatives whose generous support will enable our arts, history, science, and cultural institutions to continue to serve their communities, attract tourists, and secure the historic structures they call home. The summer is an excellent time to be in touch with your legislative representatives and invite them to come see what you do. Not sure who represents you? Click here to find your Assemblymember and here for your NY State Senator.

The list of organizations that received funding is below. If your organization was allocated or reallocated funding, and you don’t see your organization’s name below, please let us know and accept our apologies in advance for the oversight.

Recipients of Program and Economic Development Assistance

Adirondack Historical Association

American Museum of the Moving Image

American Museum of LGBT History & Culture

Amigos del Museo del Barrio

Bronx Museum of the Arts

Brooklyn Botanical Garden

Brooklyn Children’s Museum

Brooklyn Historical Society

Buffalo & Erie County Botanical Gardens Society

Buffalo & Erie County Historical Society

Buffalo Niagara Heritage Village

Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences

Buffalo Transportation Pierce-Arrow Museum

Burchfield Penny

Herschell Carousel Factory Museum

Cultural Museum of African Art

Museum of Science and Technology

Everson Museum of Art

Frederick Remington Art Museum

Garden City Historical Society

Goshen Public Library & Historic Society

Historic Hudson Valley

Holocaust Memorial & Tolerance Center of Nassau County

Hudson River Museum of Westchester

Historic Huguenot Street

Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum

Irish American Heritage Museum

Long Island Children’s Museum

Louis Armstrong House Museum

Lower East Side Tenement Museum

Mid-Hudson Discovery Museum

Museum of Contemporary African Diaspora Arts

Cradle of Aviation Museum

National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum

New York Hall of Science

New York Historical Society

New York Zoological Society

Northport Historical Society

Old Stone House of Brooklyn

Queens County Farm Museum

Roosevelt Island Historical Society

Safe Haven Museum

Schenectady Museum Association

Seneca Park Zoo

Staten Island Zoological Society

Studio Museum in Harlem

Wave Hill Public Garden & Cultural Center

Western New York Railway Historical Society

Whitney Museum of American Art

Wildlife Conservation Society

Zoological Society of Buffalo

Recipients of Capital Assistance

Bronx Children’s Museum

Children’s Museum of Manhattan

Cultural Museum of African Art

El Museo del Barrio

Everson Museum of Art

Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum

The Jewish Museum

American Museum of Natural History

New York Botanical Gardens

Onondaga Historical Association

Planting Fields Foundation

Queens Botanical Garden Society

Queens Museum of Art

Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site Foundation

Underground Railroad Education Center

Universal Hip Hop Museum

Wildlife Conservation Society

On the Move: The Mobile Museum

Tue, 27 Jun 2023 19:16:59 GMT

Mobile museums make museums accessible to audiences and communities that can not reach a museum’s physical location. Their inherent flexibility and adaptability help create innovative and inclusive approaches to museum engagement. The examples in this article illustrate the ways in which three museums have and will continue to reach audiences beyond their walls.

Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame and Museum Tour Bus

Last November, the Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame and Museum (LIMHOF) opened the doors to its permanent home in Stony Brook after spending the last few years on wheels. The museum transformed a 38-foot long, 400-square-foot Winnebago, into a tour bus to share Long Island’s music heritage including artists like Pat Benatar, Run DMC, and Billy Joel.

“We established the organization almost 20 years ago and had our first induction ceremony in 2006,” said Ernie Canadeo, Chairman of the LIMHOF. “We had some offers for a location for the hall of fame and museum along the way as we worked to establish our permanent home but none of them were the right fit. In 2015 we were offered this 38-foot Winnebago from the county historical society that wasn’t using it any longer so we transformed it into a mobile museum and traveled around Long Island.”

The floor of the tour bus is covered with album covers featuring Long Island artists like Eddie Money and Public Enemy. One wall has four 65-inch vertical TV monitors that play performances filmed at previous LIMHOF events. Along the opposite wall is the “On the Record” exhibition that includes a video jukebox that displays various album covers with looping 30-second song clips from LIMHOF inductees like Twisted Sister’s “I Wanna Rock,” and Salt-N-Pepa’s “Whatta Man.”

Inside the Long Island Music & Entertainment Hall of Fame Tour Bus

The tour bus provided a way for the public to view some of the thousands of collection items that had been in storage for years like Harry Chapin’s Congressional Medal of Honor and Billy Joel’s harmonica while the museum searched for a permanent space.

Board Member Kevin O’Callaghan designed the mobile LIMHOF and went on to design the museum’s permanent 8,800 square foot home. O’Callahan was the designer of the iconic “popcorn” trophy for the MTV Movie Awards and has been a design educator at the School of Visual Arts since 1985.

The museum tracked attendance and audience demographics of the mobile museum which helped identify its core audience and plan exhibitions for its permanent location.

“We identified our core audience as people who ranged from their mid-fifties who grew up in the sixties and seventies. That’s why our first exhibition in our permanent home focuses on Long Island’s club scene from the 1960s to the 1980s,” said Canadeo. “Long Island’s Legendary Club Scene: 1960s - 1980s” exhibition is about the nostalgia of a club crawl through the nightclubs on Long Island.

The tour bus also helped the museum grow its audience by traveling to festivals, schools, libraries, and community events.

The museum is now focusing on sustaining its new permanent location but the tour bus museum remains intact. “Our goal is to keep the bus and continue to bring it around Long Island. It’s part of the next phase for the museum which is to focus on how Long Island became the hotbed of creativity and how diverse the music scene was and continues to be. We’re thinking of creating pop-up museums from the East End into Brooklyn.”

“Cure Porch on Wheels” Historic Saranac Lake

Historic Saranac Lake wanted to better serve the residents of Saranac Lake and reach more people in the Adirondack region. In 2019, the museum opened the “Cure Porch on Wheels,” a mobile museum space that hosts arts and cultural activities.

The museum was inspired by a presentation at a regional conference in 2010 of another mobile porch created by artist Bryony Graham at Salem Art Works. The “Cure Porch on Wheels” design draws on the American cultural tradition of a front porch as well as early 1900s Saranac Lake which welcomed thousands of tuberculosis patients to come for the “fresh air cure.” Patients would spend most of their time outside on cure porches for the restorative effects of fresh air. “Porches are so much part of our history of tuberculosis curing and fresh air. It’s a huge part of our architecture in our community,” said Amy Catania, Historic Saranac Lake Executive Director.

In 2009,Historic Saranac Lake rehabilitated The Saranac Laboratory and opened it as a museum. The Saranac Laboratory was built in 1894 and was the first lab in the United States to research tuberculosis. Today, the lab and museum have permanent exhibitions on scientific research and patient care as well as temporary local history exhibitions. “The museum is located in the old tuberculosis factory and we talk a lot about people spending time on cure porches, but we don’t physically have one in this space,” said Catania. “The “Cure Porch on Wheels” was us creating a space for visitors to sit on one of these porches and experience the fresh air.”

Since opening to the public, the “Cure Porch on Wheels” has hosted numerous programs for Historic Saranac Lake, including a “Live from the Porch!” music series, the Art of the Cure exhibition about the Trudeau Sanatorium and its therapy programs for tuberculosis patients who went on to become artists, writers, and craftspeople, and “The Story Phone” project that uses a reconfigured antique wall phone as a recording booth to capture local stories.

Catania was interested in building a mobile space that could be shared with other organizations in the region. “I saw it as a space that artists could use or a school for projects. I had this vision of it being a community space.” Since its creation, the “Cure Porch on Wheels” has served as a warming hut for outdoor winter activities and as a studio for plein air painters in addition to its own programming. It’s heated for year-round use, wheelchair accessible, has electrical outlets, and is powered by solar panels.

The Cure Porch on Wheels at the Winter Carnival, February 2023.

“Since the beginning, this mobile museum has been about wanting to connect with people without the expectation that they necessarily come to us. If there’s something really neat and traditional happening somewhere that we want to know more about, we bring the porch,” said Catania. Each February, there is an ice fishing contest in Saranac Lake that attracts hundreds of people. Historic Saranac Lake brought the “Cure Porch on Wheels.” “Our program coordinator interviewed people involved with the competition about this event, ice fishing in the region, and more. We were able to collect some oral histories about this tradition in our community and meet people that likely would not come to the museum. This was an ideal use of our mobile museum. It’s super visible, draws attention, and engages with our community.”

Historic Saranac Lake also brought “Cure Porch on Wheels” to the winter carnival and installed an exhibition of historic images of ice palaces. “It’s participatory too where people can share their thoughts about the current winter carnival or reflect on past ones,” said Catania. Museum staff also distributed museum passes. “It’s sort of a stepping stone to get people to the museum but generally just traveling around and having people notice us and talking about us helps raise awareness for our organization and helps us reach out to the community.”

Historic Saranac Lake offers detailed plans as well as a general “how we did it” section on its website for other organizations interested in creating a mobile space. “There’s a porch design page on our website that can tell you what kind of trailer to buy, what size frame you’ll need as well as the insurance you’ll need.”

Currently, Historic Saranac Lake is restoring the former home and medical office of Dr. E. L. Trudeau which will explore the history of the Saranac Lake region and Trudeau’s work in tuberculosis treatment. The project will create a museum campus in an effort to drive arts and culture tourism to the North Country.

“I want to take a step back and really talk to the other regional organizations and brainstorm how this mobile space could be of use to them,” said Catania. “It’s important to us that we build ownership in the community and that we’re not competing with each other. We’re asking how can we physically share this mobile space better. Right now it’s parked at the museum but it’s a mobile space and we want it out and about in our community.”

Lewis Latimer House Mobile Lab

The Lewis Latimer House Museum in Queens will temporarily close to the public this November as the museum reinstalls a new exhibition and completes restoration work. While the museum is closed, a new mobile museum will open thanks to a collaboration with BioBus, an organization that repurposes school buses to connect students with hands-on science education. “The idea for this collaboration started at a networking event,” said Ran Yan, Lewis Latimer House Museum Executive Director. “I thought that while the museum is closed, we should collaborate and make a mobile museum where we can continue to provide educational tours and programs.” The Lewis Latimer Mobile Lab extends the museum’s Tinker Lab to bring hands-on STEAM activities on the road.

Lewis Latimer was an African-American inventor, electrical pioneer, and the son of two formerly enslaved Virginians who were self-liberated. Latimer taught himself mechanical drawing while in the Union Navy and became a chief draftsman, patent expert, and inventor. He played a critical role in the development of the telephone, significantly improved the production of carbon filament, and made important contributions to the commercialization of the incandescent light bulb.

The mobile lab is divided into two parts. One section is focused on observation and discussion with some hands-on activities. The other is STEM projects. “We designed a scavenger hunt based on the museum’s collections and we’ve brought a couple of items from our teaching collection as well as images of different artifacts from the museum onto the bus” said Yan. There is also a video about Lewis Latimer and the museum. In February, the mobile lab traveled to the Variety Boys & Girls Club of Queens for an initial programming test. “After that, we refined the curriculum because we were adapting what we usually offer in the museum to the bus, which is a very different space.”

4th graders from PS22 outside the Lewis Latimer Mobile Lab

In May, the mobile lab conducted seven days of programming at three different schools in Queens. “Since this is the beginning phase, we approached schools that we already had relationships with and were able to secure those programming days.” Following the May programs, the museum continued to evaluate and assess the mobile lab. Now, the museum has opened a booking process starting in September, planning around the museum’s block party celebrating the 175th birthday of Lewis Latimer where the mobile lab will be front and center.

“The mobile lab has great potential of becoming a tool for the museum to reach more people and tell more people about Lewis Latimer,” said Yan. “It’ll never replace the experience of actually visiting the museum, stepping inside this historic landmark, but I think the mobile lab is similar to virtual programs. It doesn’t replace the in-person experience but it’s complementary to that experience. It’s a good way to introduce people to the museum and activities we have. This historic house is small and has limited space so having this mobile lab helps with our physical limitations. It’s also flexible to drive it anywhere and deliver programs. It’s part of our strategy to attract people and engage with them while introducing this history and dynamic legacy of Lewis Latimer.”

Learn more about the Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame and Museum: https://www.limusichalloffame.org/museum/

Learn more about Historic Saranac Lake:https://www.historicsaranaclake.org/

Learn more about the Lewis Latimer House Museum: https://www.lewislatimerhouse.org/

Letter from Erika: Semper Gumby

Tue, 27 Jun 2023 12:04:52 GMT

Dear Friends, Colleagues, and Supporters,

When I was 36 years old, my mother bought me a three inch-tall Gumby. For those without much gray hair, Gumby was a claymation TV show character who had a horse named Pokey. The Gumby Show was one of my childhood favorites, especially once we were able to afford a color television and I could see that Gumby was green and Pokey was orange. Eddie Murphy dressed as Gumby in costume on Saturday Night Live in the early 1980s (I don’t remember many of those episodes) and Gumby had his own 1995 feature film.

Gumby’s essential trait is that he is flexible. My mother’s gift was sent at a time when I needed to learn that flexibility is important to success. I was working at an organization that had just hired their third director in four years and I was suffering from a severe case of priority whiplash. The director who hired me concentrated on audience and community, the second on major donors, and the third on facilities. Projects in which staff had invested years of work were tossed; budgets were cut, then increased; technology was always behind the last update. Leadership did not make time to share their process, and much of the staff did not understand the “why” behind the changes. When I was at the end of a frayed rope, or my mother was tired of my complaints, she sent me a Gumby.

A few years ago, I was talking to a colleague who had served in the Marines about organizational change. I enjoyed hearing their perspective about teamwork and project management. As we wrapped up the conversation they said “Semper Gumby” and my heart skipped a beat. They shared that the Marines adopted “Semper Gumby” as an unofficial motto to teach the importance of flexibility. My mom and the Marines were on the same wavelength.

I believe flexibility is a lesson best learned with an open mind. MANY’s Museum Institute at Great Camp Sagamore is a unique, immersive, and transformative experience where museum professionals learn to build leadership skills and open their minds to change. Over the course of four days in this beautiful, isolated environment, all you will be asked to do is think deeply and participate in learning. You will exchange ideas over breakfast, discuss strategies under the stars, and reflect on shared experiences without the buzz of phones, traffic, or daily life to interrupt your thoughts.

We are really excited about our Museum Institute at Great Camp Sagamore this year and the different ways our presenters are planning to help attendees learn leadership skills - including flexibility. Someone interested in applying asked us to extend the deadline. So with flexibility in mind, the new deadline for applications to the Re-Thinking Leadership, the 2023 Museum Institute at Great Camp Sagamore is 5 PM on July 5. If you are a mid-career museum professional, I hope you will apply to join us this year.

Thank you and Semper Gumby!

Erika Sanger, Executive Director

Call for applications to serve on the MANY Board of Directors

Mon, 05 Jun 2023 13:30:01 GMT

The Museum Association of New York (MANY) is pleased to announce an open call for five positions on its Board of Directors for the Board Class of 2024-2026 and invites applications for those interested in serving.

The Board Nominating/ Governance Committee has set a priority for people with the following skills:

Fundraising and Membership
Human Resource Management
Facilities
Finance

The Committee is seeking nominations for museum professionals in the following regions:

Southern Tier
Mid-Hudson
New York City (two seats)
Western NY

MANY Board members assume certain roles and responsibilities including a financial commitment to the organization. Members of the Board of Directors are responsible for the custody, control, and direction of MANY under NY and federal statutes and regulations and organizational bylaws.

Click here to read the document outlining those roles and responsibilities. We encourage applicants to discuss the roles and responsibilities with their immediate supervisor or board chair to ensure they have institutional support for their application and potential Board service.

MANY staff and Board meet at various locations around the state at least five times a year with one mandatory meeting during the annual conference. Board terms are three years long and are renewable for a second three years. The length of service may change if nominated to serve in an officer capacity.

Members of the Board of Directors:

Embrace MANY’s mission and advocate for the field and the organization.
Promote diversity in programming, membership, staffing, and board representation.
Contribute financially to the organization and/or secure donations.
Join MANY as Organizational Members.

Applicants must be:

Passionate about MANY’s mission.
Comfortable in leadership positions.
Known for innovation and creativity.
Constructive problem solvers.
Happy to share expertise with peers.
Familiar with MANY programs.

To apply to serve on MANY’s Board of Directors, complete and submit the application by clicking here.

Applications must be submitted by 5 PM on June 30, 2023.

Applications will be reviewed by the Committee and selected candidates should expect to participate in an informational discussion with Committee members as part of the application review. The Committee will bring nominations for a full board vote at the September 13, 2023 meeting of the Board of Directors. Applicants will be notified soon after.

Nominees approved by the board will be put to a vote by the membership in accordance with MANY by-laws.

Letter From Erika: Courage and Vulnerability

Wed, 31 May 2023 15:22:38 GMT

Dear Friends, Members, and Supporters,

When we read responses to annual conference surveys we find at least one lamentation about how someone could not attend one session or another because one session conflicted with another in the schedule. It is truly impossible for anyone who attends a MANY conference to attend every session. The conference is purposefully structured with concurrent sessions to appeal to a range of people at different stages of their careers who are employed by different size museums of different disciplines. We strive to create an environment in which people can talk to each other and think deeply about new ways to work together to advance the field. The conference cannot happen without people who are courageous in their choice to speak out, vulnerable in the face of challenge, and willing to share the spotlight and the microphone with others.

When I started working in museums, I was often the youngest person in a meeting, surrounded by colleagues with lifetimes of experience to whom I deferred whether or not I agreed with their statements or choices. About 25 years ago - a time when I would have described myself as a mid-career professional - I was walking to a meeting of the organization’s board of trustees with the Executive Director who took the opportunity to remind me that my role at the meeting was only to listen. On the return walk, I told the Executive Director that a factual error had been made by a trustee about the origins and value of an endowment and asked how we could amend the minutes. I was then harshly criticized for not speaking up with the correct information during the meeting. It was a confusing time for me as I learned to navigate the turbulence created when multigenerational wealth, marginalized culture, and political influence are combined with governance and authority. It took me years to stop self-censoring, regain confidence, and trust that I had a platform from which I could speak out without fear.

When we were planning the 2023 conference, we believed that participants would find the things that bring us together outweigh our differences. What I couldn’t imagine was that there were so many people willing to share how they refused to abandon the work of creating a greater good, of trying to tell a complete story without fear of retribution, and how collaborating across institutions leads to lasting connections with communities and colleagues. I am humbled by the generosity of presenters and the willingness of our participants to listen with open minds and open hearts. I remain in awe of the amalgamation of hard work, passion, talent, and experience that creates a MANY conference.

I cannot extend enough gratitude to the twenty-five people on MANY’s board of directors who lend their voices, resources, and experiences to form the foundation upon which we create our annual conference. Next week the MANY Governance/Nominating committee will open a call for museum professionals to apply for the five seats on the board of directors that will open in 2024. A new “class” of board members is an exciting opportunity for MANY to grow in new directions. I look forward to seeing how five new board members with strong, courageous, and vulnerable voices can shape MANY’s commitment to create a better future for the museum field.

With thanks for your support,

Erika Sanger

Museums Continue to be a Vital Part of New York State’s Tourism Ecosystem

Wed, 31 May 2023 15:12:36 GMT

By Ross D. Levi, Empire State Development Vice President and Executive Director, NYS Division of Tourism / I LOVE NY

Ross Levi speaking at the Museum Association of New York 2023 annual conference in Syracuse, New York. Photo by Daylight Blue Media.

It was great to be with so many members of New York’s museum community earlier this spring at the MANY Annual Conference in Syracuse. Museums continue to be such a vital part of the state’s tourism ecosystem, and I LOVE NY works hard through our programs, initiatives, and enhancements to inspire travel domestically and internationally to our museums and other cultural attractions.

For the past several years, we’ve worked to bounce back from the global pandemic’s impact and move forward promoting our great state. New York State welcomed 220 million visitors in 2021 who contributed more than $52 billion in direct spending. That’s nearly an $18 billion increase in visitor spending over the prior year, and a recovery to about 71% of 2019 levels. Across New York, tourism is improving from the record lows during COVID shutdowns of 2020, even if it has not yet rebounded to pre-pandemic record highs.

New York State tourism generated close to $7.5 billion in state and local taxes in 2021, saving each household an average of $1,010 in taxes. This number is down only a couple hundred dollars from 2019's record highs and shows just how important the tourism industry is to New Yorkers. Tourism remains the state’s third-largest private sector employer, supporting 850,041 jobs in 2022 – literally 1 in 10 of all jobs in New York.

As the official destination marketing organization for New York State, the Division of Tourism at Empire State Development works to keep that momentum going. Under the leadership of Governor Kathy Hochul and with the support of our legislative partners, we promote travel to New York State through marketing, product development and program initiatives under the iconic I LOVE NY logo. Our program is multi-faceted with several departments working in sync to create the global awareness of everything our great state has to offer.

The evidence shows that I LOVE NY’s consumer marketing approach has been successful in the past. So, even while emerging from COVID, we did not need to drastically revamp our strategy, and instead continue to aggressively spread the word about New York as an amazing travel destination. We started our seasonal campaigns sooner and ran multiple executions to reach a wider audience and feature more great examples of New York State tourism attractions. We created assets and content that make it easier for travelers to research and plan a getaway, from our paid advertising to our digital program, public relations, experiential events and tourism segments.

We execute paid seasonal advertising through TV, radio, print, digital and out-of-home, featuring destinations, attractions, and experiences across the state for the summer, fall and winter travel seasons.

Our digital footprint is one of the strongest in the nation among destination marketing organizations. Our website - iloveny.com - is the hub for all aspects of planning a New York State vacation and has seen 60% year-over-year traffic growth driven by advertising and organic search, bolstered by robust original editorial content. We have a combined presence of over two million followers on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and TikTok. Content features top destinations, hidden gems and activity compilations statewide.

We continue to pitch destinations and host press trips with travel media to keep New York State top of mind. We hosted over 30 individual press trips since May 2022 and engaged journalists with authentic human-interest angles - BIPOC, LGBTQ and female storytellers who are creating news and amplifying the New York story. I LOVE NY media events held multiple times a year showcase seasonal attractions and activities. Last year, we hosted over 100 travel journalists at our events. We continue to see coverage in top outlets such as US News & World Report, Thrillist, CNN Travel, and Conde Nast Traveler.

This summer’s new 2023 I LOVE NY experiential marketing tour will build on last year's successful campaign, highlighting New York State destinations at festivals and special events. The tour ran from June to September covering 45 activation days at over 12 events across the state. We collected over 10,000 unique leads across 40 zip codes – even averaging four countries per event.

Ross Levi speaking during the I LOVE NY 2022 Summer Media Night at the American Museum of Natural History in NYC.

I LOVE NY Black Travel Initiative

Our segment tourism programs are pillars within the I LOVE NY program. New this year, the I LOVE NY Black travel initiative was announced by Governor Hochul this past February. The goal is to grow New York State tourism and encourage visitation, recognizing that Black travelers represent more than 13% of the domestic leisure travel market and spend over $109 billion annually. In a survey of Black travelers, 64% reported that the availability of Black culture and heritage attractions is important when making a destination choice. Another survey reported that diversity in marketing is a top factor when choosing a travel destination, with 54% of U.S. Black travelers more likely to visit a destination with Black representation in advertising.

The Black tourism initiative is the latest in our segment tourism programs. It’s been nine years since we launched the I LOVE NY LGBTQ program. Last year, we participated in Pride events in Buffalo, Albany, Rochester, Harlem, New York City, Fire Island and Syracuse, supported by a marketing campaign encouraging visitation to those LGBTQ events across the state.

Governor Hochul's announcement of the I LOVE NY Black Travel program at the Alvin Alley Theater, NYC.

Accessible NY

New York was also one of the first states in the nation with an accessible tourism program. We launched Accessible NY in July 2020 to promote destinations that offer accessibility features covering a range of needs including mobility, cognitive, hearing and visual. We were able to assemble listings from over 145 attractions that identify potential areas of accessibility that travelers are looking for when making travel plans, which are now featured on iloveny.com.

Path Through History

Path Through History is New York’s heritage tourism program with 14 distinct themes that come alive at attractions all across New York State. Twice a year, those attractions host special events from reenactments to artistic performances during Path Through History Weekends, confirmed this year for June 17-19 and October 7-9. Museums, historical attractions and sites can submit Path Through History events for consideration on the iloveny.com website.

Lockport Lock in Lockport, NY a Path Through History Location

International Travel Trade Program

I LOVE NY’s international travel trade program is responsible for sales efforts, marketing, and public relations efforts, encouraging global travelers to spend more time exploring the extensive range of visitor experiences across New York’s 11 travel regions. We have signed three new agencies to serve as our I LOVE NY offices in Australia, United Kingdom, and Germany, and retained our Canadian representation. We attend major international travel show and continue to promote the state with international tour operators and the travel trade.

Domestic Travel

We have recently added the domestic travel trade as an I LOVE NY focus, doing sales outreach, attending trade shows and hosting familiarization tours for tour operators and event producers in the meetings, conferences, exhibition, group travel and amateur sport spaces.

Market New York Grant Program

We know at I LOVE NY that in order to keep New York tourism strong, we need a strong tourism industry. For example, we work to support our local and regional tourism partners with grant opportunities. Market New York supports regionally themed marketing projects that promote tourism destinations, attractions, and special events, as well as tourism facility capital improvement projects. It has an annual cycle where in recent years $15 million in matching funds has been available to not-for-profit corporations, municipalities, tourism promotional agencies, public benefit corporations and for-profit companies. In 2022, nearly 70 projects were awarded matching grants for tourism marketing and capital projects.

The new round of Market New York is now open, and I encourage the museum community to apply for funding for projects like marketing campaigns, creating or bringing a new exhibition to the state or even new construction or renovation needs. Information on Market New York is available at esd.ny.gov, and there is also an informational webinar on June 14. Anyone interested can register here.

COVID-19 Relief Programs

We have also managed two COVID-19 Relief Programs which are soon coming to an end. The first, Return-to-Work, supports employment growth by providing financial assistance to businesses in the tourism industry that added new jobs. The second, Meet in New York, helps underwrite discounts on meeting space provided by convention centers and event venues, and on blocks of hotel rooms offered in conection with events. The last date for applications for both programs is June 30, 2023, though qualifying special events can take place as late as Decemeber 2025. Go to esd.ny.gov for more information and see if your organization qualifies.

Educational Programming

We also work to support the state’s tourism industry through educational programming. This year we hosted webinars on preparing for the 2024 Total Solar Eclipse and tourism connected to the Underground Railroad in New York State, as well as an all-day workshop on the state of international tourism. We plan on hosting additional educational programs in the upcoming months. If you’d like to be added to our industry list to hear about these opportunities, please email info@iloveny.com.

Workforce Development

We also recognize how important workforce development is to the health of our industry. I LOVE NY partnered with the New York State Department of Labor to host another year of free, tourism specific virtual job fairs, the most recent preparing for the upcoming summer season. Businesses and non-profit institutions have expressed their positive feedback for this opportunity to reach potential employees. If you’d like to participate in a future job fair, please contact info@iloveny.com.

Finally, we also serve our role as the state’s tourism office by developing public policy that helps make New York State more hospitable for tourism. We stay connected to a myriad of sister state agencies to coordinate messaging and programming, including the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, New York State Council for the Arts, Department of Environmental Conservation, Department of Agriculture and Markets, Olympic Regional Development Authority and Canal Corporation.

I LOVE NY is very appreciative of what our state’s unparalleled museum community does to provide engaging, memory-making experiences for travelers. We seek to support you in bringing more people to experience all you have to offer, and welcome your assistance in helping us help you.

Please keep us informed of your latest developments so we can amplify them through our promotional channels by staying in touch with your county Tourism Promotion Agency (TPA).
Work with the TPA to make sure you have an updated listing in the iloveny.com database, including current photos. This allows us to include you in our website, mobile app, travel guide and other collateral.
Let us know about your accessible information by filling out our accessibility survey. Email ilnyaccessible@esd.ny.gov for more information.
Keep us informed of your PR efforts by sending releases and imagery to thebeat@esd.ny.gov, which will highlight your news in our online press room and other I LOVE NY digital assets.
Connect with your Regional Economic Development Council so they know the importance of museums in keeping communities strong, including the economic benefit they bring by attracting travelers.
Engage with I LOVE NY social media posts.
Host a Path Through History Weekend event or even become a Path Through History attraction.
Apply for the Market New York and other applicable funding programs.
Attend I LOVE NY educational webinars or host a free virtual booth at I LOVE NY job fairs.
Lastly, cross-pollinate and promote across regions. Connect with hotels, restaurants and other attractions to further spread the word about what awaits visitors to your area.

We look forward to continuing our partnership with MANY and our state’s museum community to expand our mutual success and help museum lovers find more of what they love here in New York State.

The Museum Study Act funded in the 2023-24 NYS Budget

Tue, 09 May 2023 13:35:03 GMT

Dear Friends, Members, and Supporters,

I am pleased to share the news that the 2023/24 New York State Budget included $1M in funding for The Museum Study Act. The department of economic development, in conjunction with other departments and entities, will conduct a comprehensive study of public and private museums and report their findings and recommendations.

The study will identify and gather data about all museums in the state including size, hours of operation, visitor statistics, funding sources and amounts, and the subjects of their collections. The resulting report will help illustrate economic and social impacts, quantify needs, and recommend systems to ensure equitable distribution of state funds. It will help communities, legislative representatives, and individual supporters learn about the missions, audiences, and funding needs of our state's museums.

“From world famous institutions like the Metropolitan Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Baseball Hall of Fame to treasured history collections and local cultural hubs, museums have long been synonymous with New York State. Despite the fame and significant economic impact, our museum sector has actually had no real “home” in the New York State government,” said Assemblymember Didi Barrett. “In this year’s state budget, legislation I sponsored with Senator Jeremy Cooney was included to study and document how the state currently does and does not fund our some 1,500 museums and provide a pathway to ensuring these beloved institutions in every corner of the state have the support and stability to flourish long into the future. I want to thank the Museum Association of New York, the Speaker and my Assembly colleagues for their support of this important study.”

Too many of our museums operate in a culture of scarcity, struggling to pay bills and wondering each year how they will keep their doors open. Museums need support to ensure the protection of their collections, to strengthen their roles as community education partners chartered by New York State’s Education Department, and to grow their role as economic engines generating $5.37B to the state's economy.

“New York State is the proud home of world class museums, both large and small. More importantly, they are part of the fabric of our communities across the entire state,” said NYS Senator Jeremy Cooney. “As important as museums are to New York, these institutions lack an established funding structure in state government. I am proud this year’s budget included allocated funding for a multi-agency team to conduct a study of public and private museums to ensure the protection of collections and an equitable funding structure in the future.”

MANY is deeply grateful for the efforts and support of bill author and sponsor, Assemblymember Didi Barrett, Senate bill sponsor Senator Jeremy A. Cooney, all of our legislators that supported the nearly unanimous passage of the bill in 2022, and Governor Hochul for including this critical investment in the 2023-24 NYS budget.

Please take a moment out of your busy schedules to thank your Assemblymember and NYS Senator for their support of The Museum Study Act.

I promise to keep you informed as we learn more about the study planning and implementation.

With thanks for your support and your advocacy,

Erika Sanger

Executive Director, Museum Association of New York

Click here to see the bill language

MANY awarded major grants for collaborative project to amplify New York's role in American Democracy

Tue, 02 May 2023 17:15:57 GMT

Museum Association of New York awarded $499,988 from the National Endowment for the Humanities and $120,000 from the William G. Pomeroy Foundation to support a state-wide humanities discussion program series

[Troy, NY]—The Museum Association of New York (MANY) is pleased to announce a new initiative to help museums in New York State amplify the role that our state and people have played in the development of American democracy as we approach the Semiquincentennial.

In the latest grant funding for humanities projects, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) awarded MANY $499,988 to support “A New Agora for New York: Museums as Spaces for Democracy,” produced in partnership with Humanities New York (HNY). The series will use the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum on Main Street Exhibition Voices and Votes: Democracy in America as a launching point to support the work of twelve museums and their communities to explore, reflect on, and tell the story of their role in the evolution of American Democracy and envision the future of our nation.

“These 258 newly funded projects demonstrate the vitality of the humanities across our nation,” said NEH Chair Shelly C. Lowe (Navajo). “NEH is proud to support exemplary education, preservation, media, research, and infrastructure projects that expand resources for Americans, support humanities programs and opportunities for underserved students and communities, and deepen our understanding of our history, culture, and society.”

“The lives of New Yorkers are richer because of our commitment to education, humanities, the arts, and preserving the history and culture of our state,” said Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. “This $499,988 in federal NEH funding will keep this proud tradition alive and help ensure our communities can continue learning from New York’s many wonderful educational and research institutions. I will always fight to support these essential community institutions and to make educational and cultural opportunities more accessible for all.”

“Our state’s museums are integral parts of our communities, serving as educational, historical, and cultural resources for residents in every part of our state,” said Congressman Paul Tonko (NY-20). “With that in mind, I’m thrilled to celebrate this significant infusion of federal funding that will allow the Museum Association of New York (MANY) to create museum spaces where visitors can explore the context and controversies behind our democratic system. This investment will allow MANY to install a Smithsonian exhibition at twelve museums across New York State that will help communities facilitate thought-provoking discussions about the roots and responsibilities of our democracy. Throughout my time in Congress, I’ve been a strong supporter of museums in our region and beyond. I’m proud to lend my support to this worthy and timely project.”

Adapted from American Democracy: A Great Leap of Faith currently on display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, Voices and Votes includes historical and contemporary photographs; educational and archival video; engaging multimedia interactives; and historical objects like campaign souvenirs, voter memorabilia, and protest material.

MANY is New York State’s representative of the MoMS program, an outreach program of the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service that brings traveling exhibitions, educational resources, and programming across America to communities through local museums, historical societies, and other cultural venues.

“We’re excited to collaborate once again with the Museum Association of New York, to share the wealth of the Smithsonian’s research on democracy in America,” said Carol Harsh, Director of the Museum on Main Street (MoMS) program. “As one of the original thirteen colonies, New York was at the heart of the American experiment to create a government of, by, and for the people. The support from the NEH will expand the reach of Voices and Votes and help communities amplify their own local history.”

The exhibition will open at Preservation Long Island in March 2024 then travel to Sackets Harbor Battlefield State Historic Site, National Women’s Hall of Fame and Museum, Robert H. Jackson Center, the Munson in Utica, Alice Austen House, Long Island Museum, Onondaga Historical Association and Skä•noñh Great Law of Peace Center, Genesee Country Village and Museum, Michigan Street African American Heritage Corridor Commission, Chemung County Historical Society, and concludes at the Underground Railroad Education Center in Albany in January 2026.

Each museum will display the Smithsonian exhibition and produce an exhibition drawn from their own collection that relates to their community’s role in the development and advancement of democracy in America. Smithsonian resources available to the twelve museums will include digital learning curricula and communication tools. MANY staff will organize the exhibition travel, and help each museum plan, implement, and evaluate the exhibitions and interpretive programs.

The William G. Pomeroy Foundation will add $120,000 to the NEH’s award for this 30-month-long project that will support public events, community exhibitions, free public lectures, workshops for teachers, and community for discussion programs at the twelve museums. “As we look forward to the U.S. Semiquincentennial in 2026, the Smithsonian’s Voices and Votes exhibition is an exciting and relevant opportunity to engage people in the history of democracy in America,” said Deryn Pomeroy, Director of Strategic Initiatives at the Pomeroy Foundation. “We are thrilled to provide a grant to MANY in support of bringing the exhibit to twelve host sites throughout New York State. This initiative will further enhance the ways in which these outstanding organizations serve their audiences and communities with meaningful conversations related to history, democracy, and our nation’s 250th anniversary.”

The project will help the museums build their capacity to engage with their communities with access to consulting and advising scholars, a project fellow dedicated to program support, New York State Museum education and curatorial staff, AASLH’s Vital Resources program, training by HNY staff in leading Community Conversations, and a subscription to the OurStoryBridge virtual platform to collect and share oral histories about voting and democracy in their communities.

HNY is an instrumental project partner who will share their expertise in developing and leading community conversations and their deep connections to humanities scholarship and audience development. “The New Agora invites New Yorkers to revive and redefine democratic practice in the twenty-first century,” said Joseph Murphy, Director of Grant-Making at Humanities New York. “Humanities New York is proud to join The Museum Association of New York in revitalizing the experiment in self-government, offering all New Yorkers a space in which to exercise the habits of democracy and reflect—in critical and respectful ways—upon our past, present and future. We wanted to support this opportunity to strengthen the public humanities across our state.”

Teacher training workshops will be organized by New York State Museum Senior Historian and Curator of Political and Military History Aaron Noble, Senior Historian and Curator of Social History Ashley Hopkins-Benton, Museum Instructors James Jenkins and Kathleen Morehouse, and Director of Education Kathryn Weller. Workshops will connect exhibition content to New York State Learning Standards and create a teacher training program that encourages hands-on and inquiry-based classroom learning.

“Museums have a crucial role in society’s civic education,” said Aaron Noble, Senior Historian and Curator of Political and Military History at the New York State Museum. “The New York State Museum looks forward to collaborating with the Museum Association of New York and cultural organizations across the state on this exciting initiative to highlight museums as critical gathering spaces for civic engagement and conversations about American democracy.”

"OurStoryBridge is honored to contribute to MANY's upcoming project for the Semiquincentennial,” said Jery Y. Huntley, Founder and President of OurStoryBridge Inc. “Our methodology is a great fit to help share America's personal narratives on democracy online and to reach wide and diverse audiences. Thank you MANY for all that you are doing! So proud to be a part of this!"

Each site will host the Voices and Votes exhibition for six weeks. To learn more about A New Agora for New York: Museums as Spaces for Democracy and the Voices and Votes MoMS exhibition, visit nysmuseums.org/Voices-and-Votes.

For exhibition images, visit https://museumonmainstreet.org/VoicesVotes

For host site images, visit https://www.dropbox.com/t/4pigrZhNfZgc8cYP

Project Participants and Host Sites

(in exhibition tour order)

Preservation Long Island

Preservation Long Island works with Long Islanders to preserve the cultural heritage of the region. They were founded in 1948 in response to intense post-World War II development with a mission to preserve individual historic buildings and artifacts through the creation of house museums. Today, Preservation Long Island advances the importance of historic preservation in the region through advocacy, education, and stewardship.

The Voices and Votes exhibition will be on view March 24 to May 3, 2024 at Preservation Long Island's Headquarters, an 1842 re-purposed church in Cold Spring Harbor that now serves as their office, library, and exhibition gallery.

Sackets Harbor Battlefield, New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation

Following the outbreak of war between the United States and Great Britain in June 1812, Sackets Harbor became the center of American naval and military activity for the upper St. Lawrence Valley and Lake Ontario. Today the Sackets Harbor Battlefield is interpreted to the public with exhibitions, guided and self-guided tours, and a restored 1850's Navy Yard and Commandant's House. During the summer months, guides dressed in military clothing of 1813 reenact the camp life of the common soldier.

The Voices and Votes exhibition will be installed May 17 to June 28, 2024 in an 1817 limestone structure that originally functioned as the Union Hotel.

National Women's Hall of Fame

The National Women’s Hall of Fame is the nation’s first and oldest nonprofit organization and museum dedicated to honoring and celebrating the achievements of distinguished American women. In August 2020, the National Women’s Hall of Fame moved into the historic Seneca Knitting Mill which operated from 1844 until 1999. Their comprehensive programming and beautiful museum on the banks of the Cayuga-Seneca Canal uses the stories of its 302 Inductees to inspire and engage all who visit.

The Voices and Votes exhibition will be presented from July 12 to August 23, 2024 on the newly renovated second floor of the Hall.

Robert H. Jackson Center

The Center advances the legacy of Justice Robert H. Jackson through live presentations, exhibitions, multimedia, research, and scholarship that demonstrates the relevance and applicability of Justice Jackson’s ideas to present and future generations. Their programs are based on Jackson’s views on international law, constitutional law, and human and civil rights with special emphasis on educating youth on issues of justice and the rule of law.

The Voices and Votes exhibition will be presented from September 6 to October 18 as part of their annual Constitution Day programming.

Munson

Founded in 1919, Munson’s Museum of Art features a renowned permanent collection, rotating exhibitions, and education programs for people of all ages and backgrounds. Munson believes in the power of the arts and serves their entire community with essential experiences that inspire personal and cultural transformation. Munson will partner with the Oneida County History Center to produce their local exhibition.

The Voices and Votes exhibition will be installed November 11 to December 13, 2024 in the 1960 Philip Johnson-designed Museum of Art building.

Alice Austen House Museum

The Alice Austen House keeps the bold spirit of the early American photographer Alice Austen (1866-1952) alive by presenting changing exhibitions of her pioneering historic photographs, providing education programs for students, and offering a range of cultural programs for the public. The museum is a New York City and National Landmark, on the Register of Historic Places and a member of the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s distinctive group of Historic Artists’ Homes and Studios. In 2017, they were designated a National site of LGBTQ History.

The Voices and Votes exhibition will be installed December 27, 2024 to February 7, 2025 in newly renovated galleries within the Victorian Gothic Cottage that served as Austen’s home.

The Long Island Museum

The Long Island Museum cares for significant regional art and historic collections and maintains one of the most important museum collections of historic horse-drawn vehicles in the nation. A leading cultural institution and the only Smithsonian Affiliate in the region, the Museum is dedicated to inspiring people of all ages through the heritage of Long Island and its diverse communities. Historic buildings from the Stony Brook community were gathered by the museum’s founders onto the site to create the foundation for its current multi-structure complex.

The Voices and Votes exhibition will be presented in the Visitor Center/History Museum’s Cowles Gallery from February 21 to April 4, 2025.

Onondaga Historical Association / Skä•noñh Great Law of Peace Center

The Onondaga Historical Association’s archives and collections give perspective on significant social, political, and religious movements in Central New York. The historical association operates a history museum in the urban center of Syracuse and a Haudenosaunee Cultural Center, the Skä-ñonh: Great Law of Peace Center, in Liverpool. The Center is focused on telling the story of the native peoples of Central New York through the lens of the Onondaga Nation, the keepers of the Central Fire. The Onondagas, or People of the Hills, are the spiritual and political center of the Haudenosaunee, where American democracy began.

The Voices and Votes exhibition will be presented at the Skä-ñonh: Great Law of Peace Center from April 18 to May 30, 2025.

Genesee Country Village and Museum

Opened to the public in 1976, America’s Bicentennial, Genesee Country Village and Museum is the largest living history museum in New York State and the third largest in the United States, covering 600 acres with 68 historic buildings and more than 20,000 artifacts telling the story of New York State and 19th-century America. The museum's interpretation includes the contributions of women, religious groups, and the Black and Indigenous communities. Since 1999, the museum has partnered with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to host Citizenship and Naturalization ceremonies.

The Voices and Votes exhibition will be presented at the John L. Wehle Gallery from June 3 to July 25, 2025.

Michigan Street African American Heritage Corridor Commission

The Michigan Street African American Heritage Corridor Commission is the gateway to resident and visitor experiences about Buffalo’s rich African American history. The Commission illuminates its vibrant neighborhoods, shops, restaurants, people, and institutions, as well as its significant impact on local, national, and international history and brings attention to the resilience of Black communities across our nation. From the Buffalo Anti-Slavery Movement and the Niagara Movement to the Civil Rights Movement and the Jazz Age— leaders in the Corridor understood the importance of democracy and the need for African Americans and women to have the power to vote.

The Voices and Votes exhibition will be presented at The Michigan Street Baptist Church, the oldest church built by African Americans in Buffalo from August 8 to September 19, 2025.

Chemung County Historical Society

Founded in 1923, the Chemung County Historical Society is a non-profit educational institution dedicated to the collection, preservation, and presentation of the history of the Chemung Valley region. First chartered by New York State in 1947, today CCHS operates two cultural repositories, the Chemung Valley History Museum and the Booth Library. They are the largest general history museum in the Southern Tier telling the history of Elmira and Chemung County with interactive exhibits, educational programming, and lectures for visitors of all ages. Their collections include records that document voting, elections, and politics. They are also the repository for the records of the local NAACP.

The Voices and Votes exhibition will be presented at the Chemung Valley History Museum from October 3 to November 14, 2025.

Underground Railroad Education Center

Inspired by the reclamation of the voices of the Underground Railroad activists written out of American history, the Underground Railroad Education Center (UREC) seeks to empower multi-age, diverse audiences through education, dialogue, and program experiences to learn about the work of historic justice activists and explore their relationship with us today. Located in the history Stephen and Harriet Myers Residence, a headquarters for Underground Railroad activity in the Caption Region in the mid-1850s, UREC places the work of the Black abolitionists in their national and international context and relates their work to today's justice efforts.

The Voices and Votes exhibition will be presented in the newly built Interpretive Center of Underground Railroad Education Center from November 28, 2025 to January 9, 2026.

# # #

About the Museum Association of New York

The Museum Association of New York is the only statewide museum service organization with more than 700 member museums, historical societies, zoos, botanical gardens, and aquariums. MANY helps shape a better future for museums and museum professionals by uplifting best practices and building organizational capacity through advocacy, training, and networking opportunities. Visit www.nysmuseums.organd follow MANY on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn @nysmuseums

About the National Endowment for the Humanities

Created in 1965 as an independent federal agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities supports research and learning in history, literature, philosophy, and other areas of the humanities by funding selected, peer-reviewed proposals from around the nation. Additional information about the National Endowment for the Humanities and its grant programs is available at: www.neh.gov.

About the William G. Pomeroy Foundation

The William G. Pomeroy Foundation® is committed to supporting the celebration and preservation of community history; and working to improve the probability of finding appropriate donor matches or other life-saving treatments for blood cancer patients. Established by Trustee Bill Pomeroy in 2005 to bring together his two greatest passions, the Pomeroy Foundation is a private, philanthropic organization located in Syracuse, N.Y. As the nation’s leading funder of historic roadside markers, the Pomeroy Foundation has awarded more than 2,100 grants for markers and bronze plaques in 48 states and Washington, D.C. To learn more about the Pomeroy Foundation, visit wgpfoundation.org.

About Humanities New York

Using dialogue, reflection, and critical thinking, Humanities New York applies the humanities to strengthen democratic society. Established in 1975 as the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Humanities New York is a private 501(c)(3) organization that may receive federal, state, and private funding. To learn more about Humanities New York, visit humanitiesny.org.

2022 Annual Report

Tue, 28 Mar 2023 16:25:41 GMT

Dear Members, Friends, and Supporters,

In 2022, MANY adopted a new strategic plan, revised its by-laws and personnel policy, and changed the board of directors’ terms to align with the organization’s fiscal year. In April, Brian Lee Whisenhunt became President of the Board of Directors and Dr. Georgette Grier-Key and Bruce Whitmarsh Co-Vice Presidents as part of an organizational shift to support future leadership transitions.

We welcomed six new members of the Board of Directors:

– Beth Ann Balalos, Access and Inclusion Program Director, Long Island Children’s Museum

– Samantha Hall Saladino, Executive Director, Fulton County Historical Society

– Dr. Callie Johnson, Director of Communications and Community Engagement, Buffalo AKG Art Museum

– Nick Martinez, Assistant Director of Youth Initiatives, American Museum of Natural History

– Victoria Reisman, Curator, Bureau of Historic Sites, NYS Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation

– Joshua Ruff, Co-Executive Director, Long Island Museum of American Art, History, and Carriages

In January, we reorganized our staff structure and in March hired Amelia Whitworth, a highly experienced business administrator who has streamlined processes and enhanced tracking and reporting capacity. Our social media continues to grow under the expertise of Megan Eves, Assistant Director for Programs and Communications. The number of followers across four platforms grew to 25,812, a 20% increase over 2021 and a remarkable 72% growth since the end of 2018. The American Alliance of Museums awarded Executive Director Erika Sanger the 2022 Advocacy Leadership Award for her work on behalf of museums in New York and across the nation.

The annual conference “Envisioning Our Museums for the Seventh Generation” was held in Corning April 9–12. It was the first time many museum professionals gathered in-person since March 2020 and the organization’s first full conference since 2019. Despite the challenges producing this event, it was sold out with Covid-restricted attendance of 300 people.

Virtual programs continue to allow us to expand our service to the field. NY museum professionals comprise 40-60% of the audience for virtual programs and 80% of attendees were not MANY members. From January to August, we partnered with Museum Hue to produce “Museums Support Democracy” a 7-part webinar series attended by 869 people from 48 states and 8 countries. The series was produced with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Humanities NY.

From October to December, we produced a 6-part webinar series “Meet MANY Online” that featured six of the highest-rated presentations from the 2022 annual conference. The series was attended by 722 people from 45 states and 8 countries.

The regranting partnership with the New York State Council on the Arts allowed MANY to reach 102 museums with a total of $500,981 in grants. We are grateful for the Pomeroy Foundation’s continued support for the Pomeroy Fund for NYS History that allowed MANY to grant 20 museums $5,000 each towards education programs.

MANY also served 96 museums and their 179 staff members through the IMLS Cares Act funded project “Building Capacity, Creating Sustainability, Growing Accessibility” with hundreds of hours of training and program support.

The Museum Study Act passed the New York State legislature unanimously (minus one) in 2022 with overwhelming support from several state agencies. The Governor’s veto noted that the legislature would need to appropriate funds for it to be signed. Actions to that end are already in motion.

We closed 2022 with 733 members, a 6% increase. This growth and the generosity of our donors and industry partners helped us to achieve a net income of $22,112.59. With the support of our board of directors that now more closely reflects the diversity of those who call New York home and thousands of museum professionals who rely on our services and programs, MANY is stronger today than anyone could have imagined.

With thanks for helping to make 2022 such a success,

Erika Sanger

Executive Director

Museum Association of New York

Brian Lee Whisenhunt

President, Board of Directors

Museum Association of New York

Executive Director, The Rockwell Museum

Click here to download the 2022 annual report.

Museum Professionals Awarded Scholarships to Attend the Museum Association of New York’s 2023 Annual Conference in Syracuse this April

Wed, 15 Mar 2023 13:45:55 GMT

The Museum Association of New York [MANY] is proud to announce that 25 museum professionals from across New York State will attend the 2023 annual conference “Finding Center: Access, Inclusion, Participation, and Engagement” in Syracuse, NY, April 15-18 with full scholarship support. Scholarships include conference registration, travel, workshop or special event registration, and complimentary individual MANY membership for one year. Most scholarships include hotel accommodation.

Awardees were selected through a competitive application process. Applications were reviewed by a panel that included members of MANY’s board of directors. We look forward to welcoming these exceptional professionals to Syracuse and with the support of our donors, expanding MANY’s service to the field with the growth of our scholarship program.

2023 Scholarship Awards

BIPOC Museum Professional in Museum Administration

Awarded to a Black, Indigenous, or Person of Color working in museum administration who has played a leadership role in advancing the capacity and sustainability of their museum.

Sophie Lo, Deputy Director, Museum at Eldridge Street

John Sapida, Manager of Digital Initiatives, American Museum of Natural History

Cassetti Scholarship

Awarded to a museum professional who has demonstrated creative leadership and has affected significant, positive change in the ways in which their museum engages with audiences.

Ran Yan, Executive Director, Lewis Latimer House

William G. Pomeroy Foundation Scholarship

Carol Anne Barsody, Operations Manager, The Three Bears Historic Complex, Ovid

Carlene Bermann, Interim Executive Director/Collections Manager, St. Lawrence County Historical Association

Jennifer Corby, Executive Director, The Phelps Mansion Museum

Jamie Dangler, President, Homeville Board of Trustees, Homeville Museum

Zachary Greenfield, Archives & Collections Coordinator, Chenango County Historical Society

Nicole Herwig, Executive Director, Chapman Museum

Melissa Kiewiet, Interim Director, Dyckman Farmhouse Museum Alliance

Emily Malley, Assistant Director, Tinker Homestead & Farm Museum at Tinker Nature Park

Cole Mullin, Office Manager, Lewis County Historical Society

Joanne Weir, Vice President/Curator, Nanticoke Valley Historical Society

Robert D. L. Gardiner Foundation Scholarship

Courtney Chambers, Director, Sea Cliff Village Museum

Jonathan Cope, Assistant to the Executive Director, Montauk Historical Society

Ariana Garcia-Cassani, Assistant of Communications and Development, Montauk Historical Society

Mari Irizarry, Director, Three Village Historical Society

Lindsey Steward-Goldberg, Education Coordinator, Three Village Historical Society

Ayelet Pearl, Community Engagement Coordinator, Voelker Orth Museum

Central NY Community Foundation Scholarship

Sponsored by the Central NY Community Foundation for museum professionals working in Onondaga, Cayuga, Oswego, Cortland or Madison Counties.

Emma Dailey, Director of Collections and Exhibitions, Seward House Museum

Kate Grindstaff, Education and Outreach Coordinator, Seward House Museum

Derrick Pratt, Director of Education & Public Programming, Erie Canal Museum

Karyn Radcliffe, Collections Manager, Cayuga Museum of History and Art

Museum Professional in a Facilities Position Scholarship

Sponsored by Fireline Corporation, this scholarship is awarded to a museum professional working in a facilities position at a NYS museum.

Colin Brady, Director of Operations, Poster House

Syracuse University Alumni Museum Professional Scholarship

Sponsored by the Graduate Program in Museum Studies, School of Design, Syracuse University, this scholarship is awarded to a museum professional who is a graduate of Syracuse University and working at a NYS museum.

Emma Rathe, Manager of Programs and Exhibition Production, George Eastman Museum

Following the conference, scholarship recipients will share their conference experience which may be selected to be included in MANY's This Month in NYS Museums e-newsletter.

The 2023 annual conference will be hosted in Syracuse, NY from April 15 to 18. To learn more, please visit: https://nysmuseums.org/annualconference

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About the Museum Association of New York

The Museum Association of New York is the only statewide museum service organization with more than 750 member museums, historical societies, zoos, botanical gardens, and aquariums. MANY helps shape a better future for museums and museum professionals by uplifting best practices and building organizational capacity through advocacy, training, and networking opportunities. Visit www.nysmuseums.org and follow MANY on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn @nysmuseums

Letter from Erika: First Vote

Wed, 22 Feb 2023 13:43:47 GMT

Eleanor Roosevelt voting in 1936, less than twenty years after the Nineteenth Amendment guaranteed women the right to vote. FDR Library Photo

Dear Friends, Members, and Colleagues,

I don’t remember who was on the ballot the first time I voted, but I remember the challenge of finding my polling place - a community meeting room in the basement of an apartment building - on a rainy night in New York City. The room was lit with flickering fluorescent bulbs and the floor was covered with gray linoleum tile. It took the poll volunteer who sat on a metal folding chair behind a metal folding table a long time to find me in a very large register. I signed my name and waited behind a stanchion until a booth with a curtain opened up and someone walked out. Only then was I allowed to cross the room and enter the booth. I remember pushing all the little levers and then pulling the big lever that recorded my vote and opened the curtain.

Those machines are long gone. Now I vote using a black marker on a printed form scanned into an electronic reader. My polling place is the back room of a volunteer fire station located at the second of two traffic lights in my hamlet. My vote feels very meaningful in this purple district and I have been known to be among the first at the polling site. My faith in our nation’s democracy is tied to my commitment to vote.

MANY wants to help museums draw connections from their communities to the history of Democracy in America and build their capacity to commemorate the Semiquincentennial by hosting Voices and Votes: Democracy in America, an exhibition produced by the Smithsonian Institution’s Traveling Exhibition Service program, Museum on Main Street. The exhibition includes historical and contemporary photographs, archival and contemporary video, engaging multimedia interactives, games, and historical objects like campaign souvenirs, voter memorabilia, and protest materials. It is based on a major exhibition currently on display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History called American Democracy: A Great Leap of Faith. It also includes a section where visitors can record stories about their first voting experience.

I believe this project has the potential to change the way we all tell the story of New York’s contribution to American Democracy. With this exhibition on view, New York’s museums can become places where people can participate in discussions about the history and future of our nation. Museums selected to host Voices and Votes will also produce a small, responsive exhibition drawn from their collections. It could tell the story of how someone in their community created positive change for our nation or re-contextualize an important event. Exhibitions may be installed in the museum together or separately in a partner space like a library or school.

2019 was the first time New York State participated in the Smithsonian’s Museum on Main Street program. MANY traveled the Water/Ways exhibition almost 800 miles to six museums where 24,000 people saw the exhibition and learned about New York’s relationship with water. Participating museums saw a 40-60% increase in the number of visitors, equally divided between community members and tourists.

Participation is by application due March 17. You can learn more about how to apply on our website. We do ask for a financial commitment to help us travel the exhibition professionally, but we are committed to raising funds to help offset expenses. We have also applied to the NEH for a Humanities Discussion grant titled “A New Agora for New York: Museums as Spaces for Democracy.” The project is connected to the NEH’s “A More Perfect Union” initiative and based on the concept of an ancient Greek Agora - both an assembly of people and the physical setting in which they gathered.

Between now and March 17, Megan Eves and I will be attending a national planning meeting with the Smithsonian Museum on Main Street program and visiting A Great Leap of Faith exhibition at the National Museum of American History. I would be happy to answer any questions you may have about Voices and Votes, the proposed Humanities Discussion programs, and the museum selection process, but in exchange, I may ask you to tell me about the first or last time you voted.

With thanks, e

Investing in Digital: Louis Armstrong House Museum

Wed, 22 Feb 2023 13:41:40 GMT

In 2022, the Louis Armstrong House Museum was awarded $30,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities to create Mapping Jazz and Hip-Hop in Queens, an interactive digital project that explores the history of jazz and hip-hop. The project will use a multi-platform digital experience including a museum exhibition and a web/mobile interactive to examine how Queens’ prolific jazz community significantly influenced the rise of hip-hop. The platforms will facilitate individual visitors’ experiences as they explore the neighborhoods that cultivated jazz and hip-hop for over a hundred years.

Digitization

The project follows the massive digitization in 2018 of the museum’s entire archives supported by a grant from the Robert F. Smith and the Fund II Foundation. Smith, who is on the Louis Armstrong House Museum’s board of trustees, approached the museum in 2015 about creating a digital archive that would offer an online glimpse ino Louis Armstong’s daily life and continue Armstong’s mission to preserve African American history. The museum applied for a grant in 2016 through the Fund II Foundation and was awarded a total of $3 million. $2.7 million was allocated to digitization efforts and $300,000 supported the hiring of two full-time museum fellows from historically Black universities to help with digitization. The fellows worked alongside Ricky Riccardi, Director of Research Collections and Sarah Rose, Manager of Research Collections.

“It was a huge process but now our entire collection is publicly accessible to anyone 24 hours a day, ” said Regina Bain, Executive Director of the Louis Armstrong House Museum. The museum’s collection is comprised of eleven different collections totaling more than 60,000 items, making it the largest archive of any jazz musician.

“The biggest collection is the Louis Armstrong Collection, which is comprised of all of the things that were in the house when Louis lived in the house including past recordings, and pictures - all of those things have been digitized,” said Bain.

The Louis Armstrong Collection also contains Louis and his wife Lucille’s personal collection of 1,600 recordings, 650 home-recorded reel-to-reel tapes, 86 scrapbooks, 5,000 photographs, 270 sets of band parts, 12 linear feet of papers, letters and manuscripts, 5 trumpets, 14 mouthpieces, and 120 awards and plaques. When Louis Armstrong passed away in 1971, Lucille continued to live in the home and worked to ensure that it would become a National and New York City Historic Landmark, with the goal that the home and its archives would become a museum. When Lucille died in 1983, the home and its contents went to the City of New York which designated the City University of New York, Queens College to oversee the process. The archives became accessible to the public in the 1990s and the house opened as a museum in 2003.

Storytelling Legacy

“This grant really helped us through the pandemic because we had all of these digital assets and could build out digital storytelling through virtual exhibitions,” said Bain. “It really gave us a facility. We have archiving experience and now we have digital archiving experience. We have digital storytelling experience.”

Following the digitization of the archives, the museum began to think about how digital storytelling applies to one of the organization's core mission –sharing archival materials that document Armstrong’s life and legacy with the community.

“Community was important to Louis and Lucille Armstrong,” said Bain. “They lived in this community of Corona, Queens for thirty years and they loved their neighbors. They invited kids over to sit on the stoop and play the horns…watch TV and eat ice cream. What does it mean for us as an institution to live in those values, to live in that legacy, and care enough to be curious to share our resources with the community. One of the resources that we have is our archive and ability to archive.”

Armstrong is widely considered to be responsible for shaping jazz into the music it would become in the 1930s. “Louis Armstong was a jazz musician but he was also a pop musician. He was a Black cultural icon in many different genres,” said Bain. “Usually when we talk about the story of jazz in New York it’s focused on Harlem, but there’s a story about jazz and Queens that I think needs to be told.”

Digital and Community

The story about jazz and Queens began to be told through the Flushing Jazz Trail Map created by Ephemera Press and commissioned by Flushing Town Hall. The map shows places of interest and the homes of jazz legends including Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, and Louis Armstrong. “When I started at the Louis Armstrong House Museum two years ago, I saw this map on the wall at Flushing Town Hall and I was inspired,” said Bain. “I reached out to the Town Hall and the Kupferberg Center for the Arts and we started dreaming about what this could be.” The conversation between Bain, the Flushing Town Hall, and the Kupferberg Center for the Arts evolved into a conversation about hip-hop. “We started to think about familiar genealogical storytelling connections between jazz and hip-hop in Queens and wouldn’t that be an amazing story to tell.” Stories like hip-hop artist Nas whose father was a jazz cornetist in Queens. “We looked at Louis and Lucille’s story and values of community, looking at the resources and expertise that we have as an organization and putting them together into a new idea that celebrates Black music in the borough of Queens.”

The museum is working with its community, musicians, and academics to develop what this digital storytelling will look like. “Through this series of conversations where we’ve landed so far is that there is going to be a website, an app, and a physical installation throughout the borough of Queens.” The museum is working with jazz and hip-hop historians, artists, and practitioners to help document the oral history of jazz and hip-hop to include within an interactive digital map. “So many of these folks who have been really important have already been doing the work of historians, especially musician and historian TL Cross,” said Bain. Cross has been sharing his research on hip-hop on his Instagram feed with the “Cross in a Minute” series including a video which hip-hop artists have sampled piano from Aretha Franklin, one of the most sampled musicians in hip-hop history. In addition to the Flushing Town Hall and Kupferberg Center for the Arts, other partners include Indiana University, Yale University, Duke University, Queens College, Trinity University, University of Bristol, New York University, and Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.

Next phase

“We’re still in the discovery phase of this project…exploring the genealogy of connection, including neighborhoods, familial and friendship ties, as well as listening and sampling patterns,” said Bain. “We plan on applying for the next two phases of funding from the NEH for prototyping and production. But we will also need additional funding since the NEH only supports about 50% of the total project cost.”

The museum is in the process of creating materials to share with its donors and stakeholders that includes long-term goals and community impact including stories from older musicians in the borough. “We’re conducting these interviews now and creating videos that can be shared with the community and potential donors.” The next phase will include convening teams of digital experience creators to develop storylines and determine appropriate platform designs and strategies for interactive engagement. “There will also be a multimedia exhibit at the new visitor center where people can gather to discuss the days of jazz and hip-hop. It’ll include a live performance venue with flexible seating and spaces for workshops. We want to bring the community together to listen to music and have these discussions. 2023 marks our 20th year open to the public and we’re excited for what’s next.”

The museum also recently launched “Armstrong Now” an artist-in-residence program that contextualizes Louis Armstrong’s contributions within historical and 21st-century arrangements of Black making, thinking, and vitality. The residency provides emerging artists with a platform to create new work inspired by the collection. “Each artist receives a $10,000 stipend to research the archives and create new works,” said Bain.

“I think it’s critically important that we have multiple modalities for connecting with our communities and these digital modalities can act on their own,” said Bain. “There will be people who will never step in our museum physically, but they engage with the story of Louis Armstrong. They will engage with this story of jazz and hip-hop in Queens. They live across the country or the world and they may never make it to New York but they are able to engage with our mission and with our stories. That’s the legacy that we promote at the Louis Armstrong House Museum through these digital means. It’s important that we invest in engaging in this type of work as museums.”

Learn more about the Louis Armstrong House Museum: https://www.louisarmstronghouse.org/

MANY Board Spotlight: Nickcoles Martinez

Wed, 22 Feb 2023 00:29:13 GMT

Nickcoles Martinez is an educator, producer, podcaster, and activist, with over a decade of experience working at the intersections of museum education, youth, and workforce development, mentoring, and science. His passion is to engage and support BIPOC students to pursue interests and careers in science and develop strategies for the promotion of diversity, equity, and inclusion in traditionally non-inclusive spaces.

He began his museum career as an undergraduate intern at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in the Museum Education and Employment Program, designing and leading tours of museum halls for visiting school and camp groups. After graduation, he returned to AMNH as an internship supervisor, helping to support the new cohort of college interns, and was later hired to teach genetics, human evolution, and neuroscience in the Hall of Human Origins Teaching Lab, first as a Lab Facilitator and then in a full-time role as the Coordinator of the Lab.

Martinez is currently the Assistant Director of Youth Initiatives and manages middle and high school programs, internship experiences, and alumni engagement. He also leads recruitment, community-building, and partnership efforts to increase diversity and promote equity and inclusivity across Youth Programs at the AMNH.

Photo by Matt Shanley

Where did you begin your museum career?

I applied for my first position at the American Museum of Natural History in 2009 for an internship in the Anthropology Collection. I was an anthropology major at SUNY Stony Brook and was thinking about what I wanted to do with this degree, especially after switching majors from pre-med. I ultimately didn’t get it. This internship was highly competitive because it was one of the few paid internships. I found another internship at AMNH called the Museum Education and Employment Program (MEEP). It’s an internship program specifically designed for college students where you learn about being facilitators and gain tour guiding experience including how to create your own unique tour. It was my first experience working at a museum. I led anthropology focused tours in the Hall of Human Origins and Hall of Primates.

Can you tell us about your journey from an intern at AMNH to the Assistant Director of Youth Initiatives?

My internship at AMNH was during the summer of 2010 between my junior and senior year of college. After I graduated, I knew that the museum liked to bring back former interns to be supervisors and help guide the next group of interns. I applied for that position and began working at AMNH again the summer after I graduated. The position ended in August but I realized that this was what I wanted to do career-wise. I continued to volunteer at AMNH in the Hall of Human Origins and in the Human Evolution Teaching Lab on weekends. I worked with some of the scientists who were also the facilitators, leading discussions with visitors that would come into the lab to learn about human evolution. At the same time, I started working at the Children’s Museum of Manhattan, specifically with their high school internship program. I worked with a small group of students that were doing educational projects at the museum for a few months before I was hired at AMNH as a facilitator who would lead the discussions with visitors on the weekends, and come into the teaching lab. Eventually, I was hired to be the lab coordinator.

My museum journey was as an intern, volunteer, part-time employee, and then full-time employee. My goal was always to find a full-time position at AMNH. It was different from the sort of science research that I originally saw myself doing, but I realized that I enjoyed working with people and engaging them in conversations and helping them understand large science concepts. It was a cool experience and it was what led me down this path to continue to work in education in this capacity.

What other experiences in your career journey have you found most helpful in your role now?

I joined the Citywide Council on High Schools (CCHS) which is a group of volunteer parents that advocate on behalf of all public NYC high school students. CCHS serves as an advisory board providing input to the Chancellor and commentary to the Panel on Educational Policy regarding the needs of public school students. The main interest and goal is to improve the educational system in NYC. I was appointed by the public advocate’s office and I joined while I was doing my Masters at Baruch College. I was part of CCHS for almost two years.

At this point, I started to shift my thinking about what my career was going to look like, what I wanted to focus on, and I was learning how to manage organizations, institutions, and projects on a large scale. My masters degree is in nonprofit management. I wanted to understand what these larger organizations needed. What were the policies that I needed to understand to advance my career and take more of a leadership role. By joining CCHS, I got an inside look into how passionate parents are about education for their young people, because I’m not a parent. I got to understand how challenging and bureaucratic systems can be, how they’re designed, and what changes need to be made in order to have a real impact on the educational system in NYC.

What are some of the things that motivate you in your current role?

I think one of my main motivations is to help support young people who are like me. I didn’t grow up visiting museums that often. I was interested in science, but museums weren’t on my radar. I would go to the botanical gardens or the zoo occasionally but I don’t remember visiting a museum like AMNH in elementary, middle school, or even high school. Having representation in spaces like AMNH is really important to me. I want to develop the partnerships and relationships that get young people of color into spaces like this and to design experiences that will be really relevant and resonate with them. Experiences that validate both their cultural identity and their scientific and natural interests.

What are other goals at AMNH for you and for your team?

A lot of it is about rebuilding from the pandemic because there were a lot of staff and programmatic changes. We’re finding how to build things in new ways that connect with young people, bring in their natural passion for advocacy, and their desire for action. One of my goals is to design these new experiences that are focused on policy and equity issues and to make sure that every experience that we design touches on the interplay of science, society, and culture.. We’re not just talking about the science for science's sake, yes bats and understanding skeletal morphology is great, but how does that matter and why does that matter to someone’s everyday life and their lived experiences? We want to make sure those connections are clear for young people.

Rebuilding community has also been tough for a lot of our young people because virtual learning has been tough. Re-building and re-establishing that community from before the pandemic is important. It’s hard because you can’t go back to what you were doing in the pre-pandemic world. We’re making sure that we give space to educators as we navigate back to in-person learning. We’re being flexible and more empathetic in our work. There is much more cultural competence in the way we engage with young people. We didn’t have that focus at the intersection of science and society before, but young people are really engaged around issues of social justice and equity and issues of inequality. We want to make sure that we are tapping into those things whenever we design a curriculum. We’re thinking about whether we can include young people’s voices and how we can build that space for us to test out ideas before we’re implementing them in the classroom and get feedback from young people along the way. It’s an opportunity to be better and to be more intersectional.

Would your 18 year old self imagine that you would be where you are today?

No, I wouldn’t have imagined it mainly because I was so introverted. I didn’t imagine myself giving tours in a museum or engaging with people in conversation. When I was younger I really kept to myself. I read books, played chess and video games, and would be in my own little bubble. I thought that I was going to be a pathologist because that was something that was interesting to me. Once I got to college I started to become more interested in why people do what they do and understanding behavior. That was the anthropology connection that allowed me to understand behavior while also allowing me to go into a hard science where I got to think about evolution, anatomy, and skeletal morphology. It was the perfect mesh of all of the things I was interested in. Then finding an opportunity to push myself out of my introverted nature when I had to do tours and work on the floor of a museum was life changing. It put me down a completely different path. It pushed me out of my comfort zone.

Can you tell us about where you grew up? What was it like growing up there? Where did you go to school?

I’m from New YorK City. I grew up in BedSty in Brooklyn in the 1990s and it was a completely different place than it is right now. It was a largely impoverished neighborhood and I grew up in public housing. I grew up with a single mom but I had my grandmother and my aunt. I was raised by three really important and influential women in my life. That sort of guided the way I saw the world. We didn’t have a lot but they always made sure that I had the stuff that I needed.

In middle school I started playing chess, which was important for my development. Later I went to Brooklyn Tech, which is a specialized high school.

I was always curious and motivated. I always had a desire to learn more. Whenever anyone told me anything, I questioned it because I wanted to understand why. I continued that curiosity today in my work. How do we take all of those “why questions” and make them visible for young people?

What was the first museum experience that you can remember?

I remember coming to AMNH when I was 19. My girlfriend’s brother was in a program that would give him vouchers to visit museums that you could give to family members. We went on a date to AMNH. We went to a lot of museums during this time period and it got me used to going to museums like The Met or the Guggenheim or the Whitney and others that I didn’t remember going to as a kid.

Can you describe a favorite day on the job?

One of my favorite days is when we host our alumni parties. It’s an opportunity for alumni to come back to the museum to reconnect and re-engage with each other. The last one was in the Hall of Ocean Life with about 300 alumni. It’s great to see other alumni because I am an alum but also because helping to design the event and creating the experience. These moments are special.

We’ve also had team game night where we had a lot of young people come and play video games in the Hall of the Universe. Also our Teen SciFi Cafe which are interactive science discussions where students can meet researchers and scientists to learn about different career paths and all the different ways to become involved with science.

Do you have any key mentors or someone who has deeply influenced you? Has there been any advice that they’ve given you that you’ve held onto?

At the beginning of my museum career it was one of my supervisor Samara Rubenstein. She was one of my first supervisors who guided me and helped me understand how to work in an institution like AMNH because I was fresh out of undergrad and I didn’t know what to do every day.

Another mentor is Preeti Gupta, Senior Director of Children and Youth Programs at AMNH. She’s had a similar background to me working as a young person at a museum and then moved her way up. I look to her for guidance. One thing she told me early on was not to be a martyr. She said that because I was only someone who took on extra work and tried to do everything myself and that it’s helpful because you burn out. Not being a martyr is something that I try to remember even though it’s hard for me because I’ve always been a person who tried to do everything. It’s important for me to understand that there are times where I need to collaborate or let a project go and let someone else take over. I can’t do everything and I have to be willing to relinquish some of that control.

Museum Association of New York Announces 2023 Awards of Distinction

Wed, 22 Feb 2023 00:22:01 GMT

Museums and museum professionals will be recognized at the 2023 annual conference “Finding Center: Access, Inclusion, Participation, and Engagement” in Syracuse, New York this April for their exceptional achievements. The fourteen awards made in 2023 celebrate unique leadership, dedicated community service, transformational visitor experiences, community engagement, and innovative programs that use collections to tell stories of everyone who calls New York home.

“New York’s museums and museum professionals are reimagining and reinventing their roles within their communities, how they interpret their stories and collections, and the visitor experience,” said Natalie Stetson, Executive Director of the Erie Canal Museum and MANY Program Committee Co-Chair. “This year’s award winners are outstanding examples for the museum field.”

“We were incredibly impressed with the quality and quantity of award nominations this year, which made the review process highly competitive,” said Clifford Laube, Public Programs Specialist at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum and MANY Program Committee Co-Chair. “Museums and museum staff across the state are demonstrating creative thinking and are inspiring institutional change.”

2023 Awards of Distinction Winners

Excellence in Design

This award acknowledges extraordinary achievement in design in three categories: Publications/Graphics, Media/Marketing Campaigns, and Exhibition Design.

Publications & Graphics

Cow Neck Peninsula Historical Society

”WWI: The Home Front –Our Community Takes Action” Exhibition Catalog

The catalog reflects how people on Long Island experienced the home front during the First World War. It is illustrated with primary source materials, newspapers, pictorial magazines, photographs, images, artifacts, and letters from soldiers. The designers color coded sections to correlate to the exhibition installation.

Media & Marketing

NYS Equal Rights Heritage Center

“Celebrating Harriet Tubman’s 200th Birthday”

To celebrate and commemorate the bicentennial of Harriet Tubman’s birth, the City of Auburn, the Cultural Sites Commission, and the Equal Rights Heritage Center partnered with TGW Studio, Rochester, to create a unique logo and promotional materials including forty street banners placed along South Street in Auburn, eight billboards across the Finger Lakes, as well as digital and print assets.

Exhibition

The Wild Center

“Climate Solutions”

“Climate Solutions” is a 3,000 sq ft exhibition designed to change the dialogue and shift people’s mindsets about climate change. Constructed of upcycled and repurposed materials, the exhibition features hands-on interactives, multimedia storytelling, interactive learning, immersive experiences, and large scale portraits of individuals who are working on climate solutions.

Engaging Communities

Volunteer - $99,999
Bird Homestead and Meeting House Conservancy
“William Voris Archaeological Site Excavation”
This project consisted of eight archaeological workshops for the public, organized and conducted by professional archaeologists that focused on excavating and preserving materials from the life of William Voris, one of the first Black entrepreneurs in Westchester County.

$100,000 - 250,000
Dyckman Farmhouse Museum Alliance
“Growing Uptown”
“Growing Uptown” is a free, bilingual (Spanish and English) environmental program initiative of the Dyckman Farmhouse Museum that benefits Upper Manhattan and Bronx residents. They have served more than 100 families with virtual and in-person workshops in partnership with New York Common Pantry, Green Thumb, and Root to Rise.

$251,000 - 499,999

Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art

“Benjamin Wigfall and Communications Village”

This first retrospective of Benjamin Wigfall’s art documented his early career in Virginia in the 1950s to his arrival at SUNY New Paltz as the first Black professor in its Fine Arts Department. In the 1970s Wigfall founded the community art space “Communications Village,” in a former mule barn in Kingston. The exhibition, created in partnership with the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and the related program series engaged multiple community organizations and attracted the largest attendance in the Dorsky’s history.

$1,000,000 - 4,999,999

Burchfield Penney Art Center

“LEROI: Living in Color”

“LEROI: Living in Color” was the first museum retrospective of the work of internationally acclaimed artist Le Roi Johnson. The Museum partnered with Buffalo Center for Arts and Technology, Squeaky Wheel Film and Media Art Center, Just Buffalo Literary Center, and the Buffalo Public Schools. Partners developed responsive multimedia artworks including video projections, digital collages, sculptural installations, and poetry that brought voices of the next generation into important conversations around identity, community, culture, social justice, and the environment.

Over $5M

Intrepid Museum

“Making History Accessible: Toolkit for Multisensory Interpretation”

The Intrepid Museum partnered with New York University’s Ability Project to create “Making History Accessible: Toolkit for Sensory Interpretation” that offers a range of digital and physical/tactile solutions designed to improve and increase access, enjoyment, engagement, appreciation and understanding of historic sites through their spaces and collections for all audiences, but especially audiences with disabilities. As a joint research initiative with the Occupational Therapy Department and the Interactive Telecommunications Program, NYU’s Ability Project eliminates barriers for people with disabilities at the intersection of disability and technology.

Individual Achievement

The Individual Achievement Award honors a dedicated museum professional or volunteer that played a significant role in advancing their organizations.

Mia Certic

Executive Director, Montauk Historical Society

The Montauk Historical Society hired Mia Certic as its first Executive Director in 2020. She guided the organization through the COVID-19 pandemic by expanding its online presence, creating new school curricula, producing a virtual lighthouse tour, and designing new QR- code activated “History Spots” that allowed anyone with a smartphone to explore Montauk’s past. Certic expanded the museum team by creating two new full-time positions and summer internships for high school and college students. Certic also launched a capital campaign for restoration work to the Montauk Lighthouse Tower that raised $1.8 million in its first year.

Bill Merchant

Deputy Director for Collections, Historian & Curator, D&H Canal Historical Society

Over the last eight years, Bill Merchant has grown the D&H Canal Historical Society from an all-volunteer organization to a museum with two full-time and five part-time staff. Through his research, Merchant recognizes and shares the stories of historically marginalized peoples that were significant to the success of the D&H Canal. He expanded the Historical Society’s audience through outreach and virtual programs and played a significant role in the acquisition and restoration work of the building that is the new location for the D&H Canal Museum and the Mid-Hudson Visitor Center.

Rising Star

The Rising Star award celebrates museum professionals with five years or less experience who think creatively, inspire change, spark innovation, and exemplify leadership.

Peter Fedoryk

Curatorial Fellow, Preservation Long Island

Since of July 2021, Peter Fedoryk has worked at Preservation Long Island (PLI) as a full-time Curatorial Fellow charged with the management of PLI’s The Art of Edward Lange Project, a collaborative, multifaceted initiative focused on the life and work of German immigrant and landscape artist, Edward Lange (1846-1912). In this position, Fedoryk created a pop up exhibition and initiated a partnership with the Town of Huntington to develop a “Looking for Lange” community scavenger hunt that encouraged the public to use a website to find the places Lange painted around town, and share their visits on social media.

Olivia Khristan

School and Education Partnerships and Programs Supervisor, Corning Museum of Glass

As the first staff member to focus on teachers and students Khristan quickly built relationships with teachers and the Corning community to champion DEI within and outside the museum. She chairs the Museum’s DEI Matrix Team and is a leading member of multiple DEI subteams. She is part of Diverse FLX, a group of emerging leaders from the community who work together to build a diverse, equitable, and sustainable future for the region. She is a board member of the Elmira-Corning NAACP, a member of the ED&I Committee of the New York State Art Teachers Association, and volunteers for the African American Read-In of the Southern Tier.

Anne Ackerson Innovation in Museum Leadership

Neil Watson, Former Executive Director, Long Island Museum

Under Neil Watson’s leadership, the Long Island Museum reopened the History Museum, initiated a new outdoor sculpture program, and partnered with local organizations such as the Sunday Street singer/songwriter series and North Shore Pro Musica, to bring a chamber music series to the community. During Watsons tenure, the museum’s annual operating budget grew to nearly $3 million. Exhibitions during Watson’s career at the LIM include the Long Road to Freedom: Surviving Slavery on Long Island, the first major museum project to examine slavery from a Long Island regional historical perspective, Walt Whitman’s Arcadia: Long Island Through the Eyes of a Poet & Painters to mark the American bard’s 200th Birthday, and Fire & Form: New Directions in Glass.

Prior to his nine-year stint as Executive Director at the Long Island Museum, Neil built a distinguished career as an artist and curator and held directorships at several other museums, including at the Katonah Museum of Art. Beyond his transformative leadership, Neil has impacted and aided museums and cultural institutions with dedicated service to the field.

Board of Directors Special Achievement Award

The Board of Directors special achievement award is given to individuals or museum projects that deserve exceptional attention.

Suzanne LeBlanc

President, Long Island Children’s Museum

For the past 18 years, Suzanne LeBlanc has been President of the Long Island Children’s Museum, where she has led the Museum to achieve national recognition. When hired, Suzanne was charged with raising LICM’s national profile, expanding access and community engagement, and pursuing accreditation. As Suzanne prepares to retire from a 49 year career in the field, not only did she achieve those goals, but she did it while navigating three major challenges - the financial crisis of 2008, the aftermath of SuperStorm Sandy in 2012, and most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic. With each of these challenges, she led with an eye on the big picture, and secured essential financial support, including $3 million in federal relief funds during the pandemic. In 2021, Suzanne led LICM through the American Alliance of Museums’ rigorous accreditation process.

Throughout her career, she has been instrumental in the development and oversight of major initiatives which have addressed issues of diversity, equity, access and inclusion. Under Suzanne’s leadership, LICM was heavily involved in the development of a Cultural Competence Learning Institute and was in the program’s first cohort. This involvement and Suzanne’s commitment to DEAI resulted in a new Museum program, LICM4all, which serves visitors with disabilities and makes LICM accessible to all. Suzanne’s dedication to providing these community outreach programs led to LICM receiving the National Medal from the Institute of Museum and Library Services in 2012. Other recognition awarded to LICM during her tenure includes the Education Partner Award from the Board of Cooperative Educational Services of Nassau County, the Excellence in Exhibition award from the American Alliance of Museums, the Neighborhood Builders Award from the Bank of America Charitable Foundation, and the Association of Children’s Museums’ Promising Practices Award.

Award winners will be honored during the 2023 annual conference “Finding Center: Access, Inclusion, Participation, and Engagement” at the Syracuse Marriott Downtown on Monday, April 17.

Awards of Distinction are supported by Hadley Exhibits, Inc.

Letter from Erika: Preparing for Winter

Mon, 30 Jan 2023 14:16:27 GMT

Dear Members, Friends, and Colleagues,

I admit to being one of those people who perhaps overly prepares for winter in Upstate New York. We have a generator for our 200-year-old home because we live in a place where the power goes out. I have a “winter bag” with blankets, flashlight, water, and granola bars as well as a very large brush and ice scraper in my car. In the MANY office, we keep extra jackets on hand and cover the windows with plastic to hold back wind blowing off the Hudson River.

We learn each winter about weather-related disasters that have damaged museums, historic structures, and collections. I have spoken with museum directors dealing with flooded basements because nearby creeks overflowed their banks; fire and smoke damage because electrical systems were compromised, and roofs that caved under the pressure of snow or fallen branches.

Today I spoke with someone whose museum was damaged because of a water pipe valve failure. They lost their furnace, electrical and communications systems, program supplies, files, exhibits under fabrication, computers, and many historic artifacts. The building is closed for the foreseeable future. Their road to recovery will be long and will require substantial funding from a wide range of sources.

If you work at a museum and do not have a current emergency or disaster plan, please take the time to create a plan and train your staff, board, and volunteers to use it. A plan will help you face emergencies whether caused by weather or mechanical failure. Walk through collection evacuation routes and safe assembly areas for visitors and staff. Include a floor plan of your building and contact information for emergency responders and collections recovery services.

If it has been a while since first responders and legislative representatives visited your museum, reach out and invite them. Find the leaders who represent community service organizations like Rotary and Kiwanis and invite them too. Last year I learned about fraternities and sororities who are dedicated to public service and offer their assistance in emergencies. If you are located near a university, see if there are any of these social organizations on campus and plan annual visits.

The New York Capital Region Alliance for Response has great information on their website, including who to contact first in an emergency. They also have resources on disaster preparedness, disaster response, and free training webinars. The Getty Conservation Institute, the Northeast Document Conservation Center, and The Library of Congress also have free resources to help you develop a plan.

We are fortunate in New York to have several private, independent conservators and businesses that can help with disaster recovery. Not all disasters are preventable, but all are equally heartbreaking. MANY staff and board are also here to connect you to people who can help.

With thanks from someone who occasionally wears a belt and suspenders,

Erika Sanger

Executive Director

MANY Board Member Spotlight Interview: Andrew Saluti

Mon, 30 Jan 2023 14:15:08 GMT

Andrew Saluti is assistant professor and program coordinator of the Graduate Program in Museum Studies at Syracuse University. Before joining the faculty of the School of Design, Saluti was the chief curator of exhibitions, programs, and education for the Special Collections Research Center at Syracuse University Libraries (2016-17), and the assistant director of the Syracuse University Art Galleries and Collections (2010-2016).

Andrew collaborates with the diverse community voices and cultural heritage collecting institutions that populate both academic and professional sectors of the Central New York region. Together with colleagues, faculty, and students, Andrew considers equity, inclusivity, and accessibility core and vital aspects to museum practice and pedagogy. This commitment is reflected in the broad scope of teaching, mentoring, curricular design and professional practice that he facilitates, as well as through an ever-expanding network of emerging and established museum professionals from around the globe. He is an active member of numerous museum boards and advisory committees, including Vice President of the Board for the Seward House Museum.

We spoke with Andrew to learn more about his career path, his advice to the next generation of museum professionals, and what he’s learned throughout his career in the museum field.

Can you tell us about your journey to becoming an Assistant Professor at SU’s Museums Studies Program Coordinator?

I’ve been very active on the Syracuse University campus in a variety of different capacities within their collections and within academic collections. I have also been teaching in Museum studies for the past 6 years as a full time faculty member. Before that I worked at the Syracuse University Art Museum for 14 years, working my way up to the role of assistant director.

My background and degree are in printmaking. Syracuse University Art Museum’s collection has a very direct focus on works on paper. When I started I was a preparator. It was a job I loved. I was doing a lot of the installation work, and gradually moving up as the institution grew. I would also dive into other things. I have a little background in design work, so then exhibition design became one of my responsibilities. I later did more curatorial work, especially with the print collection and took on more of a leadership role at the Museum. Until 2017, I worked closely with the Director of Special Collections, a new position was created within special collections, and I was promoted to Chief Curator of Exhibitions. I was able to be the guiding voice, directing the curatorial staff, and developing a vision for special collections exhibitions. Through my research at the Syracuse University Special Collections Research Center we found some very exciting things including a previously unknown Norman Rockwell drawing.

Then my previous colleague and mentor, who was running the museum studies program retired. I decided that I would put my name in for the position not thinking that I would be hired but I was. I had been working in collections since 2002 and now took on the role of guiding the next generation of museum professionals.

What other experiences in your career have you found most helpful for your role now?

Even before becoming a faculty member, I was very active in museum governance. I was previously on the MANY board in 2015 which was my first time ever on a major non-profit board. I found it very fulfilling and went on to join the Seward House Museum board. I’m currently their Vice President. I’m also on the board of the Light Work Photography Center and now I’ve been able to rejoin the MANY board of directors. I’m also very active in an advisory capacity to other art institutions including Stone Quarry Hill Art Park in Cazenovia.

I have learned so much and really get excited about the importance of board work, especially with governance work. It’s found its way into my teaching quite a bit…including in classes like museum management and advocacy where we discuss the relationship between a director and board. I think it’s important and I get excited to share the experiences from my own board work with students who usually have not yet had that perspective.

What are some of the biggest motivations to do what you do?

As a teacher, it is all about students. It's about training that future generation, and it’s not always easy. It’s a challenging field but when you can inspire someone, teach them something that they can take into their first museum job or help open the door to an internship or new position it is really rewarding. There is a whole new landscape now for museum work, a whole new series of best practices, and new challenges that museum professionals are going to face. I really like being a part of that. I really do.

What advice would you give to the next generation of museum professionals to know about entering the field?

I think how fast the landscape is changing for museums.. The biggest thing is to always be learning and to not get stuck. It can be easy to get into that automatic mode of ok this needs to happen today…this exhibition opens here, or this inventory has to happen here, or these objects need to be prepped, and you just get into that rhythm where your head is down and you’re getting it done. I want my students and others to have that space to keep thinking and asking questions. Is there a better way? Is there a new innovation? Is there something that I can bring to this? One of the things that I’m really proud of is that we don’t only teach the hard skills and soft skills that are core to our program but we’re also thinking about what could change. What else is happening? What can the next generation of museum professionals bring to the field?

That is something that I think is important for any museum professional especially in 2023. There are a whole host of new opportunities, challenges, and tools. You have to remain open and be a lifelong learner. I don’t want to speak for everybody but it’s kind of built into our field, investing in our own professional development. Especially when we’re telling stories through objects or creating a program that gives new context. We, as a field, need to constantly explore and learn in order to meet the challenges of the next century. We need to think broadly and creatively.

Would your 18-year-old self imagine that you would be where you are today?

No. My path, like so many others in the field, was very circuitous. I was going to go to art school, and I didn't know what I was going to do with my degree, but it's what I was always passionate about. I went to school to study industrial design but within the first few weeks I realized it wasn’t what I wanted to do. Then I attended a lecture in the printmaking department about making books. I found myself really enjoying watching and learning this very technical thing. But then I had thoughts about my future. I thought well if I’m going to be in the arts, I’ll be an artist but I also wanted to teach. Which made sense since I come from a family of teachers. I chose LSU for my MFA because I knew that they were going to commit to rigorousteaching that included an assistantship with the program which excited me. I wanted to hone teaching skills along with my art making skills. From there I started doing a lot of gallery work, and I started to really like the process of building an exhibition and telling a story that way. I'm not an art historian. I may have taken art history, obviously, but that is not my that is not my background. That is not my skill. But I learned a lot going through that process during graduate school and that’s where I realized that I really love doing this. So I went on to be a preparator in a collection and worked my way from there.

Can you tell us about where you grew up and what was it like growing up there?

I’m from New England and I grew up on Cape Cod. I grew up in a town called Sandwich. It’s the oldest town on Cape Cod. Growing up, I didn't go to a lot of museums, but I was always very good at art, and that was really my passion growing up. My entire family was from the Boston area, and they were all teachers. I would go to the MFA Boston.

I really loved a lot of the local history centers. We have a wonderful glass museum in my hometown of Sandwich. Every time we go to the Corning Museum of Glass, I always point it out to my kids –you know that’s Sandwich glass right there. It's always present. It's always there. That idea of history, that idea of longevity and being able to live through history while you're growing up, in retrospect, was really influential. You don't notice it as a 16 year old, but you know that was really that had a lot of impact on me.

Can you describe a favorite day on the job?

I've been very lucky that in 2008 I was a part of the small team that organized the Michelangelo exhibition that came to Syracuse. This was curated specifically for Syracuse, and I designed that entire exhibition. It was that kind of holistic experience of what you hope this job is always going to be about. Yes, of course I'm going to go to Italy and get my inspiration for the exhibition and then come back and you see it realized in the museum space. It was a massive success and it started the Art Museum on campus on the path to where it is to today. It was one of those groundbreaking experiences.

I’ve also had the opportunity to curate and to meet with quite a few people who have become really influential friends.

There's a print shop on Long island called Universal Limited Art Editions, and I got very close, very active with them, especially with their master printer, Bill Goldston, and I did a couple of exhibitions with Bill. That's been a really important and impactful experience for me. I learned a lot about leadership and the importance of collaborations.

Then there are those situations where you can bring students into the experience. I’d been working for a long time trying to write the catalogue for the artist Louisa Chase, who passed away in 2016. She was an SU alum, and was somebody I followed and started to work with over 10 years ago when we did a small exhibition in New York City. I had students writing labels and doing research. We brought them down to the reception, and we went to the IFPDA Print Fair in New York City. It was a moment where they could see how the research and label writing all came together to create this exhibition. It was definitely a ‘this is why I do this’ moment.

Has there been anyone who you’ve seen as a mentor in your career? If yes, can you share one piece of advice they gave you?

There have been two important mentors in my career.

The first is my predecessor in the Museum Studies program. He was the faculty member who ran the program since the eighties. His name was Dr. Edward Akin, or Teddy Akin. And what has always stuck with me that he said was that you do all this work, you invest yourself within a collection or a museum, but it's not yours. And he told me to remember that it's not yours. You are handing it off to the next director, to the next generation, to the next student and to the next. It was a little thing at the time, but it was actually he was helping me decide whether or not I wanted to continue at SU. He said, just remember that you do all of this work, and you pour yourself into your museum and your job, but it's not yours. It's for someone else, and that small nugget has stayed with me throughout my entire career. It was a really important conversation, because it changes the way you approach things, it changes the way you invest in the project or invest in what you're doing, but it definitely changes it.

The other person who was really influential was my first boss, the first director of the SU Art Museum, Domenic Iacono who is a print specialist. He really shepherded me and taught me the ropes of curatorship and managing a collection and museum space.

Why do you like living and working in Syracuse? And why do you think it might be important for museum professionals to attend the MANY conference?

Syracuse is central and if you think about the history of Syracuse, you think about the Erie Canal being that central hub. We are rich with history. We are rich with creativity and innovation, and there's a wonderful community of people. One of the things that we're working on right now is a small exhibition that talks about Syracuse as a sanctuary. Syracuse is that place where people came historically to find their way, and I think that's a concept you'll see in our institutions like the Everson or the Erie Canal Museum.

There’s so much to do and to see. It's rich with history. It's rich with the arts, and I think that anybody who comes to the MANY annual conference in April will see how much Syracuse has to offer.

The Strength of Archival Research: How the Bowne House was selected to join the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom

Mon, 30 Jan 2023 14:12:30 GMT

In 2021, the National Park Service (NPS) selected the Bowne House to join the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. It is the first location in Queens to join more than 700 other sites admitted to the Network since the National Park Service founded the program in 1998. The Network to Freedom program reviews applications from sites, research facilities, and programs with verified connections to the Underground Railroad. The program was created via legislation titled the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Act of 1998 to honor, preserve, and promote the history of resistance to enslavement through escape and flight.

The Bowne House

The Bowne House was the home to nine generations of abolitionists and prominent New York Quaker activists. Built around 1661, it is the oldest house in Queens and is the best preserved example of Anglo-Dutch residential architecture in the country. The house is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is a designated New York City Landmark. “We’re best known for John Bowne, the founder of the house and the patriarch of the family who emigrated from England in 1649 and his later non-violent protest against Governor Peter Stuyvesant –his courageous defense of religious freedom,” said Rosemary Vietor, Vice President of the Bowne House Historical Society’s Board of Trustees. “Recently, we’re focusing on the connection with the Underground Railroad and the Network to Freedom. The program designated us as a facility, not a site. The house originally had 400 acres, and within our archives we believe that we located a place where freedom seekers were concealed, but that site no longer exists. Therefore it is on the strength of our archives that we were awarded this designation.”

The Bowne House archives includes thousands of documents, letters, photographs, maps, architectural drawings, and more that span over 300 years, from 1661 to the museum’s founding in 1945. “Nine generations of the Bowne and Parsons families safeguarded the house and its contents,” said Charlotte Jackson, Archival Consultant to the Bowne House Historical Society. The archives offer a unique look into the history of the house, families, and community over the centuries. Many of the documents are original to the property and were carefully handed down through generations of Bowne and Parsons families. “We have almost everything in our archives that documents historically significant events,” said Veitor. “We have archival materials of the family discussing their views on the American Revolution as Quakers. They were reluctant to participate…some did and some didn’t. Others were involved in spearheading the move for public education in New York State in the early nineteenth century. Our archives are really like a repository of all sorts of different facts of Queen’s history.” Other stories that can be found within the archives are about horticulturists, political and religious leaders, artists and writers, and Walter Bowne, who was the 59th mayor of New York City from 1829 to 1833.

“We don’t know precisely where the Parsons hid enslaved people seeking freedom so although Underground Railroad conductors definitely lived at the Bowne House, we cannot claim that the house itself was a station in the sense that freedom-seekers were sheltered within its walls,” said Jackson. The Parsons ran a nursery business and family farm that occupied over 200 acres. “It would have been more discreet to hide people in remote outbuildings or even in the woods and marshes adjacent to the Flushing Creek,” said Jackson. Most of this land was sold and is no longer part of the Bowne property. The property now belongs to the NYC Parks Department and to be designated as a site under the Network to Freedom rather than as a facility, the NYC Parks Department would need consent and involvement to apply as a site. “However, the Bowne House Historical Society still owns the museum collections, including the archives, so the Society was able to apply for status as a research facility.”

Archives

One of the documents discovered within the archives was a letter of introduction carried by a enslaved person seeking freedom which as Jackson describes was discovered by chance in 2016 during a research project on the Parsons nursery. It was the first documentary evidence that confirmed a long-rumored status of the Bowne House as a stop on the Underground Railroad. “Part of what made the experience so moving was that I didn’t discover the letter in a large university or government archive. The charm of the Bowne House is that due to the nine generations of continuous ownership by the same family, we encounter its collections –artifacts and documents– in the same setting where they were originally read and collected,” said Jackson. “I read the letter sitting in the very house where the letter had almost certainly been handed to and read by William Parsons and then preserved for decades.”

From the Bowne House Archives, Letter, S.S. Jocelyn to William Parsons, Sept. 28th 1850.

The letter is addressed to William Parsons, Esq. at Flushing and signed by Jocelyn with a request to care for a Person of Color and get him to safety but keeping him hidden before he can continue onto his journey east or north. Jackson notes that the signature was done by a shaky hand, so much that the document was mistakenly labeled “L.I. Jocelyn” when the museum inventoried the collection in the 1980s. L.I. Jocelyn was determined to be S. S. Jocelyn, short for Simeon Smith Jocelyn, a prominent abolitionist and social reformer and is also best known for his role in the Amistad Affair. The letter itself was carried by the freedom-seeker. “Knowing that makes the experience of handling this letter seem more intimate. But the letter still contains a mystery that likely will never be solved –its bearer’s identity and his story,” said Jackson. “The words ‘this is a strong case and great care and caution are required’ suggest a dramatic backstory, even by the standards of the Underground Railroad. It’s surprising to me that the Underground Railroad letter was preserved at all. Most such notes would have been discarded as soon as they had served their purpose—maybe even destroyed. After all, they constituted evidence of a crime and could potentially endanger all parties involved.”

The Bowne House archives includes obituaries for Samuel and Robert Bowne Parsons that describe their long-term involvement in the Underground Railroad but any real time documentation was usually not kept nor advertised. “These activities were conducted below the radar and they did not publicize the work that they were doing,” said Vietor. “The Quakers were opposed to slavery early on where there was actually a prohibition against enslavement where if you did not free those you had enslaved, you were excommunicated.”

Application Process

The National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom accepts applications twice a year (January and July) which go directly to the NPS Underground Railroad Regional Manager. The main components to the NPS Network to Freedom program are to educate the public about the historical significance of the Underground Railroad, provide technical assistance to organizations that are identifying, documenting, preserving, and interpreting sites, travel routes and landscapes related to the Underground Railroad or that are developing or operating interpretive or educational programs or facilities, and to develop a Network of sites, programs, and facilities with verifiable associations to the Underground Railroad.

One of the principal objectives of the program is to validate the efforts of local and regional organizations and make it easier for them to share expertise and communicate with the NPS and each other.

“We reached out to the Regional Administrator as early as possible for guidance in understanding the application,” said Ellen Spindler, a Bowne House volunteer who led the application process. “I would encourage other applicants to start as early as possible, read the application, decide what category best applies since it impacts the kind of evidence required (site, facility, educational program), read the extensive instructions and map out a strategy of compiling all of the known evidence and how to research for additional information in support of the application.”

Any element (site, facility, educational program) nominated to the Network must have a verifiable association to the Underground Railroad. These associations must be verified using professional methods of historical research, documentation, and interpretation. The supporting evidence must be documented in the application using specific citations that would allow the reader to recreate the research. “The instructions for the application describe the difference between primary sources, secondary sources, etc. and the weight which might be given to various kinds of evidence,” said Spindler. “We needed to include both historical and geographical information and a bibliography which took some time to compile, in addition to the other evidence. Geographical information and historical maps were quite important.”

To be nominated to the Network of Freedom as a Facility, the Bowne House had to exceed a minimum level of accuracy and professionalism. Under accuracy, the NPS attempts to ensure that the history of the Underground Freedom Network is portrayed accurately by members of the Network to Freedom. Therefore the source material on which interpretation and presentation of information are based must be precisely described in the application. Sources should include primary materials and should be as specific to the story presented in the program or facility as possible.

The Bowne House submitted three primary sources of direct evidence. The first was the letter describe above and “a letter of introduction of Robert Bowne Parsons, another Bowne resident, by Lewis Tappan, a well-known abolitionist, to Gerrit Smith, an Underground Railroad agent upstate, on a letter with an engraving of a kneeling enslaved person on it,” said Spindler. The third evidence submitted was a letter to Robert B. Parsons by the treasurer of the New York Vigilance Committee about his fundraising and safeguarding the funds for the organization in the Queen Library. The Bowne House also submitted obituaries about the third brother Samuel B. Parsons, who lived across the street after marriage, that describes in detail how he assisted in numerous escapes after hiding freedom seekers on his property. “We were very fortunate to have our archives and relevant correspondence preserved in books and other repositories, and newspaper articles/obituaries,” said Spindler.

Under professionalism, the NPS does recognize that many facilities and programs operate on a volunteer basis with limited resources. Therefore, rather than requiring professional qualifications for the staff, the Network to Freedom focuses on a professional approach to activities such as interpretation or curation that will indicate a high-quality presentation of the history of the Underground Railroad.

Another goal of the Network to Freedom is to increase public knowledge and understanding of the Underground Railroad, so providing access to information is a critical component of facilities. Facilities must demonstrate a willingness to share information with the general public and researchers. Facilities also must be able to demonstrate that key staff members have an appropriate level of training and a record of operations through a measurable output such as a past and ongoing production of a journal or reports.

“I was initially worried that having such a small number of items that directly relate to the Underground Railroad would be insufficient to qualify us as a facility,” said Jackson. “However, in our application I emphasized that our documents illustrate the broader context within which the Parsons made their decision to participate in the Underground Railroad.” In the Bowne Houses’ application to the Network for Freedom, it cites that while the Parsons did not make the decision to participate in a vacuum; their choice arose from nearly 200 years of lived experience and evolving Quaker philosophy which left traces in the archives. “Quaker descendants and scholars draw explicit connections between all these experiences and the Quakers’ anti-slavery activism, and our documents can illustrate such connections.”

What’s next

A year after the Bowne House received Network to Freedom membership, staff and volunteers continue to work to make their archives and research accessible to the public with a mapping project that will expand on the Brown House’s role in the National Underground Railroad and the Underground Railroad occurring in Flushing. In September 2022, the Bowne House received a grant from the National Underground Railroad to Freedom to research, identify, and map Underground Railroad networks and escape routes used by freedom seekers through relatively unknown channels of Queens and Long Island.

The project, Mapping the Underground Railroad at the Bowne House: Flushing & Beyond will document the museum’s ties to various Underground Railroad networks, the broader abolitionist movement, and other Black history sites throughout Queens and Long Island. “We want to map out the network of sites and other grounds that freedom seeks passing by the Bowne House would’ve used,” said Vietor. “This software will allow us to include archival media like photographs, documents, audio and visual recordings, and text to different locations as well as superimpose historical maps on present day maps.” This project will also allow staff to continue research in the museum’s archives, interview Black history scholars and New York City historians, and create multimedia programming including story maps and walking tours.

“This place is an amazing place,” said Vietor. “I knew very little when I got involved but you are always finding something. It’s remarkable and never static. It brings great joy to rediscover things that have been hidden. This house and its archives is a survivor and I’ll quote Margaret Mead (cultural anthropologist) “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

Learn more about the Bowne House: https://www.bownehouse.org/ and read more about the archival document that was the first documentary evidence that confirmed a long-rumored status of the Bowne House as a stop on the Underground Railroad https://www.bownehouse.org/ticket-for-the-underground-railroad

Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation Awards $150,000 to MANY

Tue, 24 Jan 2023 21:13:22 GMT

Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation Awards $150,000 to the Museum Association of New York

Funding to support three years of virtual programming and professional development opportunities for Long Island museum professionals

The Museum Association of New York (MANY) is thrilled to announce that the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation has awarded a three-year, $150,000 grant to support MANY’s virtual programs and provide professional development opportunities for Long Island museum professionals.

"The Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation supports impactful projects that lead to the growth of our regional historical societies and museums. RDLGF specifically seeks projects that help organizations with outreach and inclusion, which ultimately leads to institutional sustainability. MANY's professional development offerings are an invaluable resource and aid in educating these groups in governance, collection policy, educational outreach and community engagement." said Kathryn M. Curran, Executive Director of the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation.

This grant provides instrumental support for three years of MANY’s free virtual programming and will feature museum professionals from across the country to share their experiences and case studies of program activities in order to help museum professionals gain new skills. Virtual program topics will include Community Engagement and Outreach, Diversity, Equity, Access, and Inclusion Strategies, Museum and School Partnerships, Collections Management and Deaccessioning, Climate Change: Facilities and Green Building Strategies, Programs for New Americans, and more. All programs will include ASL interpretation.

Funding also supports an increase in professional development opportunities for historical societies and museum professionals on Long Island to attend MANY’s annual conferences and The Museum Institute at Great Camp Sagamore, a multiple-day retreat in the Adirondacks with a focus on advancing the work of mid-career museum professionals.

“At the onset of the pandemic, the Museum Association of New York made a commitment to make all of our virtual programs free,” said MANY Executive Director Erika Sanger. “This generous grant from the Gardiner Foundation enables us to expand our virtual program offerings and keep them free for museum professionals across New York State and beyond.”

To learn more about MANY’s virtual programming and professional development scholarship opportunities, please visit nysmuseums.org

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About the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation

The Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation, established in 1987, primarily supports the study of New York State history. Robert David Lion Gardiner was, until his death in August 2004, the 16th Lord of the Manor of Gardiner’s Island, NY. The Gardiner family and their descendants have owned Gardiner’s Island since 1639, obtained as part of a royal grant from King Charles I of England. The Foundation is inspired by Robert David Lion Gardiner’s personal passion for New York history. For more information visit: https://www.rdlgfoundation.org/

About the Museum Association of New York

The Museum Association of New York is the only statewide museum service organization with more than 700 member museums, historical societies, zoos, botanical gardens, and aquariums. MANY helps shape a better future for museums and museum professionals by uplifting best practices and building organizational capacity through advocacy, training, and networking opportunities. Visit www.nysmuseums.org and follow MANY on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn @nysmuseums

MANY Awarded $10k in Recovery Funding from NYSCA for Regional Meet-Ups and Roundtable Discussions

Tue, 24 Jan 2023 21:07:10 GMT

Museum Association of New York Awarded $10,000 in Recovery Funding from the New York State Council on the Arts for Regional Meet-Ups and Roundtable Discussions

MANY also awarded $49,500 in Support for Organizations

The Museum Association of New York (MANY) has received a Regrowth and Capacity grant of $10,000 from the New York State Council on the Arts as well as $49,500 in Support for Organizations in FY 2023. This funding will help support MANY’s regional meet-ups and “Preparing for the Post-Pandemic Museum” roundtable discussions focused on exploring issues in the museum field based on the recently published collection of essays in “Change is Required: Preparing for the Post-Pandemic Museum.”

“Extending the conversations begun in ‘Change is Required’ comes at a crucial time as New York museums emerge from the continued challenges of the pandemic, reconsider how to engage with our altered communities and understand how our role as museums has shifted in the past five years,” said Brian Lee Whisenhunt, MANY Board President and Executive Director of The Rockwell Museum. “MANY is incredibly thankful to NYSCA for supporting these programs and providing a space for this dialogue in every region in the State.”

Meet-ups and roundtable discussions will be hosted by museums across New York State. The series will launch on Wednesday, February 8 at the American Museum of Natural History from 5 to 7:30 PM. With NYSCA’s support, we are able to make all meet-ups and roundtable discussions free with advance registration.

The responsive funding of NYSCA is providing nearly 1000 organizations with over $13 million in recovery support in FY23, as part of their historic $90 million in grant making and $150 million in multi-year capital support.

“This unprecedented funding continues our investment into the vital role that the arts contribute to the health of the economy, our communities and our citizens,” said Governor Kathy Hochul. “As we continue our comeback, we applaud the strength and innovation of arts organizations across the state and are all the better for their hard work and dedication.”

“NYSCA applauds Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature for their historic investment of $240 million for the nonprofit arts and culture sector,” said Mara Manus, Executive Director of NYSCA. “As we continue rebuilding the arts across our New York, the Museum Association of New York will play a vital role in the renewal of our state’s economy and creative ecosystem. Congratulations on your award from the entire NYSCA team.”

“Council congratulates the Museum Association of New York on their grant award! These grants are from the people of New York State, for the future of New York State,” said Katherine Nicholls, Chair, NYSCA. “Arts and culture are crucial to the health of our citizens and the economic vitality of our communities and we recognize the contributions of NYSCA grantees to the lives of all New Yorkers.”

To learn more about MANY’s regional meet-ups and “Preparing for the Post-Pandemic Museum” roundtable discussions, please visit nysmuseums.org.

Regional Meet-Ups and “Preparing for the Post-Pandemic Museum” Roundtable Discussions

Wednesday, February 8 –American Museum of Natural History

Wednesday, March 22 –Oneida Community Mansion House

Wednesday, May 10 –Planting Fields

Thursday, June 1 –The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center

Monday, June 12 –George Eastman Museum

Wednesday, June 14 –Finger Lakes Boating Museum

Wednesday, September 13 –Thomas Cole National Historic Site

October –Buffalo AKG Art Museum

More program dates and details to be announced.

# # #

About the New York State Council on the Arts

The Council on the Arts preserves and advances the arts and culture that make New York State an exceptional place to live, work and visit. The Council upholds the right of all New Yorkers to experience the vital contributions the arts make to our communities, education, economic development, and quality of life. To support the ongoing recovery of the arts across New York State, the Council on the Arts will award funding in FY 2023, providing support across the full breadth of the arts, including dedicated support for arts education and underrepresented communities.

The Council on the Arts further advances New York’s creative culture by convening leaders in the field and providing organizational and professional development opportunities and informational resources. Created by Governor Nelson Rockefeller in 1960 and continued with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, the Council is an agency that is part of the Executive Branch. For more information on NYSCA, please visit http://www.arts.ny.gov, and follow NYSCA’S Facebook page, Twitter @NYSCArts and Instagram @NYSCouncilontheArts.

About the Museum Association of New York

The Museum Association of New York is the only statewide museum service organization with more than 700 member museums, historical societies, zoos, botanical gardens, and aquariums. MANY helps shape a better future for museums and museum professionals by uplifting best practices and building organizational capacity through advocacy, training, and networking opportunities. Visit www.nysmuseums.org and follow MANY on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn @nysmuseums

Letter from Erika: My Kitchen Sink of Hope

Tue, 03 Jan 2023 18:10:43 GMT

Sunrise over the Chemung River in Corning, NY. December 2021

Dear Members, Friends, and Colleagues,

I want to wish everyone a healthy and happy new year and thank all who made a donation to the Museum Association of New York in 2022. Your generosity helped us close the year on a high note. I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible at our annual conference and at gatherings around the state. I’m excited to learn about all of the great things you have planned for 2023.

Museum people are the most creative people I know. We are planners and achievers trained to make the best of limited resources under less-than ideal circumstances. We have all been tested by the events of the past three years, become catalysts for change, and from what I have gleaned from conversations with so many of you, we have hit walls and kept going to a place far past where our creativity can thrive. I believe it is time to reframe expectations of ourselves and our museums. My hope for 2023 is that you will take pride in your work, communicate your value authentically, and construct achievable timelines with realistic budgets. I hope you give yourself the space, time, and resources to experiment, to reach beyond your comfort zone, and to fail forward without thinking that you didn’t work hard enough. I hope you can find ways to restore and reclaim your creativity, whatever that means to you.

A museum director recently wrote saying that they were looking forward to attending MANY’s conference because whenever they discuss challenges with colleagues, they leave with dozens of ideas that would have never occurred to them alone. I hope that we will all be able to spend more time together and that we will build time in our schedules to learn from each other. I hope that you will be able to grow your network and form supportive partnerships.

At the last gathering of museum professionals I attended, a board member leading a merger of organizations asked me if it would be better to call themselves a museum or a historical society. I replied that as long as they crafted a mission statement that embraced history and art, and followed through with clear communications to share the new, combined mission, either proposed name would be great. I hope you will find ways to define your organizations outside of long-held biases and set new standards for how museums can create and execute business plans. I hope you will discover new ways to not only sustain your museum financially, but center it as an integral part of your community while fostering it as a destination. I hope you will invite someone on a tour of your museum who hasn’t visited before, listen to feedback courageously with an open heart, and design engagement strategies to broaden your audiences. The name of your museum is important, but your collection, your work, and how you tell stories may matter more.

For the past two years, MANY has been helping 95 museums close the gap in their technological capacities by providing hardware, software, and training. We know the gap is very large for some, less so for others, and perhaps funding can only address part of the problem. What we have learned is that given tools and training, museum professionals can tell stories in ways unimaginable less than a decade ago. I hope that you can combine collections and research with digital technologies to share stories that accurately reflect New York’s peoples, our histories, and our cultures. I hope that by sharing those stories and partnering with like-minded organizations and colleagues we can advocate for our relevance, help support our democracy, and actively speak out against racism and anti-Semitism wherever and whenever they are found.

I hope for all that I have written and so much more for New York’s museums in 2023. I hope we can repair endangered historic structures that house unique collections, I hope we can restore and exhibit works of art languishing in storage to enrich our visitors’ experiences, I hope we can take action to ameliorate our museums’ negative environmental impacts, and I hope that come next January, diversity, equity, inclusion, access, and justice grow to be even more significant for our field. I know you will help each other and your museums move creatively from hope to plan and from plan to action.

With sincerest thanks,

Erika Sanger, Executive Director

Letter from Erika: Welcome Spring!

Wed, 21 Dec 2022 14:00:31 GMT

Dear Members, Supporters, and Friends,

It may be a cold December day outside of the MANY office with holiday lights filling the streets of Troy and ice beginning to form on the banks of the Hudson River, but inside we are celebrating new growth bursting through buds on tree branches. With a record number of proposals for conference sessions, more scholarships to award than ever before, and leaders of the field nominated for Awards of Distinction, we are focused on our 2023 annual conference “Finding Center: Access, Inclusion, Participation, and Engagement” that will be held in Syracuse from April 15th to the 18th. Mark your calendars, conference registration opens on January 23!

Syracuse is in the Central Region of our state, and the home of the Onondaga Nation,

the Central Fire of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. It is a walking city filled with marvelous architecture, universities, theaters, boutiques, and great places to eat. People from all over the world have come to call Syracuse home. The arts, culture, and food of the city reflect that diversity. 2023 conference registration rates will remain the same as 2022 and we are doing our best to keep special event prices low to allow as many people as possible to participate.

World renowned museums in the Central Region and downtown Syracuse will open their doors to conference attendees for tours, programs, and special events. The historic Hotel Syracuse, restored to its 1924 glory, will be our conference headquarters. Syracuse is easily accessible. It is a two-and half hour drive from both Albany and Buffalo, round-trip flights from New York City airports can be found for under $300; we have a Delta Airlines discount code we will share when we open registration. The Syracuse Amtrak station makes train travel a great option.

We are honored that Omar Eaton-Martinez, the Senior Vice President for Historic Sites at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, will be our keynote speaker. Concurrent session presenters will share their experiences and offer actionable solutions to help New York museum professionals successfully meet the challenges we face and exceed expectations of our funders, supporters, and communities. Sessions with prompts to generate discussions will generate new ideas and shared visions for the future of museums.

I wish you all joyous holidays and a very happy new year and look forward to seeing as many of you as possible in Syracuse in April.

With thanks,

Erika Sanger

Expanding Access and Interpretation: Philipse Manor State Historic Site

Wed, 21 Dec 2022 13:35:20 GMT

Philipse Manor Hall State Historic Site in Yonkers, New York

When New York State Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation allocated Philipse Manor Hall State Historic Site capital funding ($20 million) for the renovation of its buildings, grounds, and a new permanent exhibition, the goal was to secure the structure and reinterpret the Manor's history to help visitors better understand the complex relationships that took place at the Manor from its construction during the Dutch Colonial period to the American Revolution, and beyond.

The Philipse Manor Hall project is part of New York States’ Our Whole History initiative that seeks to bring equal presence to all of the peoples involved in building New York. Built in the 1750s, Philipse Manor Hall was the property of four generations of the Philipse family, one of the wealthiest families in colonial New York. While past exhibitions and lectures documented the role that African and Indigenous peoples contributed to New York State history, the new permanent exhibition and the Virtual Wing website connect the Philipse family history at this site to the worldwide events that resonated at the confluence of cultures in Colonial New York, Westchester County, and at the Philipse Manor - Munsee Lunaape, European, and African.

“The Our Whole History initiative was part of the State of the State Program in 2021,” said Lavada Nahon, Interpreter of African American History for the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation and project lead. “I’ve been involved with the Philipse Manor Hall State Historic Site Project from the beginning… from the conception of the new museum interior, the storyline, exhibitions, to the finished product.”

The Manor reopened in November 2022, and the number of visitors is expected to double from 15,000 to 30,000 by the end of 2023.

Interpreter of African American History for the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation and project lead Lavada Nahon with New York State Governor Kathy Hochul during the site’s reopening on November 16, 2022

Access and a More Inclusive Visitor Experience

Renovation work included electrical upgrades, restoration of the interior plaster, woodwork, and floors, exterior masonry, wood shingle replacement, and major landscape improvements. In addition to the historic preservation work, the building and grounds were also updated to improve accessibility including a two-story addition at the rear of the building for new restrooms and an elevator. Exhibitions were designed to meet the needs of multilingual speakers, people who are hard of hearing, people with low vision, and visitors with wheelchairs and walkers.

“One of the major goals of this project was to make it fully ADA accessible,” said Nahon. “Yes, there are the traditional words on the walls, but you can also hear languages, smell, touch, feel… we’re inviting people to touch things. If we don’t want people to touch something it’s behind a case, but there aren’t many things behind cases.” Nahon was inspired by visits to other museums across the state. “Being in a state with some of the world’s premier museums I wanted to see what we could do at Philipse Manor. I looked at other museum websites, at their virtual tools, and exhibitions.”

The new exhibitions tell the story of the Philipse family, the Indigenous people from whom the Philipse lands come from and with whom the family did business, and enslaved Africans from whose work and trade the Philipse family prospered during the pre-Revolutionary War era. These expanded permanent exhibitions tell the full story of a multicultural and international environment of the colonial period and share this complex history with visitors.

A look at the new permanent exhibition with interactive panels

QR codes and augmented reality are incorporated throughout the exhibition. “We want people to use their phones and experience this history differently. My goal for this site was not to invent anything new, but to bring the State up to common and current practices.” “There was no part of the site that was not touched. It was a digital dead zone in the middle of a major urban center.” The QR codes on exhibition panels give greater context, linking back to the museum’s Virtual Wing. “The exhibition is information dense,” said Nahon. “Which means it is open for people to return to again and again. Information is shared through multiple learning levels and styles, from traditional exhibition panels to AR experiences. We want people to visit with the openness to learn.”

Virtual Wing

From the initial renovation plans for the physical building, Nahon pitched the creation of a virtual wing as a place for additional content. “It’s a wing of the museum, an extension of it.” The website is devoted to additional historic and interpretive content including a 360-degree interactive virtual tour and material that links to the QR codes within the exhibition, blog, and educational resources.

“We have a website via the State like all other state historic sites, but this site is specifically for additional content,” said Nahon. “Its purpose is to support additional research because even as we were doing research for this site and its re-interpretation, Nick Dembowski [Executive Director at the Van Cortlandt House] was researching the Kingsbridge area and found sixteen more people enslaved by the Philipse family. Although it was too late in the development of the physical exhibition to include this new information on the panels, having the virtual wing allowed us an important place to include it.”

Historians have identified at least 115 named individuals who were enslaved by the Philipse family at their properties in Manhattan and Westchester. The Virtual Wing lists them all and recognizes that some will forever remain unnamed, but should not be forgotten. “One of the advantages of the Virtual Wing is that we can stay on the cutting edge of research and share it with the public. We can’t afford to print wall panels fast enough.” Research on New Netherland-has increased over the last few years providing much needed insight into primary documents. The Virtual Wing includes this ongoing research as well as documentation from Philips family members’ wills, probate inventories, and censuses. “It’s necessary for us to have a way to continue sharing new discoveries and to foster people’s research, and curiosity.” said Nahon. “If we were in the South, we’d be 5 to 10 books away from these primary documents. But for us, we are still heavily in the document phase.”

Homepage of Philipse Manor State Historic Site’s Virtual Wing at www.philipsemanorhall.com

An Accelerated Timeline

The original timeline for this project was 12 months; it was completed in 18. “Usually, a project of this scope is 3 to 5 years,” said Nahon. “We communicated on a constant basis across the entire team, capital and exhibit. Philipse Manor Hall is a very significant historic structure. Accommodating the exhibit vision and having it all go well meant that it was a complete team effort. The project included Erin Moroney, the Architectural Conservator; Patricia Kirshner, as the Capital Project manager; Saratoga Associates, the architects; and many other subcontractors, as well as the IT department, legal, contracts, etc.”

Inside Philipse Manor before and after renovations with the new permanent exhibition.

Lavada Nahon led the exhibits section and guided a large team that involved NYS Parks Division of Historic Preservation’s staff members, including Senior Curator Amanda Massie, Interpretive Programs Coordinator Kjirsten Gustavson, Historic Preservation Program Analysts Cordell Reaves and Mary Patton, and Director of Collections Travis Bowman; Parks regional staff members, including Regional Director Linda Cooper and the Regional Capital Team of Garrett Jobson, Kurt Kress, Patrick Kozakiewicz, Tom Murray, Daniel Lewis, and Alton Malcom; Philipse Manor Hall site staff members Charles Casimiro, Steve Oaks, and Michael Lord; Director of the Division for Historic Preservation Daniel McEneny; andSpecial Assistant Chloe Hanna. At the end of November 2022, the Philipse Manor Hall State Historic Site Team was awarded a Special Service Award from New York State Parks, which recognizes extraordinary achievement and continuous outstanding service or acts of valor by Park staff.

“Erin [Moroney] and I met every morning to touch base before we jumped into our separate parts. What helped me a lot is that I came from having experience managing large projects. One of the things that I am always grateful for is that my baseline is theater. In theater you learn to work as a team and with a deadline because curtains are going to rise whether you’re ready or not and that means you have to be solution-driven. There were two cases that were going to be installed in two closets,” said Nahon. “But there were large electrical panels in both closets. We’d previously gotten clearance from our code person that it was okay, but then he retired and someone new came in and said we couldn’t install the cases as planned. That was it, the answer was no. I had to stop, take a breath, and look around at the space and figure out my options. How were we going to be flexible? So we just moved it; it was already on casters, so we moved it. It wasn’t the original design, but we needed a solution. Sometimes you have to compromise.”

The team also included a five-person advisory team; an exhibition development team from Amaze Design; digital components by Trivium Interactive; and fabrication by Split Rock Studios.

Unexpected Challenges

One of the main challenges that Nahon and her team faced centered on the lack of understanding of New Netherland/New York’s colonial history and the lack of knowledge about the Philipse family’s history across multiple generations, among the local community. “The narrative that had been shared at the site and adapted by many in Yonkers did not jibe with the truth,” said Nahon. “The fear was that bringing a more accurate story forward meant that we would vilify the family that is considered the founders of Yonkers.”

That concern is making it difficult to correct historic narratives across the country. “If we are not glorifying someone, then we are automatically vilifying them is a very prevalent fear being pushed. But we want to reexamine the choices people made and who did and did not benefit from them. To reexamine ‘truths’ and bring forward not just the shiny good bits. We are a country grappling with the fact that our nation is built on stolen lands and slavery. This information is challenging and being shared when other social challenges are being managed, so it makes for a difficult journey for many.”

This also meant that the design team needed to learn more about New Netherland/New York’s colonial history. The design team is based in Boston and had just completed a project for the Concord Museum. “They joined the Philipse Manor project and thought that it was the same colonial history that was happening in Massachusetts, but we’re not Massachusetts. We were colonized by the Dutch, not the British, and the Dutch operated very differently, and had a lasting impact. So, we had to help them understand the Dutch system first. We were fortunate that Michael Lord, a long respected Philipse scholar from the Upper Mill property was available. He is now the site manager.”

What’s next?

There are two major statewide projects for the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation: the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution and the Commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the Gradual Emancipation Act, which was the second piece of abolition legislation passed in New York in 1817. This act built upon the 1799 Gradual Manumission legislation by declaring that any African American born before July 4, 1799 would be freed on July 4, 1827. However, the first legislation stated that those born after July 4, 1799 would not be freed until the age of twenty-one years for both women and twenty-eight for men or July 4, 1827. Many enslaved would remain in bondage, reclassified as indentured servants until the 1840s. The commemoration exhibits will seek to clarify the mystifying process of granting freedom throughout the colonial period, culminating in statewide commemoration, hosted by individual historic venues of all kinds where people were enslaved.

“My overarching plan is to clear up this history surrounding freeing someone who had been enslaved,” said Nahon. Many New Netherland historians and scholars support the notion that those enslaved in New Netherland were treated like indentured servants. “But they weren’t. They were being owned by a people from a culture that did not previously have slaves. To create a new area of legislation within the Dutch legal system, they took the closest thing they had and started adapting laws and regulations based on indentured servitude, and that was their starting point. That doesn't mean that those enslaved were treated like indentured servants. This is where the Dutch laws and regulations around slavery began. This is where I want to start.”

Although still being drafted, planning is centered on creating a multi-level experience geared to helping people understand what it took to free an enslaved person, ending with commemoration ceremonies across the State on July 5, 2027. “There was a major movement within the Black community to not celebrate on July 4, 1827 for fear of reprisals. July 5^th was purposefully selected. It will discuss what the Act did and did not do as well as honor those held in bondage and bring awareness to their contribution and sacrifices. Nahon’s plan is to track these changes across the different historic sites beginning with Crailo State Historic Site, one of the earliest houses in the Dutch period. “I do hope all colonial sites and historic societies will begin making their own plans, while I craft them for the state. This is an important anniversary, that goes hand in hand with Rev War 250, and the years following it in our state’s history. I am hoping the entire colonial historic community supports it.

“This is the time to honor the people who were manumitted and who were held in bondage. It’s also the time to help the public understand that a lot of what we are dealing with now as a nation started with the first people enslaved and when they were freed. Would they or would they not become full active citizens and Americans? Are their descendants now?”

Learn more about Philipse Manor Hall State Historic Site and explore the museum’s Virtual Wing: https://www.philipsemanorhall.com/

25 Museums Awarded $9.7 Million in Round 12 of the Regional Economic Development Council Initiative

Wed, 21 Dec 2022 13:00:26 GMT

Governor Kathy Hochul announced that a total of $68 million was awarded to support 74 projects across New York State through the 2022 Regional Economic Development Council initiative. This round of funding included core capital grant and tax-credit funding from Empire State Development. 25 museums across New York State received $9.7 million.

The Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, NY was awarded $25,000 to expand and enhance their marketing strategies and partnerships.

Capital Region –2 museums totaling $180,400

Thomas Cole National Historic Site, $120,000

ESD Market NY Program

Women, Land + Art Marketing Campaign Tourism Working Capital

Thomas Cole National Historic Site will use grant funds to implement and promote “Women, Land + Art: Showcasing the Hudson River School for Contemporary Audiences”. This project will expand the reach of NYS’s heritage by expanding the story to include historic and contemporary women.

The Sembrich, $60,400

ESD Market NY Program

The Sembrich Centennial Marketing Initiative Tourism Working Capital

The Sembrich Museum will use grant funds to enhance marketing presence leading to the facilities centennial in 2024. Marketing efforts will expand in local and regional publications, social media campaigns, digital & print advertisements and new geographic targeted markets.

Central NY –1 museum totaling $25,000

Everson Museum of Art, $25,000

ESD Market NY Program

Everson Museum of Art Marketing Initiative Tourism Working Capital

Everson Museum of Art of Syracuse will use grant funds to support an expanded and enhanced marketing strategies, partnerships, and collateral. The Everson will welcome visitors from across the country, state, and region to engage in unique museum experiences, support the region’s rich art and culture scene, and contribute to the post-pandemic revitalization of downtown Syracuse and Central New York through increased tourism and tourist spending dollars.

Finger Lakes –2 museums totaling $254,283

Strong National Museum of Play, $175,000

ESD Market NY Program

Play Rochester 2023: A Collaborative Tourism Driver Tourism Working Capital

Play Rochester is a collaborative tourism marketing project created and led by The Strong utilizing grant funds to drive tourism to the Rochester region by marketing to targeted audiences within a 5-hour drive and providing online resources for consumers to create tailor-made packages when planning their trip. Through online and TV marketing that features both The Strong and partnering cultural institutions, the project promotes the region and its cultural assets.

Genesee Country Village and Museum, $79,283

ESD Market NY Program

Eclipse and General Marketing Tourism Working Capital

Genesee Country Village and Museum (GCV&M) will use grant funds to develop and promote new programming to attract visitors, combining education and entertainment with rural character, local agriculture, authentic foodways, and diverse storytelling. The Museum will also use the 2024 eclipse to draw visitors to view the event from GCV&M and stay locally.

Long Island –2 museums totaling $127,000

The Museum of American Armor, $60,000

ESD Market NY Program

Heritage Marketing Tourism Working Capital

The Museum of American Armor, a WWII living history destination, will use grant funds to implement a marketing campaign that seeks to reach an international and national tourism market and increasing the awareness of The Museum of American Armor and increasing overnight tourism to Nassau County, and the overall Long Island region.

Southold Historical Museum, $67,000

ESD Market NY Program

Southold Rediscovered Tourism Working Capital

Southold Historical Museum will use the funds to support the planning and implementation of a tourism marketing plan with the goal to showcase on a regional, national and international basis, the significance of the Southhold Historical Museum.

Mid-Hudson –2 museums totaling $1,600,000

Dia Art Foundation (Dia Beacon), $400,000

ESD Market NY Program

Dia Beacon Tourism Capital

Dia Art Foundation will use grant funds for critical renovations to the tourism destination. Capital improvements that include: a facade restoration addressing climate control/energy efficiency issues; relandscaping of an area impacting accessibility; creating more accessible gender neutral and family restrooms; and replacement of the HVAC system.

Storm King Art Center, $1,200,000

ESD Market NY Program

Storm King Art Center Tourism Capital

Storm King Art Center will use funds to fund a portion of a capital project that includes two building elements: a Welcome Sequence (WS) and a Conservation, Fabrication, and Maintenance (CFM) Building. These updates to the tourism destination will further enhance the experience of residents and visitors.

Mohawk Valley, 2 museums totaling $457,500

The Farmer’s Museum, $52,500

ESD Market NY Program

The Farmers Museum Tourism Attraction Rebranding and Website Redesign

The Farmers’ Museum (TFM) requests marketing funds to undertake a major rebranding effort and build a state-of-the-art, easy-to-navigate website that captures and conveys the museum’s vibrant personality, attracting visitors to Cooperstown and the Mohawk Valley.

Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, $405,000

New York Main Street Homes and Community Renewal Program (HCR NYMS)

503 Henry Street Stabilization

Munson-Williams will structurally stabilize 503 Henry St., an unoccupied architecturally significant residence in downtown Utica.

New York City, 6 museums totaling $3,979,400

New-York Historical Society, $1,250,000

ESD Grants

New-York Historical Society/American LGBTQ Museum Partnership Project, $1,000,000

The New-York Historical Society (“N-YHS”) will expand its current building on an N-YHS-owned adjacent lot, with the top floor housing The American LGBTQ+ Museum, a new institution dedicated to preserving and sharing LGBTQ+ history and culture. Including new galleries, classrooms, and outdoor spaces, the expansion will facilitate collaborative educational resources integrating LGBTQ+ history and filling gaps in K-12 curricula and allow N-YHS to increase by tens of thousands the number of students, teachers, and families served.

ESD Market NY Program

New-York Historical Society/American LGBTQ Museum Tourism Capital, $250,000

The New-York Historical Society (N-YHS) will expand its current building. Currently, the top floor of the building is housing The American LGBTQ + Museum, a new institution dedicated to preserving and sharing LGBTQ+ history and culture. This partnership will create a new tourist destination and increase visitation for New York State, and the overall NYC area.

New York Botanical Garden, $461,000

ESD Market NY Program

NYBG Green Library Tourism Capital

New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) will use funds granted to implement The Green Library project, a construction project that includes procurement and installation of two 140-ton HVAC Chiller units, pumps, supply and return piping, insulation, connection to the existing fire alarm and building management systems. The project, when completed, will have both clear energy reduction benefits and add to NYBG's ability to welcome guests from around the corner and across the globe.

American Museum of Natural History, $150,000

ESD Market NY Program

American Museum of Natural History Digital Marketing Campaign Tourism Working Capital

The American Museum of Natural History in New York City will use grant funds to execute a marketing campaign targeting international and regional audiences to grow visitation to New York State and the Museum.

Lower East Side Tenement Museum, $218,400

ESD Market NY Program

Tenement Museum Marketing Tourism Working Capital

The Tenement Museum will use grant funds for a tourism outreach campaign that will draw local, regional, and international visitors to NYC’s Lower East Side for the re-opening of our historic landmark tenement and the launch of a new exhibit.

New Museum of Contemporary Art, $1,800,000

ESD Market NY Program

New Museum of Contemporary Art Expansion Tourism Capital

The New Museum, a leading contemporary arts museum on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, will construct a 55,000 sq. ft. addition adjacent to their current facility. This capital expansion will double the Museum’s footprint, improve public circulation, enhance indoor air quality and energy efficiencies, create an increase in permanent staff, raise annual attendance, and drive additional City and State tax revenue

American Museum of the Moving Image, $100,000

ESD Market NY Program

Special Events Marketing Tourism Working Capital

American Museum of the Moving Image will utilize the grant funds to implement and promote multiple series of special events that attract filmmakers and tourists from Queens, all of NYC, NYS, the US, and abroad. The diverse slate of events will attract new audiences, including many overnight visitors.

North Country, 3 museums totaling $461,900

Fort Ticonderoga, $211,700

ESD Market NY Program

Fort Ticonderoga Tourism Working Capital

Fort Ticonderoga plans to utilize the grant funds to plan and execute a tourism marketing plan to promote Fort Ticonderoga as a multi-day experience and tourism destination, encouraging visitors to stay in the North Country longer, boosting awareness of the broad array of activities available.

Adirondack Historical Association, $50,200

ESD Market NY Program

Building African American Audiences for ADKX and the Region Tourism Working Capital

Adirondack Historical Association will use grant funds to initiate targeted marketing to African American communities and host two festivals highlighting their culture.

North Country Children’s Museum, $200,000

HCR NYMS

Second Floor Expansion Project

The North Country Children's Museum will complete the expansion project and renovate the second floor of its building in downtown Potsdam.

Western NY, 5 museums totaling $2,634,704

Explore & More Children’s Museum, $384,704

ESD Grants

Explore & More Expansion Project

Explore & More will enhance and modify the footprint of all four floors of the children's museum, improving building accessibility and increasing guest safety. It will ensure the sustainability and outgrowth of a long lifespan of the museum and its mission to provide best-in-class PLAY experiences where all children, families and the community can explore, learn, and develop together.

Center for Kashmir, Inc, $1,000,000

ESD Grants

The Kashmir Museum

Center for Kashmir will redevelop a 97-year-old abandoned church on the National Register of Historic Places, in the heart of downtown Niagara Falls, NY to house the The Kashmir Museum (TKM). The Kashmir Museum will exist to study, preserve, and share Kashmir’s history and culture with the world. Teaming up with local schools and community organizations, TKM will have year-long art, music, literary clinics, and local artist exhibitions.

Burchfield Penney Art Center, $50,000

ESD Market NY Program

Burchfield Penney Art Center Tourism Working Capital

The Burchfield Penney Art Center (BPAC), located in Buffalo's Museum District, will use the grant funds to initiate a strategic marketing plan with a goal of engaging out-of-town visitation to the destination and overall Western NY region.

Buffalo Society of Natural Science (Buffalo Museum of Science), $200,000

ESD Market NY Program

Buffalo Museum of Science Tourism Capital

Buffalo Museum of Science will use the tourism grant to fund a portion of the renovations to the museum's core exhibits into a hands-on learning gallery focused on the “Science of Sport.” The new dynamic Science of Sport exhibit will stand a tremendous educational, entertainment, and quality-of-life resource for our region and become significant draw for tourism.

The Aquarium of Niagara, $1,000,000

ESD Market NY Program

The Aquarium of Niagara Tourism Capital

The Aquarium of Niagara will use the tourism capital grant to fund a portion of the construction costs to open a new cultural attraction in the Niagara Gorge Discovery Center. The Aquarium of Niagara will also use tourism marketing funds to directly appeal to visitors through a regionally-based, multi-pronged advertising campaign.

Learn more about NYS REDC here: https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-announces-more-68-million-awarded-round-xii-regional-economic-development

New Funding Initiatives from the National Endowment for the Humanities

Wed, 21 Dec 2022 12:57:31 GMT

In November 2022, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) announced a new funding initiative –American Tapestry: Weaving Together Past, Present, and Future. This new initiative aims to leverage the humanities to strengthen America’s democracy, advance equity for all, and address the changing climate.

Within this initiative are new grant programs including “Dangers & Opportunities of Technology: Perspectives from the Humanities,” “Cultural and Community Resilience Program,” and “Climate Smart Humanities Organizations.”

Dangers and Opportunities of Technology: Perspectives from the Humanities

This grant program supports research that examines the relationship between technology and society. The NEH is interested in projects that examine current social and cultural issues that are significantly shaped by technology. Possible areas for research include climate change, racial justice, social media (disinformation and the democratic process), wealth inequality, and educational technologies. This grant program will fund research assistance, community partner participation, conducting studies or interviews, data collection, designing curricular materials, and development or production of articles, books, documentary films, websites, or other forms of intellectual output. Projects led by a single researcher may be awarded up to $75,000 and projects led by collaborative teams may be awarded up to $150,000.

Learn more: https://www.neh.gov/program/dangers-and-opportunities-technology-perspectives-humanities

Address Our Changing Climate

While the NEH has previously provided technical assistance and support for cultural and educational institutions to protect and preserve collections and programs following natural disasters, the new American Tapestry initiative will “develop and implement programs that incorporate climate resilience in the nation’s cultural and education sectors and promote robust humanities research into the cultural and historical roots of the climate crisis and its impact of human language, culture, and society.”

Cultural and Community Resilience

This grant program builds cultural and community resilience in the face of climate change as well as challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Funded activities include identifying and capturing cultural and historical resources, safeguarding cultural resources, collecting oral histories from individuals impacts, documenting traditional knowledge, memories of elders, practices, or technology that may inform contemporary ways of working and living, engaging in collaborative planning efforts to prepare communities for rapid response collecting, and applying insights from cultural heritage identification and documentation projects to inform local and regional community resilience strategies.

All proposed activities must relate to either climate change or the COVID-19 pandemic. The program prioritizes projects from disadvantaged communities and the NEH encourages applications that employ inclusive methodologies.

The Cultural and Community Resilience funding program supports the collection of the experiences of doctors, nurses, and other emergency responders during the COVID-19 pandemic. It also supports the documenting of everyday community experiences during the pandemic such as lifestyle changes and shortages or losses.

Since this is a new grant program, the NEH offers potential project ideas including a local historical society that creates an oral history collection with reflections from first responders after wildfires or other types of climate crises or an organization that is interested in documenting and safeguarding traditional memories of Indigenous elders or other knowledge keepers during climate crisis.

Another suggested project idea is in an area prone to wildfires, a public library, local college or university, and historical society develop a plan for rapid response collecting should a wildfire occur. One project outcome would be a memorandum of understanding outlining the goals of collecting, and the responsibilities of each partner –including outreach to the community and acting as the repository for physical and digital collection items.

Organizations may be awarded up to $150,000 for projects for up to two years.

Learn more: https://www.neh.gov/program/cultural-and-community-resilience

Climate Smart Humanities Organizations

This grant program is designed to help museums, libraries, archives, historic sites, and colleges and universities anticipate the operational, physical, and financial impacts of climate-related events on their institutions while also reducing their own impact on the environment.

Organizations can also use this funding to undertake activities such as energy audits, risk assessments, and meetings with consultants. The objective of this grant program is to help organizations create a climate-smart plan that establishes goals and prioritizes actions that reduce the organization’s impact on the environment through mitigation and vulnerability from extreme events through adaptation. The NEH emphasizes that strategic planning for climate change is an essential part of sustaining humanities organizations’ operations and activities, thereby becoming climate smart.

An organization’s climate action plan evaluates alternative energy sources, identifies building improvements that would result in increased operational efficiencies and lower energy use, landscape improvements (such as reforestation or native groundcover to support better environmental conditions and offset carbon producing-activities), encourage lower-carbon transportation options for visitors, staff, and operations (such as bicycle and pedestrian access, public transportation, and ride-sharing), and establishes organizational recycling, composting, reuse, and waste reduction plans.

Funded project activities include a comprehensive energy audit of an organization’s building, land use, utilities, operations, and facilities, a calculation of an organization's carbon footprint, testing of the existing HVAC system, or the installation of energy, waste, or carbon footprint monitoring and sub-metering equipment to measure consumption.

Organizations can reach out to their local energy company to see what kind of services they offer, explore the Department of Energy’s Energy Star Portfolio Manager or the Environmental Protection Agency’s Greenhouse Gas Inventory tool, or search for local climate action plans published by New York State or local government.

The maximum award amount is $300,000 for up to 2 years. This grant program offers federal matching funds for comprehensive organizational assessments that lead to strategic climate action and adaptation plans. In order to receive federal matching funds, recipients must raise $1 of non-federal, third-party funds for every $1 requested from the NEH. This match must be raised by July 21, 2024. The total project budget includes the funds requested from the NEH plus the required match.

Learn more: https://www.neh.gov/program/climate-smart-humanities-organizations-0

Funding for Small and Mid-Sized Organizations

Another new funding program that will launch in 2023 is the “Public Impact Projects at Smaller Organizations.” This is a program designed specifically to help small and mid-sized cultural organizations to increase the impact, reach, and excellence of their public programs. The main goal of this grant program is to help smaller organizations expand their impact, reach, and public programming. Grant awards will support a variety of activities that will focus on either strengthening interpretive approaches for future programming or enhancing community engagement with public programming. More information will be available in early 2023 with an application deadline in summer 2023.

Learn more about these and other funding opportunities from the NEH here: https://www.neh.gov/americantapestry

Letter from Erika: Support MANY/Support Museums

Tue, 29 Nov 2022 20:56:26 GMT

Balsam Fir growing at the edge of a granite quarry that closed for industrial purposes in 1960, making this tree approximately the same age as the Museum Association of New York.

The last weeks of 2022 bring MANY’s sixtieth year of service to the museum field to a close. Despite the recent hardships we have all experienced, we stand stronger now than ever before. As I look back over all that we have accomplished, I am proud of the ways we brought museum professionals together in person and virtually for critical discussions about contemporary museum practice. I am continually inspired by my colleagues who generously share their time and expertise and I write now to ask for your financial support.

MANY’s in-person programs help museum professionals meet new people and form new connections. In 2023, we will host programs in every region of the state to discuss strategies to prepare and envision post-pandemic museums. We will begin those discussions on February 8^th at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. We are excited to be in Syracuse from April 15-18 for “Finding Center,” our 2023 annual conference. I am pleased to announce that Omar Eaton-Martinez, Senior Vice President for Historic Sites, National Trust for Historic Preservation will join us as our opening keynote speaker on Sunday, April 16.

Federal and state pandemic grants helped us absorb the increasing expenses of the past two years. Project support grants help us to provide free, virtual programming. But as we move into 2023, our budget can no longer shoulder the impact. We need your support before December 31. Your donation, no matter the amount, will help us continue to serve the needs of our museum community.

You can use the secure donation page on our website: https://nysmuseums.org/donate or send a check via USPS to: Museum Association of New York, 265 River Street, Troy, NY, 12180.

With thanks for all the ways you support MANY,

Erika Sanger

Executive Director

MANY Board Spotlight: Natalie Stetson, Executive Director, Erie Canal Museum

Tue, 29 Nov 2022 20:54:48 GMT

Natalie Stetson is the Executive Director of the Erie Canal Museum in downtown Syracuse, NY. She previously served as the Director of Development at the Seward House Museum in Auburn, NY. Natalie has spent much of her career thinking about and finding ways to engage new audiences at history museums and connect museums to their community.

Natalie received a BA at the Honors College of Florida Atlantic University with concentrations in American Studies and Literature. She later attended Syracuse University and received an MA in Museum Studies. Natalie grew up in museums and followed in the footsteps of her father, who received his MFA in Museum Studies (then called Museology) from Syracuse University thirty years before she attended.

Natalie joined the Museum Association of NY Board in April 2018 and is the co-chair of the Program Committee Chair of the Host Committee for our 2023 Annual Conference in Syracuse “Finding Center: Access, Inclusion, Participation, and Engagement” April 15 - 18, 2023.

We spoke with Natalie to learn more about her career path and her leadership in the development of a new interpretive plan for the Erie Canal Museum.

Natalie Stetson, Executive Director of the Erie Canal Museum sits on a recreated canal boat in the historic 1850 Weighlock Building

What other jobs have you had in the museum field? Can you tell us about your journey to get to your current role?

My dad is a museum director so I grew up in museums. He’s been working in museums for over forty years across the country including Iowa, Texas, Tennessee, Florida, Louisiana, and New York. His first museum job was at the Picker Art Gallery at Colgate University.

I’ve volunteered in many different museum positions including art classrooms, the gift shop, and the front desk. My first paid museum job was a front desk job at my dad’s museum in Central Florida. I worked the front desk on the weekends while I was in high school but I didn’t mean to go into the museum field. Outside of volunteering and working at the front desk, I didn’t spend a lot of time in museums and wasn’t thinking that’s what I wanted to do.

It’s a time that I now look back on and it makes sense that I’m working in museums. Those early experiences led me to work in a museum now, but I didn’t know it at the time. I wanted to be a teacher and that’s what I worked toward in college. Later I realized that teaching wasn’t something that I wanted to do, but I wanted to work in education.

After college, I started looking at graduate programs in museum studies or American studies. I don’t like writing. It doesn’t come easily to me so I wanted to pursue something without a thesis dissertation. When I was growing up, my aunt was working on her PhD and for my entire childhood, she had a dissertation to write. I just imagined the burden of that dissertation or that thesis on my shoulders. I didn't think I would finish it and get my degree. It made me think that maybe academia wasn’t right for me. I ended up taking a year off after college and moved to Portland Oregon with my best friend. It was at this point that I thought about pursuing a career in museums.

Museums seemed to check all the boxes in what I was looking to do in my career. I started looking for graduate programs in museum studies. I applied to a few but ended up choosing to attend Syracuse University because they offered me the best deal. I actually only applied to Syracuse because my dad got his master's in museum studies at Syracuse University. My dad’s mom also went to Syracuse and his grandmother. So just the idea of this legacy I thought that I’d apply but I wasn’t going to go. I didn’t see myself moving to Syracuse. I didn’t have any interest in moving to Central New York. I wanted to live in a large city where I didn’t need a car but I was convinced that I would only be here for two years to get my degree and then I would leave. But I’ve been here for over ten years now and it’s home.

I wasn’t sure which part of a museum I wanted to work in. I took a development class and I developed this philosophy of museum development which is if you can be passionate about what you’re doing and can convey that to others, the money will follow. That was my early development philosophy. Then I interned at the Erie Canal Museum and worked for the museum curator Dan Ward. In the first semester of my second year of graduate school, he forwarded me an email from the museum that said they were looking for a Director of Development and Marketing. I still had a semester left of school but I figured that I would throw my hat into the ring. The museum hired me and I started in November 2010. In the early days, I felt like I had no real idea of what I was doing but I had a lot of passion, energy, and ideas. I worked at the museum for three years and learned a lot about grants and their complicated nature. I left the Erie Canal Museum and worked at the Seward House Museum in a similar position for two and a half years. Billye [Chabot, Seward House Museum Executive Director] came to me one day and told me that the director position at the Erie Canal Museum was open.

I was hired as the Erie Canal Museum Executive Director in March 2016 and in my six years here, I have really come to love this museum and the story of the Erie Canal. The canal touches upon enough things that if you want to, you can find a connection. Art, math, science, immigration, and Native American history. It’s all here and I loved that.

What an interesting journey and opportunity to explore different roles at museums. Did you ever have a moment when you began your museum career and look back at your childhood with your father and think about the impact it has on your role now?

Yes. I think part of what makes me at least somewhat of a successful executive director is that I have experience working in many different parts of a museum. Having that knowledge of other roles and what they’re doing, helps me understand my staff’s needs. I think people are the most important resource this museum or any museum has and if I can't support my staff and take care of them, then we won’t be successful. Having at least some understanding of what they need without them having to tell me because some employees are better than others at telling you what they need. Having a little bit of background knowledge from my experience is helpful.

I think back to watching my dad interact with his staff and although he’s a different kind of leader than me, we both trust our staff. I’m not a micromanager. I trust them to do what needs to be done because we’re all on the same page with the same goals is important. They’re probably a few of my previous experiences that come up here and there that are nice reminders of all of the things that I know help me to hopefully be a better leader.

Tell me about some of your biggest motivations to do what you do. What do you get excited about in your role as the Executive Director of the Erie Canal Museum?

That’s a good question because it’s changed over time. This museum is amazing, but for many years it kind of just existed. We’re a popular tourist destination which is wonderful and we can exist on that if we wanted to. When I came back as director there was a lot of foundation building we needed to create. We were down to three volunteers. We needed to build up a constituency of people who cared about this museum in the community. There also wasn’t a lot of collaboration amongst the staff. It was very much a blinders-up situation and working independently of each other. In those first couple of years, my job was hard and I didn’t always like it and didn’t always know what I was doing.

But then during the pandemic, there was this moment, an awakening for all of us where we thought we can do so much more with the Erie Canal story. I called it a microcosm for all of American history and we have this incredible opportunity to help people reconcile with history. People think that history is hard but it’s not. It’s not pretty most of the time, but our museum is a trusted source of information. This museum now has the support of a wonderful group of people who are letting us tackle really hard topics and allowing us to think about how we can be kind of the arbiters of change in this conversation around history. I like when I come to work each day now, really excited about what we’re going to do next and where we’re going. The team here is excited. I think we’re going to change things. We’re just one little museum in Central New York and I hope we can be leaders for other small museums.

For the past couple of years, we've been doing a lot of this work through our programming. We’ve been focused on expanding our interpretation. We’re talking more about the Haudenosaunee past and present. Currently, you cannot find the word Haudenosaunee in our exhibitions anywhere and that is a problem. But changing exhibitions is a lot more complicated than working to develop programming. I think developing programming and developing those relationships, the language, and establishing goals all need to happen before we start changing the exhibitions. That’s what we’ve been doing for the past couple of years. We’ve had a couple of thousand people participate in our virtual programs, but there are over fifteen thousand people visiting the museum in person, walking through the door to look at our exhibitions and our programs are not touching those people. They’re not getting that experience.

The museum was recently awarded $50,000 IMLS Inspire! Grant to develop a new interpretive plan as part of a larger effort to tell a more inclusive Canal story. Can you tell us more about the grant project?

Our last interpretive plan was connected to our reaccreditation with the American Alliance of Museums in 2010 which was part of the documentation needed in order to be reaccredited. Nothing is wrong with that plan, but it’s not extensive and it no longer aligns with our current goals to tell a more inclusive story of the Erie Canal. We knew that we needed a new interpretation plan. The murder of George Floyd and the social justice movements that followed ended up being a transformative moment for a lot of museums. When that happened, many cultural institutions made statements. For us, The Canal connects to everything, and initially, we stayed silent but we knew that there were things we were not talking about and that we should be. Derek Pratt, our Museum Educator, and I got to work. Derek really dug in and created our Pathway Resistance walking tour. In 2021, we brought in a research fellow, Renée Barry, who traveled across New York State’s Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor, collecting and analyzing Canal history. She focuses on how the dominant Erie Canal discourse continues to reinforce and obscure the ongoing historical context of industrialization’s radicalized inequality. This position was funded by the NYS Power Authority’s Reimagine the Canal initiative. It was a great opportunity for us and two months after Barry started, we applied for the IMLS grant.

We were awarded the funding from the IMLS in August and we’ve met with our consultant to outline themes and goals. We will likely completely redo the entire museum. Our current exhibition was installed in 2015. Its research is twenty years old and it’s not the story we want to tell. We want to talk about New York State before the Erie Canal, and what was happening before the ditch was dug. When this exhibition was installed it cost $700,000, so this is just the first step with a large capital campaign to follow. One donor has already contributed $10,000.

Can you share more about what some of the intended goals are for this project?

There are five goals. The first one is to tell a more inclusive Erie Canal story through exhibits and programs, the second is to expand the interpretation of the 1850 Syracuse Weighlock Building, the third is to increase engagement for children and families, the fourth is to provide a more welcoming environment for marginalized populations, and the fifth is to create a more cohesive visitor experience.

The plan will allow for strategic updates over the course of a few years or as funding becomes available.

We don’t know fully what this will look like but it’s important that the museum is a space that is welcoming to all people. One thing that will be critical for us is to figure out tone and language. For example, we will need to talk about the trauma the Erie Canal had on the Haudenosaunee. That’s why we’ve hired professionals and built connections with our colleagues at the Skä•noñh Great Law of Peace Center to help us.

What advice would you give other museums applying for an IMLS Inspire! Grant?

It seems like a nuanced thing but I’ve been part of some teams that try to create something that a particular grant funding will work for but then ended up with a project that there weren’t resources available to actually complete or didn’t fit within your goals.

When I sit down to write a grant I know that this grant is important to the museum’s goals and we’re not creating a project to fulfill grant requirements but it just aligned with what we’re already doing.

Can you describe a favorite day on the job?

I can’t think of a literal day but there are days when I am not sitting at my computer and I’m leading people through the museum that I really enjoy. I’m a member of the Canal Recreationway Commission for New York State* and l led a tour a couple of weeks ago. I don’t get to do this often but it’s important because those are the days when I get to talk about our plans and goals.

I like watching visitors interact with a presenter during one of our programs. It’s nice witnessing the good work we’re doing rather than just being behind the scenes.

I also like our staff meeting days where we talk and share the work we’re doing. It’s important to get out from behind the computer and have face-to-face interaction, both with the public and with your staff. They’re the days when I look at the calendar and think I’m not going to get any work done with all the meetings, tours, and programs but at the end of the day, I feel so invigorated. Those days can be overwhelming and exhausting but they’re the best days.

*The Canal Recreationway Commission was founded in 1992 and comprised of 24 members representing the Canal System and appointed by the Governor to develop a conceptual framework for fostering the development of the Canal System into a recreationway system.

Pomeroy Foundation Funds 10 Scholarships for Museum Professionals to Attend the Museum Association of New York Annual Conference

Tue, 15 Nov 2022 14:38:10 GMT

Scholarship Applications Due Friday, Dec. 2

The William G. Pomeroy Foundation is sponsoring ten (10) scholarships for museum professionals to attend the 2023 annual conference “Finding Center: Access, Inclusion, Participation, and Engagement” in Syracuse, from Saturday, April 15 to Tuesday, April 18.

Scholarships will be awarded to museum professionals working in history-related museums in NYS that have an annual operating budget of $250,000 or less and who have not attended a MANY annual conference in the past.

“MANY’s conference is a wonderful opportunity to learn from and engage with talented museum professionals from across the Empire State,” said Deryn Pomeroy, Trustee and Director of Strategic Initiatives at the Pomeroy Foundation. “We are pleased to offer these scholarships to help enhance access to the annual gathering as well as to grow professional development opportunities within the field.”

Each scholarship includes conference registration, one workshop or special event registration, two nights at the Hotel Syracuse, up to $400 transportation/parking reimbursement, and complimentary individual MANY membership for one year.

“We are so pleased to make MANY’s annual conference more accessible to New York’s museum professionals,” said MANY Executive Director Erika Sanger. “We are incredibly thankful to William G. Pomeroy Foundation for their generous commitment to the museum field.”

Those eligible for a conference scholarship must be employed full-time at a NYS museum. Following the conference, scholarship recipients will be required to submit a 500 to 1,000 word summary of their conference experience, which may be included in MANY’s “This Month in NYS Museums” e-newsletter.

Applications must be submitted by 5 p.m. Friday, Dec. 2 via MANY’s website: https://nysmuseums.org/conference-scholarships.

In addition to funding from the Pomeroy Foundation, there are several other scholarships available for the MANY 2023 conference. Visit the MANY website for more information or email conference@nysmuseums.org with questions about the scholarship applications.

About the Museum Association of New York

The Museum Association of New York is the only statewide museum service organization with more than 700 member museums, historical societies, zoos, botanical gardens, and aquariums. MANY helps shape a better future for museums and museum professionals by uplifting best practices and building organizational capacity through advocacy, training, and networking opportunities. Visit www.nysmuseums.org and follow MANY on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn @nysmuseums

About the Pomeroy Foundation

The William G. Pomeroy Foundation® is committed to supporting the celebration and preservation of community history; and working to improve the probability of finding appropriate donor matches or other life-saving treatments for blood cancer patients. Established by Trustee Bill Pomeroy in 2005 to bring together his two greatest passions, the Pomeroy Foundation is a private, philanthropic organization located in Syracuse, N.Y. As the nation’s leading funder of historic roadside markers, the Pomeroy Foundation has awarded more than 2,000 grants for markers and bronze plaques in 46 states and Washington, D.C. To learn more about the Pomeroy Foundation, visit wgpfoundation.org.

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Letter from Erika: Communicating Value

Wed, 26 Oct 2022 15:31:56 GMT

Dear Members, Friends, and Colleagues,

Last week, the American Association of State and Local History published their 2022 National Visitation Report. The report illustrates that although some history organizations saw as much as a 75% increase in attendance in 2021 over 2020, overall visitation remains well below pre-pandemic levels. With hard data like this, organizational leaders and stakeholders can gain insights into the progress of the sector’s ongoing recovery.

Quantifiable trends clearly show that museums can no longer operate –care for collections, produce exhibitions, and engage with communities– the way that they operated in 2019. But how much funding do museums need now and for what purposes? How do we measure the value that museums bring as economic drivers? How can we show all the ways that museums contribute to communities?

In Governor Hochul’s recent announcement of the historic allocation of $150M in capital grants available through the New York State Council on the Arts, she said “New York’s arts and cultural organizations strengthen our economic well-being, nourish our diversity and identity, and support our communities.” The Museum Study Bill, passed almost unanimously by the legislature earlier this year, directs the department of economic development, in conjunction with other departments and entities, to conduct a comprehensive study of public and private museums, including taking a census of public and private museums in the state, and to report the findings and recommendations of such study.

This bill and the resulting report will help all of New York’s museums quantify their impact and communicate their value. But we still need Governor Hochul to sign the bill.

Your voice is essential in our efforts to strengthen the field and to show the Governor the important roles your museums play in your community. Please take a few minutes out of your day today to let the Governor know that you support the bill, that you need the data to respond to changes in our world, and the ways in which the report will help communicate the value of your museum. You can send an email to Governor Hochul using this link or send a handwritten note to:

The Honorable Kathy Hochul
Governor of New York State
NYS State Capitol Building
Albany, NY 12224

With thanks in advance for your time and your support,

Erika Sanger

Executive Director

Community-Driven Economic Development Strategy: Utilizing Cultural Sites to Anchor and Transform the Michigan Street African American Heritage Corridor

Wed, 26 Oct 2022 13:08:16 GMT

Birdseye rendering from the Michigan Street African American Heritage Corridor Strategic Action Plan, 2022

Buffalo’s Michigan Street played a unique role in local and national American history including the Underground Railroad and the Civil Rights Movement. It was home to many residents involved with the Niagara Movement –a precursor to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Persons (NAACP) and the Colored Musician's Club that helped shape the Jazz Age.

In 2007, supported by leaders in the local African American community, the then NYS Assemblywoman (now Assembly Majority Leader) Crystal Peoples-Stokes sponsored state legislation to designate Michigan Street as a Heritage Corridor. The Corridor contains several key cultural and historic sites including the Michigan Street Baptist Church, the Nash House, the Colored Musician's Club, and the WUFO Black Radio History Collective. This legislation established the initial structure of the African American Heritage Corridor Commission (MSAAHCC) that includes representation from each of the heritage and cultural sites and other public and philanthropic organization stakeholders.

“This Corridor has been represented by so many different cultures,” said Terry Alford, Executive Director of the Michigan Street African American Heritage Corridor Commission. “Before African Americans started inhabiting it in the early 1920s, there were European immigrants like in many other urban cities across the country looking for new opportunities. This Corridor served a number of different peoples who had hope for themselves and their families and hope for new opportunities in this city.”

On January 1, 2021, the Commission became its own independent non-profit organization with a board that includes representatives from each of the four cultural anchor sites. “They will always have a seat at the table,” said Alford. “We want to make sure that our anchors are sustainable. It’s a covenant between the anchors and the Commission to always make sure that they have representation and a voice.”

Community Driven Strategy

In 2020, MSAAHCC hired Moody Nolan, an African American-owned design firm with a history of developing and promoting strategies that help transform communities and neighborhoods like Michigan Street, to lead the Strategic Action Plan.

“The intent of the Strategic Action plan was to facilitate a consensus-building planning process with stakeholders, including MSAAHCC Board and staff, elected officials, involved public agencies, key adjacent property owners, and the public,” said Alford. “It was to identify methods to best coordinate activities of each of these assets and formulate a concept design and spending and operating plan for the investment area to be financed with part of a pending NYS grant.”

The overall goal was to use this strategic plan to develop a uniformly agreed vision to tell the important stories of the Corridor, achieve sustainable operations for MSAAHCC, and continue to develop the Corridor to increase visitors and create future private investments.

“A fundamental part of the Commission’s mission and vision is to ensure that the Corridor is recognized locally as a focal point for learning about the city’s African American history and recognizing the Corridor’s heritage legacy nationally and internationally,” said Alford. “We want new residents to move into the area which will bring more spending dollars to the Corridor, new business leases, and create and support more local jobs. Michigan Street’s heritage tourism provides numerous benefits for the organization, community, and economic anchors.”

A Holistic Economic Development Strategy

As part of New York State’s overall effort to target revitalization in Western NY’s underserved neighborhoods, Empire State Development (ESD) committed $65M in state funding to revitalize Buffalo’s East Side through investments in nine target areas along Jefferson, Fillmore, Bailey, and Michigan Avenues.

MSAAHCC received $7M for capital improvements and to facilitate a coordinated tourism destination with four cultural anchor sites. To leverage public funding, private and philanthropic organizations, including the Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundation and the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo, allocated an additional $8M through an “East Side Collaborative Fund” known as “East Side Avenues.” The Fund is managed by the University of Buffalo Regional Institute (UBRI) to support operations, programs, capacity building, and community infrastructure. ESD and the City of Buffalo partnered with UBRI to reach out to community members, to listen, analyze past investments, and create a comprehensive plan focused on what key stakeholders wanted to see happen and what projects they believed were important for promoting economic activity.

In 2019 and 2020, with the assistance of UBRI and East Side Avenues, the MSAAHCC grew stronger by formalizing its organizational infrastructure and administrative functions including a search for its first full-time executive director. “East Side Avenues helped organizations like ours that were asked to manage these funds but didn’t have the capacity to manage large-scale projects,” said Alford. “It created a mechanism to help with capacity and provide a support system that also found additional funding to assist with operational support like staffing and day-to-day administration. That’s where our staff salaries come from every year, but this funding stream is not infinite. The goal of this whole dynamic led by UBRI and East Side Avenues is to make sure that organizations like ours are up and running and self-sustainable within a set time frame, in our case five years, with the hope that in the fifth year we would be sustainable in finding our own funds.”

Concurrently, ESD is coordinating with the Church, Nash House, and the Colored Musician's Club to use a portion of the allotted $7M to address immediate capital needs to stabilize each property. “The next step will support sustainable operations, fundraising, and identify and prioritize how to use the remaining funding for future capital investments,” said Alford.

Most recently, Governor Kathy Hochul announced in August that the Colored Musicians Club began its $2.95M expansion and renovations to increase programming and tourism to the Corridor. The Colored Musician's Club was founded in 1918 and is the only remaining African American musicians club of its kind in the country. The Club hosted performances by notable artists including Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Nat “King” Cole, Miles Davis, and Cab Calloway.

Inside the Colored Musicians Club with visitors inside of the Historic Colored Musicians Club & Jazz Museum.

Groundbreaking ceremony for the expansion of the Historic Colored Musicians Club & Jazz Museum.

Other improvements to the cultural anchors include:

$1.3 million for the Michigan Street Baptist Church to help ensure the building's structural integrity and address safety issues at the church, while also providing better access for disabled visitors. The project includes foundation repairs and roof reinforcement, plus accessibility renovations. The Michigan Street Baptist Church was built by African Americans in 1845 and was the last stop on the Underground Railroad for freedom seekers escaping through Buffalo to Canada before the Civil War. It's been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1974.

Construction underway at the Michigan Street Baptist Church and 509 Michigan Ave, which will be the future home of WUFO Black Radio History Collective.

$172,000 to the Nash House for weatherization improvements and upgrades to the museum exhibits. The Nash House was once the home of Reverend J. Edward Nash Sr., pastor of the Michigan Street Baptist Church through the 1950s and a renowned Buffalo civil rights leader. It is currently owned by the not-for-profit Michigan Street Preservation Corporation and has been operating as a museum since 2007.

Sharon Holley, Chair of the Michigan Street Preservation Corporation, leads the Nash House Museum in the care and preservation of the historic house museum.

$1M to the WUFO Radio Station & Black History Collective for a significant restoration and expansion project. The Collective is the only African American owned radio station in Western New York and is the anchor tenant for 509 Michigan Street, a city-owned, one-hundred-year-old, two-story structure located south of the Michigan Street Baptist Church.

WUFO Black Radio History Collective is led by Sheila Brown, owner of WUFO Radio Station. The radio station has been a staple of Buffalo's Black community for more than 60 years.

These projects will create a tourist destination that will tell a unified story of Buffalo's contribution to African American history while attracting new visitors from the region and beyond.

Community Impact

The MSAAHCC Strategic Planning process involved extensive community engagement to articulate the community’s short-term and long-term goals. The following economic development opportunities reflect the Commission and the community’s goals and include:

Development of mixed-use buildings to bring more people to the Corridor (residential, commercial, museums, and cultural organizations).
Prioritize retail along the Corridor to strengthen the visitor experience and increase revenue.
Support new cultural uses and long-term public spaces along the Corridor to enhance the local community and tourism.

“We’re trying to promote and encourage more people to live in this Corridor,” said Alford. “We’re looking at using this part of the Corridor as the economic engine, focusing on heritage tourism with the hope that it will spur community development…not just in this part of the Corridor with our four cultural anchors, but to serve as an economic engine to develop the entire 3.5 miles of the Corridor.”

Alford also wants to make sure that alongside these developments there are affordable housing options for those who live and work within the Corridor. “Investors are using this opportunity to look at building both affordable and not-so-affordable housing. It’s exciting to see certain development happening but obviously what we all fear is gentrification or more marginalization. When we say Buffalo’s East Side, it’s two-thirds of the city. Most of the people who live in these communities are not middle class or higher, they’re moderate or lower economically. It’s a historically marginalized community, and not just for African Americans but for a lot of different folks who find themselves living here and for generations have been ignored.”

One of the main goals for MSAAHCC was to keep the community included in the development of programs and services for the Corridor.

“What makes us so proud of this plan was that it was definitely consensus building,” said Alford. “Over the course of the pandemic, all of these community engagements were a little more challenging because we had to do them virtually but the community that we reached to help make this plan came from different walks of life and different areas of the Corridor representing elders, faith-based communities, educators, young professionals, and civic and social organizations.”

Visitor and Local Experience

“We’re unique, unlike the other three Corridors where they work with just one board of directors, Audrey [Clark] and I work with five boards –the Commission board and each anchor site board.”

MSAAHCC Program Manager Audrey Clark coordinates with each board to schedule regular meetings, working with each anchor site to market the Corridor as a collective entity and incorporating ways of sharing multiple historical stories through a contemporary lens.

“It’s still a work in progress but basically we’ve spent more than two years making everybody a cohesive unit,” said Clark. “Each cultural site was operating on its own with its own limited hours if they were open at all. Our goal was to get them to operate together with similar open hours, and ticket prices, and share all their resources like tour guide training. We wanted to create a cohesive experience between each historic site. You’re not just hearing the story of the Church or the Nash House, but a continuation of the story of the neighborhood, making it a much fuller experience when you visit the Corridor. It’s about building the programs for both the neighborhood and bringing in outside visitors.”

One example is “Mrs. Frances Nash’s Garden Basket,” a program that launched in June in partnership with the African Heritage Food Co-Op, Buffalo Go Green, and the East Side Garden Walk to distribute Community Support Agriculture (CSA) farm shares. From June through October the program distributed 30 free CSA farm shares every week on a first-come, first-served basis. This program is named after Frances Nash, the wife of Rev. J. Edward Nash, who was interested in nutrition and was a lifelong advocate for healthy eating. “She had a wonderful community garden that she used to provide produce to her neighbors in the 1940s until it was demolished by the city since she did not own the lot it was growing on,” said Clark.

The program helps mitigate challenges created by a lack of affordable healthy food in the Michigan Street Corridor and MSAAHCC is working on a long-term solution for providing healthy food options to residents of the East Side.

“The idea is that next year we’re going to expand to have a farmer’s market in the Corridor focusing on having affordable produce options,” said Clark. “It’s programs like this one where it’s not strictly history based or even bringing in other large flashy economic development projects but rather a small-scale grassroots kind of project that makes it more meaningful for residents.”

Vision for the Future

“I was born and raised in these communities that are connected to the Corridor, primarily in the Historic Fruit Belt. I remember from the time I could walk the vibrant communities right along Michigan Street. There was a massive amount of housing and businesses like corner stores, hairdressers, barbers, and all types of bars with live music. Most notably I remember the gardens and tree-lined avenues. Michigan Street used to have a canopy of trees that adorned the entire avenue.” Alford also remembers Urban Renewal which transformed the Corridor. “That’s when NYS Route 33 was built right down the middle of the African American community and knocked down homes and businesses with the promise of new, which never happened. It was a site to see and to have the opportunity to live through that. Hopefully, we can plant the seeds and grow it back again.”

The next step is purchasing a commercial property for the MSAAHCC office, serving as a visitor center hub for the cultural anchors. Alford said that they hope to close on a property before the end of the year. “We’re ready to take this project on and hire more staff to help the Commission and provide support to the anchors.”

MSAAHCC will implement strategies centered on business growth for the Corridor that support the strategic plan including business incubator partnerships and business technical assistance. “We’re immediately looking to provide funding that we received from Senator Schumer to provide economic development for each of the anchors,” said Alford.

In March 2022, Senator Schumer secured $800,000 as part of the bipartisan omnibus spending package. $500,000 of these funds will go to the Buffalo Niagara Freedom Station Coalition for renovating and revitalizing the Michigan Street Baptist Church, one of the cultural anchors of the MSAAHCC. $300,000 went to MSAAHCC to develop a strategic plan to bolster investment, entrepreneurship, redevelopment, and job creation along the Corridor.

“It’s my hope that each anchor will have its own economic development and business plans. In the short term, the Commission is working with the city to improve street designs and curb appeal including wayfinding, and art installations. “We're looking for short-term wins, immediate wins. We need to show that we’re doing things that complement our programming that Audrey is leading and the capital projects that our anchors are involved with.” Alford is focused on keeping the momentum going.

“I can’t wait for people to see us two years from now to see how far we’ve advanced and progressed in this part of the Corridor,” said Alford. “I believe that while yes this is the African American Heritage Corridor but like how it was in the early 20^th century we’re going to have a multicultural group of people living here side by side, working, playing, and praising together. I think we’re already seeing it.”

Learn more about the Michigan Street African American Heritage Corridor Commission: https://www.michiganstreetbuffalo.org/

Pomeroy Fund for NYS History Awards $100,000 to Support Museum Educators and Educational Programs

Wed, 26 Oct 2022 11:56:51 GMT

The Pomeroy Fund for NYS History has awarded 20 history-related organizations across New York State $5,000 each during its fifth grant round to bring back or hire museum educators.

The Pomeroy Fund, which is a partnership between the William G. Pomeroy Foundation® and the Museum Association of New York (MANY), has awarded almost $300,000 to 96 history-related organizations across New York State since spring 2020.

“We are grateful to museum educators across the state who help enhance our understanding of history,” said Deryn Pomeroy, Trustee and Director of Strategic Initiatives at the Pomeroy Foundation. “We are proud to provide funding and support to these organizations and their dedicated employees, who play a vital role in preserving and sharing New York’s rich historical heritage.”

Educators receiving support through the fifth round of the Pomeroy Fund will plan and deliver interpretive programs, including school programs, teen programs, early childhood programs, family days, festivals, programs for older adults, programs for New Americans, and targeted audience-specific programs.

“We are honored to be able to continue this partnership with the Pomeroy Foundation to support the work of museums that tell the story of New York State’s history through their collections and programs,” said MANY Executive Director Erika Sanger. “This was an especially competitive grant cycle and awards were made to only the most outstanding applicants. Museum Education staff and the programs they deliver were especially hard hit in the past three years and these grants will make a real difference in twenty different communities.”

Pomeroy Fund for NYS History Round Five Grantees (listed alphabetically):

Beacon Historical Society (Mid-Hudson) will hire an educator to assist with their year-long project “The West End Story” which examines the history of Beacon’s changing landscape during Urban Renewal. Beacon Historical Society hopes to amplify elder community voices, immigrants, and People of Color who were most affected by Urban Renewal to raise questions and form ideas for the future of Beacon.

Delaware County Historical Association (Southern Tier) will hire an educator to administer a new in-person adult letter transcription workshop focused on reading and understanding 18th and 19th-century handwriting offering ongoing educational opportunities in reading, transcribing, and understanding historical documents.

Edward Hopper House Museum & Study Center (Mid-Hudson) will rehire an arts education program manager to plan and implement education and community outreach initiatives to engage a broad audience and support audience diversity and cultural experiences. The arts education program manager will work with staff to bring back in-person programs including the Nighthawks Teen Leadership Program which trains high school students in visitor services, interpretive public speaking, and serving as junior docents.

Glens Falls-Queensbury Historical Association/Chapman Museum (Capital Region) will hire a seasonal museum educator to lead the Ticket to Ride program at the Glens Falls Feeder Canal where students use inquiry skills to analyze photographs, examine artifacts, explore hands-on STEM-based exhibitions, and learn about the historic and economic impact of NYS Canals.

Greater Astoria Historical Society (New York City) will hire an educator to plan, coordinate and implement a historical walking tour during the summer months for elementary school-aged children. Tours will focus on architecture, local history, the environment, civics, and the arts.

Historic Cherry Hill (Capital Region) will expand the hours of their education assistant hired in 2022 to support the museum’s expanded public hours, develop new school programs, and update existing programs to meet the needs of students. Programs include the Hudson River School Trading Game for 4th and 5th graders which connects students to Albany’s significant history as a Hudson River port that includes stories of People of Color.

Historical Society of Saratoga Springs/Saratoga Springs History Museum (Capital Region) will hire an educator to coordinate and conduct programming beginning in Spring 2023 to increase the accessibility of off-site school programming and to partner with Saratoga Springs High School on an elective course “The History of Saratoga Springs.”

John Brown Lives! (North Country) will hire a part-time educator to help develop, deliver, and evaluate a field trip program and work with NYS Archives Partnership Trust to prepare, promote, and schedule a two-day professional development program for teachers, librarians, and teaching artists interested in making “Timbuctoo” a central feature of the curriculum in North Country schools and for other museum and historic site colleagues.

Lewis County Historical Society (North Country) will rehire a summer educator to work with its education committee to strengthen school partnerships. The educator will develop “Classroom Learning Kits” for 4th-grade students that focus on local history, including the Black River Canal and the local logging industry, in order to develop a foundational understanding of events that have impacted their community.

Michigan Street African American Heritage Corridor Commission (Western NY) will hire a visitor experience specialist to expand open hours, provide tours, coordinate volunteer docents, assist the program manager, and assist in the planning and development of new tours with the goal to inspire visitors to better understand social justice and their role in creating equitable communities.

Mount Gulian Society (Mid-Hudson) will hire a part-time museum educator/program manager to plan, promote, launch, and evaluate public and student programs. Programs will focus on the stories of the people who lived and worked at Mount Gulian through on-site and off-site school presentations, living history re-enactments, public lectures, summer camp programs, exhibitions, and specially-themed tours.

North Creek Railway Depot Preservation Association (Capital Region) will hire a museum educator to expand the museum’s current pre-K to 4th-grade school program “People and Trains That Could” to high school students. This educator will also connect programs to ongoing community events, increase the number of public group tours, enhance onsite tours, develop live-streaming presentations, and offer interpretive presentations and lectures to North Creek’s assisted living and nursing home residents.

Putnam History Museum (Mid-Hudson) will hire a museum educator to create educational and public programming for the exhibition, Indigenous Peoples in Putnam County, scheduled to open in May 2023. Working with the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohicans, the museum educator will create several interpretive activities and programs to coincide with this exhibition including an elementary and middle-school field trip guide and plans for a Native American Heritage Day at the museum which will include demonstrations, discussions, walks, and in-person and virtual talks.

Seneca Falls Historical Society (Finger Lakes) will hire a museum educator to help coordinate school and public programs including a summer camp program that partners with the Seneca Museum of Waterways and Industry, and EEEK! (Explore, Experiment, Engage for Kids) a once a month education resource bag designed for students in grades 3rd through 5th.

Slate Valley Museum Foundation (Capital Region) will hire a museum educator to revive and deliver programs to schools and seniors, and develop collaborative program partnerships. With the hiring of this education, the museum will be able to meet the needs of the community’s school and senior groups seeking programming about local history, culture, and science.

The Friends of Mills at Staatsburgh (Mid-Hudson) will hire an interpreter to deliver programs, including a new outdoor program for ages 9 to 14, “Shaping Staatsburgh: Exploring the Language of Architecture” along with other family programs. This interpreter will also assist staff with family tourism and craft programs and with the delivery of K-8 onsite lessons reaching across the Mid-Hudson region.

Time and the Valleys Museum (Mid-Hudson) will hire a museum educator to help create two new educational programs and redesign two existing programs to align with current teaching standards, reduce pressure on volunteers, and include the expanded 1930s Lost Catskill Farm complex –expanding in 2023 to increase the number of programs offered.

Underground Railroad Education Center (Capital Region) will increase the hours of the deputy director to lead one-week-long immersion experiences for pre-teens and teens focused on selected historic topics that have contemporary relevance including “Women of Mark” which focuses on the impact of selected Black female artists who changed the trajectory of history and a workshop series that will use visual art as a tool to tell historic and personal stories.

Vander Ende Onderdonk House/Greater Ridgewood Historical Society (New York City) will use grant funding to pay docents to lead education programs designed to complement NYS Social Studies Standards for K-8 and public group tours exploring the oldest stone house in New York City. Program topics include enslaved persons and Dutch farming, immigration and housing in Ridgewood, 18th-century life on the farm, women in New Netherland, and Ridgewood now and then.

Wappingers Historical Society (Mid-Hudson) will hire a museum educator to develop, create, and lead in-person programs for elementary and middle school students to support and supplement the New York State Social Studies curriculum for grades 4 and 7 using exhibitions and collecting items for the basis of these programs.

About the William G. Pomeroy Foundation

The William G. Pomeroy Foundation^® is committed to supporting the celebration and preservation of community history; and working to improve the probability of finding appropriate donor matches or other life-saving treatments for blood cancer patients. Established by Trustee Bill Pomeroy in 2005 to bring together his two greatest passions, the Pomeroy Foundation is a private, philanthropic organization located in Syracuse, N.Y. As the nation’s leading funder of historic roadside markers, the Pomeroy Foundation has awarded over 1,800 grants for markers and bronze plaques in 46 states and Washington, D.C. To learn more about the Pomeroy Foundation, visit wgpfoundation.org.

About the Museum Association of New York

The Museum Association of New York is the only statewide museum service organization with more than 700 member museums, historical societies, zoos, botanical gardens, and aquariums. MANY helps shape a better future for museums and museum professionals by uplifting best practices and building organizational capacity through advocacy, training, and networking opportunities. Visit www.nysmuseums.org and follow MANY on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn @nysmuseums

Museum Association of New York Expands Awards of Distinction

Thu, 13 Oct 2022 13:39:06 GMT

Award nominations open Monday, October 17

The Museum Association of New York’s (MANY) Awards of Distinction recognize the exceptional achievements of New York’s museums and museum professionals. Awards celebrate museums and honor museum professionals who create transformative experiences for visitors, shape innovative programs, and use collections to tell the stories of everyone who calls New York home.

“Museums across the State of New York create exceptional exhibitions, programs and activities for their communities, audiences, and visitors to our state,” said MANY Board President and The Rockwell Museum Executive Director Brian Lee Whisenhunt. “MANY’s expanded awards programs increases the number of people and organizations that can be recognized; takes into consideration the broad differences in the size and scope of the museums in the State; and celebrates the incredible work museums and museum professionals are doing for communities large and small, urban and rural.”

Any museum or individual may nominate an organization, person(s), or project completed in 2022 at a museum, heritage, or cultural organization in New York State. Nomination of oneself or one’s organization is permissible and encouraged.

Excellence in Design

This award acknowledges extraordinary achievement in design in three categories: Publications/Graphics, Media/Marketing Campaigns, and Exhibition Design.

Publications & Graphics –Recognizes excellence in the graphic design of a museum publication. Award winners are selected for overall design concept, creativity, accessibility, and how the museum branding and mission are communicated. Nominations may include online or digital publications such as annual reports, membership materials, exhibition catalogues, museum guides/brochures, school program materials, books, etc.

Media & Marketing –Applauds an imaginative and original print or digital marketing campaign in either earned or paid media. Award winners are selected for overall creative strategy, accessibility, innovative implementation, and cohesiveness across multiple communication channels. Nominations may include social media campaigns, print ads, digital ads, annual appeal or capital campaigns, event or program promotions, etc.

Exhibition –Honors a physical or digital exhibition produced by a cultural organization that articulates content through engaging design and creates a rewarding and memorable experience. Nominations may include exhibitions whose theme is expressed in unusual ways, installs collection items in creative or unconventional ways, or uses a fresh or experimental approach to accessible design.

Engaging Communities

These awards celebrate organizations that use exceptional and resourceful methods to engage their communities and build new audiences. Nominated projects can include innovative preservation or digital technology to increase public access to museum collections or programs that broaden community partnerships. Nominations may include collections interpretation, exhibitions, lecture series, educational or public programs, civic engagement, focus groups, strategic planning, or other community connection efforts. Awards are made based on the size of an organization’s operating budget.

Volunteer - $99,999
$100,000 – $250,000
$251,000 - $499,999
$500,000 - $999,999
$1,000,000 – 4,999,999
Over $5M

Individual Achievement

The Individual Achievement Award honors a dedicated museum professional or volunteer that played a significant role in advancing their organizations. Award winners are selected for their valuable contributions to expanding audience reach, increasing the number and types of staff, successful campaigns for endowment or capital projects, or instilling financial stability at their organization. Nominations are accepted for a museum staff person or a museum trustee or volunteer.

Anne Ackerson Innovation in Museum Leadership

The Anne Ackerson Innovation in Museum Leadership Award honors a museum professional who during their career made significant contributions to the museum field or to their organization. This award commends a staff leader or board member that saw their organization through a critical challenge or significant opportunity in a creative and effective manner over a sustained period. Award winners are selected for their commitment to accessibility, equity, and inclusion, and their dedicated work towards community engagement, relevance, and sustainability.

Rising Star

The Rising Star award celebrates a museum professional with five years or less who displays creative thinking and inspires institutional change. Nominees should be individuals whose performance demonstrates innovation, professionalism, and leadership. Multiple awards may be given to museum professionals working in programs and education or collections and exhibitions.

Board of Directors Special Achievement Award

Members of MANY’s board of directors will consider nominations for awards that do not fall into the above categories or for nominated projects that deserve exceptional attention.

Nominations open Monday, October 17 and close Wednesday, November 30, 2022.

Nominations will be reviewed on their own merit and will be evaluated on the basis of relevance, significance to the field, overall quality, and their unique or innovative character. Judges will consider the ways in which a project demonstrates the professional growth of an organization or individual, adherence to museum standards and best practices, level of risk and return on investment, and how the project enhanced the organization’s mission.

To learn more about the Awards of Distinction, visit nysmuseums.org/awardsofdistinction

Call for Proposals Now Open! MANY 2023 Annual Conference

Mon, 03 Oct 2022 14:18:41 GMT

The Museum Association of New York welcomes proposals for conference sessions, workshops, panel discussions, facilitated discussions, and peer-to-peer learning experiences that focus on our 2023 conference theme, Finding Center: Access, Inclusion, Participation, and Engagement. We will be gathering in Syracuse, in the Central Region of our state, and the home of the Onondaga Nation, the Central Fire of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.

“We’re excited to bring people together in Syracuse, New York,” said Natalie Stetson, Executive Director of the Erie Canal Museum and Co-Chair of MANY’s Program Committee. “The Erie Canal once flowed through downtown Syracuse, transforming New York State, carrying goods, people, and ideas. Syracuse’s history and location in the state's center make this city an ideal location to gather to explore our theme of finding center for our institutions and audiences.”

As we all discover new ways to use the transformative power of museums as places for human encounters and face challenges created by the ways in which our lives and our institutions have changed over the past three years, we hope that you will join us as we explore Access, Inclusion, Participation, and Engagement as pathways to finding center for our institutions and our audiences.

We seek proposals for conference sessions that share how you and your colleagues:

connect with and grow organizational and human resources;
build capacity, revenue, and access;
align values with mission to create inclusive experiences;
research, accession, and deaccession collections;
increase participation and engagement;
secure and improve endangered historic structures;
use objects and collections to tell complicated stories;
write new cases for support and increase economic impact;
identify digital divides and integrate virtual access;
change organizational culture to build equity and inclusion within your staff;
and create opportunities to support democracy.

With challenging but significant historic occasions on the horizon - the 200th anniversary of the opening of Erie Canal, the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and the 200th anniversary of the abolition of legal slavery in New York State - our goal is to create a community of practice to advance institutional change and perhaps even create one big New York team of collaborators that learn and create together.

How to submit a proposal

Proposal entry forms can be found on the MANY website: nysmuseums.org/call-for-proposals

Presentations by individuals from institutions of all sizes, all stages of their careers, and from all disciplines are welcome to submit a proposal.

We welcome proposals from graduate and undergraduate students in museum studies, public history, art history, non-profit administration and other relevant fields for ignite-style presentations.

Industry partners are welcome to submit proposals only if they include a museum partner and share how the partners worked together to achieve success.

Proposals from organizations in the Central Region can include Saturday Workshops and Tuesday afternoon tours. Workshops and tours should offer a close look at museum practice and exemplary projects. Hands-on learning opportunities and site-based experiences are also welcome. If you are interested in hosting a workshop or a tour, but aren’t sure how to proceed, please contact MANY staff at conference@nysmuseums.org

Proposals will be required to identify whether they will be 75 or 90-minutes in length. You may also propose a longer session for consideration as a two-part session or as a pre-conference workshop on Saturday.

Proposals will be peer-reviewed by a committee composed of MANY board members and Central NY museum professionals.

The strongest proposals will share the “why” as well as the nuts and bolts, present case studies with input from all involved, share projects that question foundational processes, and propose discussions about challenges that we all face. Proposals that include only one voice and one perspective will not be competitive.

If your proposal for our 2023 conference is accepted by the review committee, we are pleased to offer a modest honoraria of $50 per presenter; $200 maximum for group panel discussions. This opportunity, limited to the 2023 conference, is an acknowledgment of the work that our colleagues invest in preparing a proposal and presenting at a MANY conference. Presenters will also receive a discount on conference registration.

Have an idea, but you are not sure it fits the theme? Looking for a partner to present with you? Send an email to conference@nysmuseums.org and we will arrange a time for you to speak with MANY staff.

Deadline for proposal submission: Monday, November 14, 2022 at 5 PM.

Notification will be on December 15, 2022.

Registration Opens January 23, 2023

Learn more about the 2023 annual conference in Syracuse, NY at nysmuseums.org/annualconference

Building Capacity Across the State

Wed, 28 Sep 2022 16:45:05 GMT

Building Capacity Across the State

–Eli McClain, Building Capacity Project Fellow

Over the past two years, I’ve had the opportunity to work with over two-hundred museum professionals across New York State as the Building Capacity Project Fellow. Entering this role in the middle of the pandemic, I faced new learning opportunities every day and grew as an emerging museum professional with the support of my colleagues and our 96 museum participants. This week, the project comes to a close after more than 9,000 miles on the road, 555 1:1 meetings, 3,581 contact hours, and more than 90 workshops and training sessions.

MANY staff designed the Building Capacity, Creating Sustainability, Growing Accessibility as a rapid response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The project’s goals were to help museums reach their audiences virtually by providing much-needed hardware and software, increase digital literacy and skills among museum professionals through training, offering personalized support, and peer to peer learning opportunities, and helping them to utilize the new technology and skills to develop and deliver virtual programming. In the changing pandemic environment, the project team strove to reflect, reassess, and pivot to best meet the needs of our partners.

Building Capacity sparked countless conversations amongst the the MANY staff and with the participants across the state about what it means to engage audiences digitally, how to balance in-person and digital projects with staff capacity, and the need for sustained incremental growth of technical skills for museum professionals.

As I look back and reflect, I want to share some of the lessons we’ve learned and share just a few innovative and impactful projects created by our partner museums from across the state.

Facilitating New Forms of Engagement

At the Percy Grainger House in White Plains, Museum Coordinator Ann Occone and Director of Bands at Brown University and International Percy Grainger Society Board Member Matthew McGarrell proposed a unique project to create new ways to access and interact with the museum’s collection. GLOSS, the Grainger Library of Sampled Sounds, invites users to interact with the museum’s collection through recordings of Grainger’s instruments and ambient sounds around the house. Built on Google Sites, GLOSS includes multimedia content to learn about Grainger and his “Free Music” philosophy and provides access to download sound recordings and create new compositions. In Spring 2022, the Percy Grainger House piloted after-school composition workshops at White Plains Middle School students to test GLOSS with target audiences and to receive feedback for continued project development. Looking ahead to this school year, Anne and Matt are hoping to build off their successes and work to deliver additional composition workshops for middle school students.

Percy Grainger Museum’s GLOSS website

Sharing New Research

The New York Transit Museum used new research to develop Communities Through Time: Placemaking and Displacement through the Lens of Public Transportation –a new virtual school program that explores the impact of the transportation system on three communities across the City. Education Manager Polly Desjarlais is hosting professional development workshops in partnership with the Center for Brooklyn History. These workshops will provide educators with tools to discuss with their students the role of transit in the city and the development of communities. The museum is also exploring opportunities to facilitate virtual public programs that share their research findings on various neighborhoods and strengthen relationships between the museum and its multiple audiences.

Highlighting Different Perspectives

Many of the stories we tell about the past come from the perspectives of adults. At the Seward House Museum in Auburn, Education Outreach Coordinator Kate Grindstaff worked to highlight a different perspective through an interactive website focused on the daughter of William Henry Seward. The Fanny Seward Story gives users the opportunity to learn about the youngest daughter of Senator William Henry Seward in the late 19th century. This interactive website explores Fanny's life as a young, privileged teen girl during the Civil War using digitized collection items including her diary. The website’s target audience is 4th and 5th graders who explore Fanny’s life, family, world and legacy, and includes activities for further exploration into Fanny’s story.

Building Off of Successful Models

In Year 1, Fort Ticonderoga created a companion program to their successful A Soldier’s Life virtual program. A Provincial Soldier’s Life, used the museum’s existing virtual program space andwas designed to teach students in grades 3 to 8 about the French and Indian War through the lives of American soldiers and their daily experiences. The program includes discussions about resources and trade networks using inquiry and object-based learning. In addition to developing this new program, Museum Education Coordinator Katie Long and School and Youth Programs Interpreter Corri Swart redesigned Fort Ticonderoga’s digital education resources and teacher packets using Adobe software to create a cohesive online presence.

School and Youth Programs Interpreter Corri Swart presents Fort Ticonderoga’s Year 1 project at a regional workshop

Connecting with Community

In Utica, the Munson-Williams-Proctor Art Institute (MWPAI) brought voices from the community together to respond to the museum’s summer exhibition on Norman Rockwell and encourage critical reflection on the artworks. Spearheaded by Musuem Educator for Docent and Tour Progams Amy Francisco and Digital Marketing Manager Kaytlynn Lynch, Communities in Conversation is three-part web series featuring brief interviews and prompts that explore community members’ perspectives on art. Visitors are invited to respond to these prompts at the museum, at the Utica Public Library, or online. The project builds on previous work at MWPAI to integrate community voices into the galleries, and experiments with different ways of looking at and responding to art. Amy and Kaytlynnbuilt and strengthened relationships with members of historically underrepresented residents in Utica.

Munson-Williams-Proctor Art Institute’s Communities in Conversation space

Working Across Departments

At Genesee Country Village & Museum (GCVM) in Mumford, Director of Education Jennifer Haines and Youth and Family Programs Manager Alyssa Lynch collaborated with colleagues across the organization to develop a three-part video series that highlighted one of the historic structures on their campus. Museum staff produced stories about the history of the Livingston-Backus House, the relationships between members of the Backus family, their disagreements on important social and political issues of their time, and the role of pamphlets and circulars in spreading these differing perspectives. This collaborative project allowed GCVM to leverage the strengths, interests, and skills of staff members to increase access to relevant stories from the past.

Partnering Far and Wide

Virtual programming provides greater flexibility when working with external partners and presenters and alleviates budget pressure from travel expenses. At the Slate Valley Museum in Granville, Executive Director Sarah Kijowski and Museum Associate Wendy Bordwell used the hardware and software provided by Building Capacity to deliver a variety of virtual and hybrid programs. During the past two years, the Slate Valley Museum staff gained confidence partnering and running programs with other museums from outside their region. In May 2022, they presented Exploring Slate Around the World that gave their audiences an inside look at Belizean Artist Jorge Castellanos’ slate carving workshop. This virtual program transcended national borders, highlighted culturally specific stories about slate, and opened the doors to future international partnership opportunities.

Reaching New Audiences

Curator of Education Brenna McCormick-Thompson, Museum Educator Maria Fischetti, and Assistant Director Gina Van Bell at The Whaling Museum & Education Center of Cold Spring Harbor expanded the geographic reach for their activity-based Museum-To-You programs through synchronous and asynchronous virtual offerings. As the pandemic progressed, the museum saw continued interest in pre-recorded, kit-based programs that provided more flexible participation options for families. In the summer 2022, the museum virtually reached audiences from 67 different libraries across the tri-state area. This increase in reaching new audiences spurred new conversations about sustaining digital programs in the long term.

Curator of Education Brenna McCormick-Thompson leads a tour of The Whaling Museum

Digital Accessibility

While virtual programming has increased accessibility, it also created new barriers for individuals without access to stable high-speed internet, devices to access digital programs, or the digital literacy to engage with program platforms. In North Tonawanda, Executive Director Ian Seppala and Outreach Coordinator Marissa Seib at the Herschell Carrousel Factory Museum increased accessibility to their virtual programming by partnering with libraries across three local systems to host live, in-person viewing events. Carrousel Chats lectures include discussions on carrousel painting, restoration, maintenance, lost parks, and kiddielands from presenters across the country. These programs are recorded and uploaded to the museum’s YouTube channel to provide continued access to these valuable conversations. Moving forward, the museum is exploring sponsorship opportunities to continue to offer these programs free of charge to the public.

Hybrid Programming

As the pandemic environment shifted, more museums began discussing hybrid programming; what it means to go hybrid, the benefits and drawbacks, and the technical logistics. The Rockwell Museum was among many museum partners that explored hybrid programming. In March 2022, Interpretation and Public Engagement Educator Kate Swanson and Events Coordinator Janelle Steiner partnered with staff at the Southeast Steuben County Library to deliver Buffalo Soldiers & the African American Experience in the Army with guest speaker Dr. Krewasky Salter. “This partnership paved the way for future hybrid programming,” commented Kate and Janelle in their final project report “Since March, we’ve hosted several hybrid programs of varying scales…Thanks to this partnership, we now have the experience to speak from an informed place about any possible requests for a hybrid program and have a better understanding of the staff and resources it takes to create a successful program for both audiences.”

It has been incredibly rewarding to witness and reflect on the growth across the Building Capacity cohort over the course of this project. I am proud of the work of all of our partners who have experimented with new stories, formats, models, and methods during uncertain times and have built new best practices through their work. As we look ahead, I believe in the strong foundations they’ve developed to support their next steps and look forward to seeing how they continue to build capacity, create sustainability, and grow accessibility.

To learn more about Building Capacity and the work of partners across the state, visit nysmuseums.org/BuildingCapacity

Letter From Erika: Finding Center

Wed, 28 Sep 2022 15:36:09 GMT

Dear Members, Colleagues, and Supporters,

Born in Trinidad in 1932, the Nobel Prize-winning author V.S. Naipaul struggled while trying to write his autobiography. After multiple drafts, the threads he found to weave his story did not lead to his birthplace, but to a moment in time when he faced tremendous challenges. He described the process as finding center.*

We are all working to find center as we face, embrace, and grow beyond challenges and changes in our lives and our institutions. Many of you know that my husband and I have a ceramic studio in our home and that I work with clay as an avocation. I have learned that I can’t create until I am as centered as the material in my hands.

With historic commemorations on the horizon –the 200th anniversary of the opening of the Erie Canal, the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and the 200th anniversary of the abolition of legal slavery in New York State– we have chosen Finding Center: Access, Inclusion, Participation, and Engagement as the theme for our 2023 conference. The call for proposals opens on Monday, October 3; soon after you will see calls for scholarship and award nominations.

From April 15-18, 2023, we will gather in the city of Syracuse, in the Central Region of our state, home of the Onondaga Nation, the Central Fire of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Our conference hotel will be the four-star Marriott Syracuse Downtown, recently restored to its original 1924 glory, with affordable accommodations and state-of-the-art meeting rooms. Syracuse is a walking city filled with marvelous architecture, theaters, boutiques, and great places to eat. From the hotel’s tenth-floor ballroom, you can see rolling hills and rooflines of historic buildings. People from all over the world have come to call Syracuse their home. The arts, culture, and food of the city reflects that diversity.

A local host committee is helping us plan exciting conference events in downtown museums and we are creating a map of the dozens of amazing museums conference attendees can visit in Central New York. Syracuse is easily accessible from anywhere in New York State: it is a two-and half hour drive from both Albany and Buffalo, flights from New York City airports can be found for under $250, and the Amtrak station makes train travel a great option.

As plans for the conference come together, our excitement is growing for all that can happen when we come together and find center. I hope you will join us.

With thanks for your support,

*Naipaul, V.S. (1984) Finding the Centre, The Chaucer Press, Penguin Books, Ltd. Great Britain

MANY Board Spotlight: Michael Galban

Wed, 28 Sep 2022 15:34:49 GMT

MANY Board Spotlight: Michael Galban, Historic Site Manager and Curator, Seneca Art & Culture Center, Ganondagan State Historic Site

Michael Galban (right) picking up a 2020 Art piece purchased for the collection Hayden Haynes Seneca artist.

Michael Galban is the Historic Site Manager of Ganondagan State Historic Site and the curator of the Seneca Art & Culture Center. Ganondagan is a 17th-century Seneca town site and is nationally regarded as a center for Iroquoian history, and cultural and environmental preservation. His current research focuses on historic woodland arts, Indigenous/Colonial history, and lectures on the subject extensively. He sits on the board of directors of the Museum Association of New York (MANY), the editorial board of the New York History Journal, and is currently working in the Indigenous Working Group component of REV WAR 250th NY commission.

He recently curated the exhibit “Hodinöhsö:ni’ Women: From the Time of Creation” at the Seneca Art & Culture Center which is open through 2023. Michael is currently researching moose-hair false embroidery of the northeast as part of his Ph.D. work in the University of Rochester’s Visual and Cultural Studies program. Michael recently collaborated with the Museé du Quai Branly - Jacques Chirac on the exhibit “Wampum – Les Perles de la Diplomatie” which opened this Spring and will travel to the Ganondagan in 2023 as the exhibit “WAMPUM/OTGO:Ä”.

What other jobs have you had in the museum field? Can you tell us about your journey to get to your current role?

I’ve worked at Ganondagan since 1991. Before that, I was more or less a young kid really so I honestly didn't have any other museum jobs. I worked at the Helmer Nature Center for a while that was related in terms of interpretation, but really nothing else in the museum field other than Ganondagan. At the nature center, I gave tours and worked in the nature camp. They had a wildlife rehabilitation so I was learning that too. It helped me understand how to communicate with the public. When I started here I did a lot of things from mowing the lawns to community outreach. I think that I grew into the position more than was recruited into the museum.

I was in college at SUNY Geneseo and the site manager Peter Jemison knew of my family from being in the urban Native American community. He reached out to see if I wanted to work here and I took the job.

The job was not very specific, so it didn’t have a title or a defined role description. So I was doing maintenance and interpretation. The first week I was here I was asked to lead an ethnobotanical plant walk with a group of Haudenosaunee Elders –which was like being thrown right into the fire. I did it because my understanding of interpretation at the time was to share what you know, make it interesting, have a goal, and your audience will like it. The Elders liked my tour and were really receptive. For me as a young person, it was very encouraging.

It was pretty frightening because you feel unprepared maybe and I lacked the confidence of a seasoned interpreter. My undergraduate degree was in fine art. Of course, I had an art history component and anthropology minor and you know those are all well and good but don’t exactly prepare you for the position that I was in. And to be frank about it I didn’t take it very seriously because I didn’t expect to be here thirty-plus years later. It was not part of my life plan.

Would your 18-year-old self imagine that you would be where you are today?

I had a vague idea of what I wanted to do. My course of study was art and I imagined that I would be this well-known, accomplished Indian artist. That’s what I expected to be and that was my vision to produce art and do shows, and just live that artist life.

Can you tell us about where you grew up and what was it like to grow up there?

I moved around quite a bit with my family but when people say “where did you grow up?” what does that exactly mean? What is place? How does place impact you and your development and worldview?

The place that really had the greatest impact on me is when we lived in Reno, Nevada. I maybe only lived there for four years from when I was nine or ten until I was fourteen years old. But it had such a profound impact on me. It’s where I say I grew up even though before that I was in Rochester and then afterward we moved back to Rochester.

But those formative years when you’re an adolescent and you become conscious of all kinds of things, that occurred to me in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains.

Why did this place have such a profound impact on you in your adolescent years?

When you look back and review things that happened to you and evaluate how things impacted you, for me it took place when I was in grade school.

I went to the school which served the Native people from the Reservation which was about a third of the student population and the rest of the students were from Reno of various backgrounds, but mostly white children. Even though I was a new student, I was immediately accepted by the Native kids and even learned that one of the kids was my cousin. It was really welcoming and an incredibly warm and accepting feeling. It was a beautiful experience to kind of find your family, find who you are, and find that kind of acceptance into your group, your people. But at the same time in parallel, I didn’t realize that we were not actually being taught.

We were situated in the back of the classroom against the wall with one or two rows of seats dividing us from the rest of the students in the class. We were just allowed to goof off, draw, and pass notes and not really pay attention because we weren’t really part of the class. When the marking period ended and my parents received my marks it was a shock to them. I am not a D student so my parents were wondering what was going on and as a ten-year-old, you don’t really have an answer to those questions. I remember going back to the classroom after school with my parents and sitting in front of her desk. The teacher was a young white woman, probably in her early twenties. My parents asked her why I was doing so poorly and she kind of sat there. I remember taking it all in and remembering what the teacher said to my parents “oh I thought he was just another Indian kid.” At that point my parents stood up, they didn’t say a word to the teacher but grabbed me and left. I never went back to that school. My parents went to the superintendent to bring the issue to them and somehow they got me to enroll in another suburban school.

It was very confusing when you find your place where you’re supposed to be as a kid and when you’re a kid acceptance is huge and then it’s being taken from you and you don’t understand why.

What was the first museum experience that you can remember?

Outside Reno, there is this little town called Virginia City. Virginia City historically is a mining town. You can visit and see the old western wooden buildings and a wooden promenade. It’s a touristy area. I remember when I was 11 or 12 we went to this part restaurant – part cabinet of curiosities – kind of tourist attraction place. In the back, there were carnival-type signs that read “Come see the Paiute Giant.” In this back room, there was a velvet rope around this sunken rectangular pit in the middle of this room. We were told to look down into the pit to see what was called the Paiute Giant but it was an excavated grave with a skeleton. It was real. You were looking at a real human being.

I remember looking into that pit and seeing cigarette butts and gum wrappers in and around the grave. There wasn’t anything protecting it. It was very hard to process. I do remember thinking that “I’m Paiute. That’s who I am. Is this somebody from my family?” and it was really confusing and upsetting. I didn’t know how to process it. Honestly, even now I don’t know how to process it. It brings up a lot of sad feelings but that was one of my most profound museum experiences to see one of my ancestors lie in the ground and people were literally throwing garbage at it. It’s really hard to explain the complicated feelings that it brought up in me.

How do these pivotal experiences impact your work at Ganondagan today?

It absolutely informs my work because I would be very upset to have a young Native person have to experience those things again. They’ve become, in my mind, the most important visitor just because of the personal connections that I have. I’m always imagining what we are doing and looking at it through that lens to make sure that kind of experience doesn’t happen to someone else.

I think about the young Native person coming here [to Ganondagan] to experience, to see, and to learn. I want them to come away with feelings of pride, feelings of empowerment. I want them to have a very different experience than what I got as a kid.

What are some of your biggest motivations in your work?

Someone once told me when you end up at this level at an organization you can be dragged down by what used to happen, or what you used to do, or how it’s normally done. You focus so much on maintaining what was, so you have a harder time visioning what could be or what should be.

I’ve been very conscious of trying to keep that list in my head and physically on my corkboard of things I want to accomplish and the ways in which Ganondagan can become something different and better. Those kinds of things excite me. Stepping outside yourself and looking at what you’re doing and knowing what you want to do. It’s important to always keep in mind what motivates you and what you really want to see happen and never forget them. You have to keep that visionary focus.

What are some of your goals for the Seneca Art & Culture Center and Ganondagan State Historic Site?

We’re a decidedly small museum. We have a small staff but we don’t act like a small museum. We act like a large museum and I feel like that’s the way we have to be.

We’re making connections in the International museum community and that’s a goal - to be recognized nationally and internationally and to be a leader in what we do. We’ve gained the confidence of Native people which is a huge goal. To have the confidence within the Native community to represent, and share stories, and art and history, that’s huge. We take that very seriously.

Can you describe a favorite day on the job?

The best day for me is when you don't even know what happened that day when you’re done. And then you think about all of the conversations you had, and all of the people who came here to share or to visit, and the connections you reestablished with people you work with, or with new people…those are some of the best days. You’ve built that energy all day long and you can just sit in a mental inner tube, let it push you down your river, enjoy what you've done, and what people have done together.

There are a lot of great days here, but we did a program a couple of years ago where we tried to bring the Bark Longhouse exhibit to life. We had people inside the Longhouse living, cooking, eating, and in historical dress. When we did this program we always made sure that we invited Native school kids so we had Tuscarora, Seneca, and Onondaga. One year, Tuscarora kids came and they were just young enough to still be pretty vocal and open. There was this one little kid - maybe nine or ten - who said “I want to live here” because they recognized that this was one of their ancestral homes and they were so swept up in the atmosphere we created. It was such a yes moment.

Do you have any key mentors or someone who has deeply influenced you? Is there any piece of advice that they gave you that you’ve held onto?

I’ve been very fortunate to have had lots of mentors but someone who stands out in my mind and kind of pushed me to a state of more professionalism was George Hamell. George worked at various museums and he ended his career at the Rochester Museum & Science Center as the Collections Manager for the Rock Foundation. He was one of the curators at the New York State Museum for a long time. He was very gentle with me but also pushed me towards what is considered a more museological ideology. In terms of well-cited research and constructing an exhibition from the ground up. He was very helpful and I could never repay him for that kind of mentorship. One thing he told me that I thought was very wise and maybe a little humorous was he said to me that “an exhibit is never completed, it is only installed.” There is always work to be done.

Michael Galban (left) with George Hamell in the archives at Rochester Museum & Science center

A Good Time to Host a Polling Site

Wed, 31 Aug 2022 13:24:49 GMT

A Good Time to Host a Polling Site

By Assembly Member Danny O’Donnell

Chair of the NYS Assembly Committee on Tourism, Parks, Arts, and Sports Development

Across New York, museums serve as anchors as well as reflections of your communities. Your missions to connect individuals to culture, history, and information is deeply needed and commendable.

In keeping with the pivotal role museums play in civil society, right now you have an opportunity to become a part of history by contributing to New York State’s efforts to expand voter access. Today, I am asking you to reach out to your local board of elections and offer to host a poll site during future elections. Not only will this support your communities’ civic engagement, but it will also improve your museums’ engagement with community members.

New York has taken dramatic and exciting leaps forward in expanding access to voting in the past two years. My colleagues in the State Legislature and I passed laws implementing automatic voter registration, cementing vital civil rights voting protections, and establishing 10 days of early voting before each election in NY. Although New Yorkers now have increased voters’ access to the polls, there are still a few wrinkles to iron out – one of which I believe New York Museums can help resolve.

With the recent expansion in voting opportunities, Boards of Elections have found it difficult to secure polling sites at locations other than public schools. New York’s museums can help address this by stepping up and volunteering to host more voting locations for our communities. I believe it is a fantastic opportunity for both community members and museums to strengthen civil society and advance your missions in tandem.

I would like to relay a few concerns that demonstrate the urgency of this matter and the difference your contribution will make. After the Boards of Elections create their list of potential polling sites, they reach out to these locations to determine their availability. While many sites have the option to opt-out, public schools do not. More often than not, this is the case.

Although the recent expansion in voting opportunities is great for the larger community, serving as polling sites often disrupts students’ academic performance. As an Assembly Member, I have heard concerns from students, parents, and school administrators about students unable to access areas of their school, such as gymnasiums or other common areas, for days at a time. Even during the summer, polling sites can interfere with classes and activities scheduled for some locations. Public schools recognize their role in supporting our communities’ civic engagement, but I believe museums have similar values and obligations to contribute to the public good.

The good news is: I have no doubt that hosting a polling site would lead to positive outcomes for your organizations, too. While the COVID-19 pandemic stymied foot traffic in many NY museums, serving as a polling site can help bring back visitors through increased community engagement with museums. Although many New Yorkers already frequent museums, voting brings in a broad cross-section of the community, including some people who rarely or never visit museums. I have no doubt that coming to your building to vote will encourage these individuals to visit their local museums more often.

Further, as more New Yorkers experience first-hand the ways museums contribute to their communities, support for these museums will only improve. Community members often contact their representatives to advocate on behalf of their favorite organizations, institutions, programs, etc. If hosting a poll site isn’t a great way for museums to increase their visibility and popularity among community members, I don’t know what is!

In addition, hosting a polling location is a meaningful expression of museums’ values, and furthers your mission to strengthen civil society. It builds on the recent series “Museums and Democracy” hosted by MANY in collaboration with Museum Hue - focused on improving democracy and civic engagement. Now more than ever, we need every part of civil society to step up and recommit to maintaining a strong, vibrant democracy. You can be a critical part of this shared mission by making sure voting is accessible to New Yorkers.

I urge you to consider my request: help New Yorkers, and yourselves, by volunteering to host a poll site for future elections. If you need a place to start, try reaching out to your local Boards of Elections and tell them you want to help. You can find their contact information here: https://www.elections.ny.gov/CountyBoards.html.

I thank you and the Museum Association of New York for your invaluable contributions to our society. I also thank you for your time and attention to this matter.

Letter from Erika: MANY Supports Museums that Support Democracy

Tue, 30 Aug 2022 20:57:31 GMT

April 10, 2018 Naturalization Ceremony at the New-York Historical Society. Photograph by Howard Heyman. Courtesy of the New-York Historical Society.

Dear Members, Friends, and Supporters,

As summer comes to a close and we begin to gear up for a busy fall, I am excited to report on “Museums Support Democracy,” our webinar series produced in partnership with Museum Hue and funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and Humanities New York. The seven programs featured fifteen museum professionals from around the nation discussing Citizenship, Environmental Justice, Ethical Collecting and Deaccessioning, Expanding Interpretive Lenses, Healing Historical Legacies, Museums and Civil Rights, and Protest Through Visual and Performance Art. 869 people from 48 states, Puerto Rico, the District of Columbia, the US Virgin Islands, as well as Barbados, Canada, China, Hungary, Mexico, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom participated in the webinars.

I encourage everyone to take an hour if you can and listen to one of these conversations. MANY members can access the recordings from the member resource page on our website. The speaker's comments and questions asked by attendees point to ways that museums can sustain and strengthen democracy in their communities. Thoughts and experiences generously shared during these inspiring discussions have been fueling my hope for the role of museums in our nation’s future. I also want to take this space to express my gratitude to Megan Eves, MANY’s Assistant Director for Programs and Communications for her exceptional work organizing and producing this important series.

Fifty-seven years ago this month, President Lyndon Johnson signed the 1965 Voting Rights Act. In his timely, open letter to New York’s Museums, Danny O’Donnell, New York Assembly Member and Chair, Committee on Tourism, Parks, Arts, and Sports Development invites museums to support democracy by partnering with their local election boards to become polling sites. The central location of many museums and their open public spaces can make them ideal polling site locations. Serving as a polling place can also be a wonderful way for museums to welcome people who might not have otherwise visited their spaces.

MANY will continue to support and amplify the work of museums who incorporate the plurality and multivocality of our nation’s history, art, and culture in their core programs. Earlier this month, we submitted an application for funding to the National Endowment for the Humanities for a project we are calling “A New Agora for New York: Museums as Spaces for Democracy.” In Ancient Greek cities an Agora was both an assembly of people and the physical setting in which they gathered. It was an open space in which intellectual and thought-provoking discussions formed the foundation of a civil society. If funded, this humanities discussion series will use the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum on Main Street Exhibition Voices and Votes: Democracy in America as a launching point for twelve museums and their communities to explore, reflect on, and tell the story of their role in the evolution of American Democracy. We won't receive notification of the NEH’s funding decision until April of 2023, but I extend our thanks to project partners, Humanities New York, the New York State Museum, and OurStoryBridge. We are also grateful to NY Senator Gillibrand, Rep. Tonko (NY-20) and the 100 museums who signed on to a support letter for the project.

Advocacy is a key part of the democratic process and has been part of MANY’s mission since the organization’s founding 60 years ago. As we await the advance of the Museum Study Bill, and plan our 2022-23 legislative agenda, we welcome your input to help guide us. Click here to let us know your interests for our advocacy efforts.

I wish you the best as the pages of the calendar turn toward to the end of this year,

Erika Sanger

Executive Director

Removing Financial Barriers for Museum Visitors: Museums for All

Tue, 30 Aug 2022 20:16:13 GMT

Founded in 2014, Museums for All is a nationwide, cooperative initiative between the Association of Children’s Museums (ACM) and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) aimed to remove financial barriers for museum visitors, encourage families of all backgrounds to visit museums regularly, and build lifelong museum habits. Museums for All encourages community partnerships, peer to peer learning, and serves as an entry point for museums to address equitability. Today there are over 960 participating museums across the country, and the US Virgin Islands with a total of 4.5 million people visiting museums through this program since it began.

Ithaca’s Sciencenter was one of the first to join Museums for All in 2014

“Back in 2013, the ACM board at our annual conference adopted the mission statement that all children deserve access to high-quality museum experiences,” said Brendan Cartwright, Museums for All Program Manager. “At the same time, IMLS was looking to put a program together that would increase access to museums by removing financial barriers.” In fact, ACM had many of its members already offering free or reduced museum admission through SNAP or EBT cards. “ACM and IMLS entered into a cooperative agreement where we would take the approach that was already happening at individual museums and codify it by building a framework and making it available on a national scale.” The program was piloted in children’s museums and later expanded to include museums of all disciplines.

“It launched with the goal to make museums as accessible as possible and remove any financial barriers. This initiative particularly looks at financial barriers for people, but fit in well with organizations as they look to self-assess how they can make their museums as accessible as possible.”

Participation and Eligibility

Museums join Museums for All once and can exit the program at any time. The registration process is open to all museums, including for-profit museums. Museums for All uses a categorical list of museums generated by IMLS. “If your museum fits within one of these categories, then you’re eligible to participate,” said Cartwright.

To participate, museums offer reduced or free admission to individuals and families that present a Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) card, and a valid form of photo identification. Reduced admission must be $3 or less for up to four people per EBT card. Visitors do not have to register for this program in order to participate.

“One of the things that set this program apart from other similar access programs like Philadelphia’s Art-Reach and Mass Cultural Council’s Card to Culture is that you can show an EBT card from any state to any participating museum,” said Cartwright. SNAP is administered on a state-by-state basis resulting in different-looking cards. “So if someone from New Jersey wants to visit a participating museum in New York, they would be able to.” Included in the Museums for All toolkit is a PDF with a sample of all the cards from different states. “We figured it was the least intrusive way to establish a financial need. Some museums ask to see the physical card to apply the discount but others won’t ask to see it.”

Museums that don’t normally charge admission can also participate in Museums for All. “Primarily, it’s about making that active invitation to the community,” said Cartwright. “It can also serve as an opportunity to look for other areas in their operations that they might reduce some barriers like with membership or in the gift shop.”

Program guidelines also include clearly publicizing Museums for All by posting information about access on museum websites and other collateral materials, use of the approved Museums for All PR toolkit resources for branding guidelines in all communications, training for sales and front-line staff, and regularly reporting visitor numbers.

Participation is intentionally designed to be flexible. “We’ve set a baseline, but we encourage museums to feel free to build on it with whatever makes sense for their communities. Some museums will accept WIC [Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children] in addition to SNAP/EBT. Other museums go even further by offering discounted memberships,” said Cartwright. “It’s part of the flexibility of the program…it’s ready to go where someone can just show their EBT card and gain access to the museum or museums can really emphasize it where they go out into the community, talk with their SNAP office, and let people know to come to their museum. You can participate as little or as much as you want. We want museums to be responsive to their communities.” Many Museums for All participants use the program to broaden their visitor base and reach out to underserved communities. “Whatever works best for your museum and your community works for us and we will try to support however we can.”

Resources and Support

In the Museums for All Toolkit (available in English and Spanish) prospective participants can listen to or read the transcript of a webinar that introduces the program with speakers from the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, Boston Children’s Museum, and Zimmer Children’s Museum explaining why they chose to participate and how Museums for All works in their institution. The toolkit includes branding, editable bookmarks, postcards, sample press releases, social media images, and training recommendation guidelines. Training recommendations include the importance of understanding SNAP/EBT, sensitivity training, and how to respond to visitors that don’t qualify for Museums for All by offering other ways the museum supports access and inclusion like other free or reduced admission hours.

“We also try to bring together museums as much as possible through virtual hangouts, sending newsletters that share experiences and stories and what makes things work or get input on areas where something isn’t as successful,” said Cartwright. “These peer-to-peer learning opportunities have been pretty successful with a dedicated core of museums.”

Museums for All encourages partnerships between community groups, schools, and other museums by sharing materials and sharing social media content and email lists or by providing brochures to waiting rooms and to the local SNAP office.

Hub Cities

“As the program’s gotten bigger with more museums joining, we’ve begun to identify cities that have three or more participating museums and we call these cities ‘Hub Cities,’” said Cartwright. “We try to give them a little more resources and try to get them to work together. ‘Hub Cities’ have more opportunities to do more cross-marketing and outreach like perhaps a family starts at the children’s museum and then as the children get older they get more interested in the science or art museum but then the whole family wants to go to the zoo, etc. It’s a way to expand on the cultural offerings when more museums participate in one city.”

There are about 70 Hub Cities with three in New York State; NYC, Rochester, and Ithaca with the Sciencenter being one of the very first museums to join.

"The Sciencenter adopted the Museums For All initiative early on because we strongly believe in providing all members of our community with access to hands-on science experiences,” said Kelly Barclay, Public and Media Relations Manager at the Sciencenter. “In 2022 alone we've had over 1,500 people visit the museum using MfA entry. This program allows families who cannot afford the price of admission a chance to explore, connect, and create with science at our museum. We've received great feedback from our community regarding this program and we will continue to prioritize it at the Sciencenter."

Since joining in 2014, the Sciencenter has seen almost a total of 18,000 visitors using the Museums for All program or representing 3% of total visitors. Most of those visitors turned out to be graduate students. “I think that they were expecting one type of visitor would be taking advantage of this program and then were surprised about who was actually coming throught the door. We give training and we really try to emphasize that you cannot make assumptions about why someone might be eligible but you’re there to share the museum with them.”

Reporting

Cartwright conducts and shares quarterly attendance reports through a reporting page on the Museums for All website. “It varies a little bit but overall about 3% of total museum visitors are using the Museums for All program. That percentage is a bit higher in children’s museums averaging closer to 6% and history and art museums are a bit lower averaging closer to 1%. But regardless of size or geographic location, that 3% is pretty solid across the board.

In New York State, there are now 62 participating museums, which combined have served 53,435 people through the program. Museums in New York State average Museums for All attendance is at 1.5% with the highest percentage of total visitors at the Utica Children’s Museum with 6%. New York State is third overall with the most participating museums.

Additional benefits

According to a 2018 report, 45% of museums join Museums for All as a way to help them provide better access to community members and 27% join because the initiative fits the museum’s mission, vision, or larger diversity, equity, access, and inclusion plans.

“I joined ACM in November 2021 and one of the reasons that I was very interested in this role and what they were doing was because of Museums for All,” said Keni Sturgeon, Director of Strategic Initiatives for ACM. “What’s been interesting to me is those who’ve been members that offered low-cost admission are now exploring reduced membership options. Museums are using Museums for All as a conversation starter about what it really means to be an equitable museum around the financial side. To me, it’s been really interesting to see those conversations emerge and people reaching out to Brendan or sharing with others in the virtual hangouts about the work they’re doing in that area and it’s really wonderful to see.”

In the 2018 report, more than 25% of museums saw an increase in attendance, development revenue, and program and membership subscription. 20% reported significant shifts in visitor demographics.

While IMLS and ACM don’t distribute any funding to museums through this program, participating museums are allowed to fundraise or seek sponsors on behalf of Museums for All at their institution and 30% of museums stated that it was actually a revenue driver to join the program. “Because Museums for All is about removing a financial barrier, you’re not necessarily giving up a full-price admission by offering it for $3 or less because your museum is reaching people that weren’t coming before. There’s usually no loss of revenue and some build development opportunities around the program.”

Where to learn more

Museums interested in Museums for All can visit museums4all.org or email questions to Brendan Cartwright at brendan.cartwright@childrensmuseums.org. He also recommends taking a look at the current list of participating museums. “If a museum is curious about the program, they can visit our website to see if any of their neighbor museums are participating. I would encourage them to reach out to learn more about their experience.”

Visit https://museums4all.org/ to learn more.

MANY Board Spotlight: Joshua Ruff

Tue, 30 Aug 2022 20:13:59 GMT

Recently named the next co-Executive Director of the Long Island Museum and elected to the MANY board this past April, we spoke with Ruff to learn more about this museum experience and what his new position will look like.

MANY: How did you get into the museum field? What was your career path like?

Joshua Ruff: Maybe by accident. It wasn’t the life that I had planned for myself when I was thinking about a career but now I’ve been predominantly at one institution for 25 years; working with the museum’s collection, exhibitions, and all of the special projects. I've been very fortunate to have had worked with incredible mentors including the chief curator at the museum, William Ayers. I worked with him for 16 years before he retired and then I was promoted to his position Our outgoing Executive Director Neil Watson was also a mentor. Those are just two incredible people who have left a great mark on me that I've been lucky to have known and worked with.

Working in museums was nothing that I imagined or anticipated but it’s been a progressively deeper experience. I've worked in curatorial positions throughout my career but with more administrative responsibilities as time has gone on.

What other experiences outside your museum career have you found most helpful in your role now?

While attending Syracuse University as an undergrad majoring in Broadcast Journalism, public speaking, working with the press and media, and video production. The Long Island Museum produces videos for exhibitions and our YouTube Channel. So I have a big role in video productions using those skills.

The ability to ask questions about what is interesting and to communicate with a broad audience is an important skill that I learned early on, even if I didn’t know what I thought I would do with that skill, but now it’s incredibly useful in my museum career. It’s important to connect beyond a specialized audience, especially in museums. We need to be able to talk to a variety of people and the only way you get better at it is to do it as often as you can.

What are some of your biggest motivations to do what you do? What do you get excited about in your role as both Deputy Director and Director of Collections & Interpretation?

The ability to work with and preserve our collections but also develop a long-term goal and vision about how we do that. But also it’s really the folks that I work with.

I have twenty-seven colleagues at the museum. The curatorial department is small, but we have a great work culture where there is a lot of interconnection, sharing, and creativity. We’ve got each other's backs and that motivates me more than anything. I want to do my best to help my colleagues. I think museums do great things, especially when they have people working together, creating in harmony, and putting in an effort which is not a small thing to be able to achieve.

How do you create that environment?

You have to set the tone every day in meetings and the work that you do. For me, I’m in the thick of things and I've worked for people who didn’t sit in a chair and tell people what to do. That's not my style nor is it the style of the people that I've worked for. I think you have to trust and respect what people are good at, learn what they’re good at, come together, and have trust in the process. I’m the first one to admit that I will never know everything, but I trust the people that I work with that are more specialized to do the job, but I will be involved in the discussion about where we need to go.

You were recently promoted to the position of Executive Director sharing the duties with Sarah Abruzzi set to start this fall. Can you tell me more about how those duties will be split? How will the decision to have co-Executive Directors impact the museum? Is this a long-term plan for the museum?

It’s definitely a long-term approach. Sarah and I were interviewed together by the board of trustees and it was very much “this is our path moving forward” conversation. Sarah’s responsibilities will be advancement and operations and mine will be collections, programming, and visitor services. We will work together on all of this too. I think the reason it will work for us is we have great mutual respect and work well together. This is years in the making. We’ve been Deputy Directors together for four years and in that role, we worked closely with our executive director Neil Watson. So when people ask “how will this work?”, well it has been working. It’s something that has been successful over these last few years, especially the last couple of years as museums reimagine their futures.

In the complicated world of running museums, an approach where you have shared responsibility in leadership can be a great model for an institution.

We feel really confident that it will work at the Long Island Museum and that this structure will expand our footprint and allow us to build community partnerships and meet our constituents. We’re also going to be learning and know that learning will be a part of the process.

Would your 18-year-old self imagine that you would be where you are today?

I thought I was going to be a sports broadcaster. Growing up, I was consumed by sports and I thought that’s what I was going to do. I went to Syracuse University for Broadcast journalism and it was only while there as a student that I started taking history classes and adding a history major. For me going into museum work was nonlinear. I had formative experiences growing up and those experiences brought me to museums. Then once I was almost done with graduate school at Stony Brook, I started working with the Long Island Museum as a curatorial assistant. I remember thinking that it was only going to be a couple of years and then I was going to go back into grad school and be a professor of history, but they got their hooks in me, I decided to stay with it, and it became my career.

Can you tell us about where you grew up?

I grew up in Upstate New York. Both of my parents went to Cornell University so I grew up in Ithaca and then after they split up, I went to live with my mom in Johnson City. We definitely visited a lot of museums when I was a kid growing up. I remember many trips to the Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell and just being in awe of their African Art Collection and some of their Hudson River School paintings where you could kind of see yourself in this vast wilderness. My parents had a 10-acre farm and we were outside constantly.

After I graduated from college, I volunteered at the Roberson Museum in Binghamton, and it was the first time I ever worked in a museum. I helped catalog their glass plate photograph collection. The privilege of being able to handle that collection that you normally would just see on display, I’m still addicted to that kind of stuff, all these years later. You get to know these things as intimately as you would people and that’s a real privilege.

What are some of your favorite moments while on the job? Is there an achievement that you are most proud of?

I would have to say the fact that over the course of COVID our staff all stayed with us. We had one educator leave for a new job and other than that, we entirely stayed together. I don’t say that’s my achievement but something that we all achieved together.

Favorite moments include when an exhibition goes up or when the last label is written.I love it because of the long process to get to those moments. I’ve done a lot of exhibitions throughout my career and it’s always been exciting.

I would say the last thing I’m proud of is that we recently completed our Land Acknowledgment with the Setalcott Nation. It was a very eye-opening process and I’m proud that it’s a start of a long-term relationship that is going to help the community and give them an understanding of our heritage and history of this land.

Blue sky question, what would you want to do at the museum, no limits? What’s a project you would love to do?

I keep thinking that there are a lot of museums partnering with contemporary artists who are using a museum’s collection as inspiration to create a new perspective. I would love to hire a contemporary artist or artists to use our William Sidney Mount painting collection that has some heavy things to say about race and class in America’s 19th century and here we are in the 21st century looking at many of the same issues but through a different lens and with a different understanding of it.

We also have a carriage collection at the museum and with our current conversation about the future of electric transportation, i think that maybe having a contemporary artist do a take on the horseless electric carriage of the future might be a fun interesting throughline connection that goes back to the beginning of it, a connection from past to present.

Zulmilena Then, MANY’s inaugural recipient of the Scholarship for BIPOC Museum Administrators

Wed, 27 Jul 2022 13:34:45 GMT

Zulmilena Then, Preservation Manager, Weeksville Heritage Center at the 2022 annual conference in Corning, NY –MANY’s inaugural recipient of the Scholarship for BIPOC Museum Administrators

As a native Brooklynite, grassroots organizer and activist, Zulmilena Then works in various capacities to preserve her home community. She holds a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Pratt Institute and currently serves as the Preservation Manager for the Weeksville Heritage Center (WHC). In this capacity, she ensures the integrity and long-term preservation of the Historic Hunterfly Road Houses, the only remaining domestic structures of 19th-century Weeksville. Before WHC, while working with the Black-owned architectural firm Michael Ivanhoe McCaw Architect, P.C, renovating historic buildings throughout Brooklyn, mainly in Bed-Stuy, she realized the power historic buildings have in anchoring our communities. In 2015, this inspired her to form, Preserving East New York (PENY), an organization focused on celebrating and elevating the voices of the predominantly Black and Brown East New York community to make a real social and political change to protect the neighborhood through historic preservation.

Zulmilena Then is the inaugural recipient of the Scholarship for BIPOC Museum Administrators. As part of her conference scholarship, we asked her to share more about her role at Weeksville and her reflection on the conference.

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Stepping into the museum field at the start of 2020 at Weeksville Heritage Center (WHC) in Brooklyn, NY, was not what I expected as the Preservation Manager. I came into the institution to care for the historic Hunterfly Road Houses, the last residential remnants of the historic Weeksville neighborhood, one of the largest 19th-century free African American communities in the United States. But two months after starting my role, COVID-19 shut down our worlds and forced us to stay at home. Suddenly separated physically from the structures the institution hired me to care for was perplexing; how do I do my job from home? The pandemic changed how I engaged with the site, the historic houses and my work and opened the doors to incite thinking beyond the traditional ways we previously had conformed to fulfill our roles at work and in life.

While the world swiftly learned to adapt to different ways of living and working, the events unfolding shortly after the shutdown sparked a fire for the Black Lives Matter movement to rise again, unequivocally triggering the racist roots and oppressive systems we have inherited since birth. The pandemic has been a shifting moment for people, organizations, and governments to re-evaluate themselves and their roles in enforcing systems that have not been equal and just. With Envisioning Our Museums For the Seventh Generation, the Museum Association of New York's Annual Conference opened up a space to reflect on what that would mean for each of us within the museum field, what role we play, and how our actions will take shape for the seventh generation. The Seventh Generation Principle is an Indigenous philosophy about being mindful of our present-day actions and decisions and the impact they will have on the seventh generation.

During the conference opening, Jamie Jacobs of the Tonawanda Seneca Nation, Turtle Clan, curator at the Rochester Museum and Science Center for the Rock Foundation, welcomed us and delivered his message in the Indigenous Seneca language, followed by English translations. I marveled at the poetics of his tongue and rich expressions. With a room filled with English speakers, I thought it was a beautiful and powerful move—a reminder of where we stand, the sacred land of the Indigenous. It was also a reminder to come up, show up as you are, and take up space. As a person of color, a daughter of immigrants where English was my second language growing up, and as a preservationist and professional just starting in the white-dominated museum field, it was a moment of empowerment. While listening to them, I reflected on information access in museums. How are museums working to be more inclusive? Are digital, audio and printed materials available in languages other than English? Are we gatekeeping information by not doing so? Why are we not reaching beyond the English language? Or are we using language to separate ourselves and exclude others?

After Jamie Jacobs followed the Opening Keynote by Chloe Hayward, Associate Director of Education at the Studio Museum in Harlem, who delivered a phenomenal introspective speech. One question she asked that stuck with me was, "How are we as museums co-creating with communities we are with and a part of? How are we making space?". This question made me reflect on who has access to information, how information is shared, and who the targeted audience is for museums. When in early 2020, the world closed its doors for in-person connections, the internet opened its doors and provided broader opportunities we hadn't explored before. While the internet provided closeness in the digital world, it also excluded those without access to the technology. While the internet can facilitate instant and wider outreach, how are organizations and institutions connecting to the surrounding community beyond the museum's building and digital walls? Is there community outreach in person? Is the targeted audience representative of the surrounding neighborhoods, and are we creating opportunities to give underrepresented communities access? Are those communities sitting at the table to influence our programming and engagement? Are we asking what their needs are, and are we supporting them? Are we invited to sit at their table? If not, how do we build community trust?

While hope for a better place exists, change can only start from within. Are we doing the work within ourselves to bring about the change we want and need in the world? Only then can we dismantle the racist, oppressive, inequitable and unjust systems we've inherited. Only then can the world and its institutions start being shaped by how the nation should move forward into a just and inclusive environment. A better world we can begin to birth for the Seventh Generation.

–Zulmilena Then, Preservation Manager, Weeksville Heritage Center, July 2022

MANY Board Spotlight Dr. Callie Johnson

Fri, 22 Jul 2022 14:29:47 GMT

Dr. Callie Johnson is the Director of Communications & Community Engagement at Buffalo AKG Art Museum, formerly the Albright-Knox Art Gallery. She is an award-winning marketing, communications, and nonprofit leadership executive. Dr. Johnson serves in an executive role stewarding the rebranding of America’s sixth oldest art museum, which is in the process of becoming the Buffalo AKG Art Museum. She is the former Executive Vice President of Marketing for Girl Scouts of Western New York and a current member of the Forbes Communications Council, an invitation-only community for executives in communications, marketing, and public relations. She is the winner of two Buffalo Business First awards—40 Under 40 and 30 Under 30 —for making a difference both on the job and in the community. She is a Buffalo-Niagara 360 Spotlight Professional for her career success and her commitment to strengthening the Buffalo Niagara region. She was awarded three Girl Scouts of Western New York Finance Certificates of Accomplishment and a Commitment to Excellence Award. We spoke with Dr. Johnson about her career journey, lessons learned from her previous jobs, and what makes her excited about her role at the AKG Art Museum.

Dr. Callie Johnson volunteering at Buffalo Promise Neighborhood reading to students

Can you tell us more about your career path? What was your journey to your current position at the Albright-Knox?

My journey to the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, formerly the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, was a welcome surprise given that I had been in my former marketing executive role for several years. I began my career in product and advertising sales and shifted to the nonprofit sector. I have spentmore than 15-years as a marketing communications servant leader in multiple areas, including human services, education, the arts, and practically everything in between. I always want the work that I’m a part of to serve as a catalyst for greater positive changes in the lives of people, society, and the world.

What other experiences in your career have you found most helpful in your role now?

Being a mentor and a mentee throughout my career have been excellent ways to both gain valuable lessons from peers or other more seasoned professionals and to pay it forward. I always like to keep building my skill toolkit along the way with the important lessons that I learn from either a process or an interaction. It’s the collection of these lessons and skills that helps to make me a stronger and more effective professional.

What are some of your biggest motivations to do what you do? What do you get excited about in your role as the Director of Communications & Community Engagement?

My biggest motivation and excitement are around knowing that I’ve joined the Buffalo AKG at a historic time, during the rebranding and expansion of the campus. I’m extremely excited about having the Communications and Community Engagement areas under one umbrella to work in tandem and help broaden our visitation, membership, and inclusivity as an institution. We are engaged in extensive groundwork by being out in the community, building new relationships, and strengthening existing relationships that we have treasured for years. We are also using marketing communications mediums as tools to communicate the evolution of the museum and its many offerings.

Albright-Knox is undergoing a massive transformation. From your expertise in community engagement, public relations, and communications, what are some of your goals/strategies for keeping the community informed of this process and how will these goals change when the museum opens?

In order to ensure everyone in our community is aware of the construction and opening of the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, we have embarked upon a strategic communications and marketing campaign that represents the most substantial public outreach in the museum’s history. Through owned, earned, and paid media, we are working hard to speak directly to everyone in our community and around the world. At the same time, we are also pursuing extensive community engagement in a way that dovetails with our communications efforts. It is essential that we communicate clearly and consistently both with the thousands of individuals and families who already know and love the museum and with countless others to whom we are introducing ourselves for the first time.

Would your 18-year-old self imagine that you would be where you are today?

My 18-year-old self had a fierce determination to be successful. I know at that age, I never would’ve imagined that I would earn a PhD, so that would be a huge shocker moment for 18-year-old Callie.

Can you tell us about where you grew up? (school, family, hometown, etc.) What was it like growing up there?

I grew up on the east side of the great city of Buffalo, NY. The area on the east side where I grew up was challenging, but there was always a steady supply of faith, love, and laughs. I am one of five children and very proud to be a first-generation college graduate.

Since you started last July, are there any particular memories that stand out to you? Any favorite moments while on the job? Is there an achievement that you are most proud of?

I would say that a favorite moment is completing my first year on the job at the Buffalo AKG and successfully transitioning our Publications and Digital Experience Department such that it is now under the umbrella of Communications and Community Engagement. Starting a new role is seldom easy—in fact it can be very scary—and I am proud that I continue to challenge myself in this new space and work through the growing pains to lead my team, be a good colleague, and help us reach our institutional goals. Even though there is a lot more work to be done, I’m proud that we are being more intentional and moving in the right direction to start reaching the communities who have not traditionally visited the museum in the past.

For fun, you have an entire museum to yourself. What do you do?

True to my job, I would have a big community day and activate the whole campus indoors and outdoors with fun activities for 24 hours. I would have six, four-hour blocks of time filled with different amazing and awe-inspiring experiences for people of all ages and abilities.

Letter from Erika: What If? Grant Applications as Acts of Hope

Wed, 29 Jun 2022 13:51:36 GMT

Beatrix Farrand Garden, Bellefield, Hyde Park

Dear Members, Friends, and Supporters,

For the past couple of years my summer calendar has been decorated with patterns of red circles. The red circles represent the dates that applications for funding are due to private foundations as well as federal and state agencies. They also represent hours of writing, conversations, calculations, and a lot of hope.

For me, it is hope that MANY will be able to keep our museum community connected with a sense of belonging and offer programs where peer-to-peer learning can support shared purpose. These hopes are embedded in our 2022-2026 Strategic Plan approved by MANY’s board of directors at our June 22 meeting. I am pleased to share this important document and welcome your ideas to help us achieve our goals.

We also have hope for the future of New York’s museums as our society grapples with tremendous change. Museums can use their resources to support and empower communities to face ideas, issues, and challenges. Grants that help museums emerge from the pandemic stronger than they were before 2020 and build their capacity for the future are available from an amazing array of sources.

We are pleased to announce a fifth round of funds available through application to the Pomeroy Fund for NYS History. This round of funding will distribute $100,000 in amounts up to and including $5,000 for salary support/hourly wages to bring back or hire museum educators who will plan and deliver interpretative educational programs. You can learn more about eligibility and the application process here. We will open the application portal on July 18.

The deadline for the New York State Council on the Arts’ 2023 funding opportunities is July 12.

Documentary Heritage and Preservation Services for New York is accepting applications for Planning and Assessment Grants through July 15.

The National Endowment for the Arts’ Our Town creative placemaking grant deadline is August 4.

The National Endowment for the Humanities is accepting applications for Public Humanities Projects through August 10.

And if you thought you have missed it, you didn’t! September 1 is the new deadline for the Greater Hudson Heritage/NYSCA Conservation Treatment Grant Program.

Humanities New York accepts applications on a rolling basis for their Quick Grants and Vision Grants and will soon announce a fall 2022 deadline for their next round of Action Grants.

The Preservation League of New York State will also soon announce a fall deadline for their Technical Assistance grants.

Whether it is assistance to secure buildings and collections or deliver programs and services for communities, these opportunities represent so much hope for our museums.

Some museum professionals struggle with writing narratives for grant applications or formulating budgets that express organizational priorities in financial terms. With so many deadlines on the horizon, I am pleased to share that we have figured out a way to offer our grant writing workshop virtually. The four-hour participatory workshop will take place over two mornings, from 10 AM – Noon on August 30 and 31. Space is limited; the registration fee covers the cost of mailing the grant workshop materials to you. You can learn more and register here.

With hope that you find time in the next month to take a break from your grant writing and celebrate summer,

Erika Sanger

Executive Director

Sustainable Design: Olana’s Frederic Church Center

Wed, 29 Jun 2022 13:48:33 GMT

In 2024, the Olana State Historic Site will open the Frederic Church Center, a 4,500-square-foot orientation center with ticketing, restrooms, a café, and exhibition space. It will be the first new building at Olana since American painter Frederic Church’s death in 1900. It will also be the first publicly accessible carbon-neutral building in New York State. The $11 million project was generated from a 2015 strategic landscape design that encompasses the land and buildings that could be recovered, restored, rehabilitated, and brought into the full public experience.

Expanding and Improving the Visitor Experience

“In 2021, Olana had over 200,000 visitors, but only 16% took a public tour,” said Sean Sawyer, the Washburn & Susan Oberwager President at The Olana Partnership. To help accommodate the current visitorship, the FCC will include 45 parking spaces, an entry lobby for ticketing and orientation, restrooms that will be accessible after ticketing hours, a café (the first time that Olana will offer food and beverages on site), and a multipurpose room.

“In the busiest times there are a limited number of tickets so there are a lot of sold-out tours, or visitors have to wait for the next tour and 90% of the total visitors only experience 1% of the landscape.” Olana already offers a number of public programs focused on connecting visitors to the landscape including the program series, Environmentalists on Olana consisting of walks led by regional environmentalists, agriculturalists, activists, and ecological stewards. The series is designed to give visitors an opportunity to explore Olana’s history and current legacy through the intersections of art and environmentalism. One goal for the FCC is to increase awareness of these guided tours and the building will have adjoining outdoor terraces and paths that connect to Olana’s historic carriage road network, making all 250 acres of the historic landscape an integral part of public interpretation.

“It’s not a lot of space, but it includes an equal amount of outdoor space with places to sit and wait before you move through the landscape,” said Sawyer. “It’s really the next necessary step should there be more at Olana in the future, but this is the way we get to restore our collection which includes the farm, the barn, and all of the landscape, and have a sustainable maintenance plan for it.”

“We’re imaging a space that in the regular ticketing hours is providing information about the tours, is giving you an overview of Church and where American art and environmental consciousness intersect but then come 6 pm and there’s a special program about someone with a book on the Catskills that changes over and they’re able to show their PowerPoint or video or do that and then on Sunday evening there's a wedding reception.”

Finding Space in a Historic Landscape

Landscape architectural firm Nelson Byrd Woltz utilized data maps, including a heat map that visualized current and potential human activity across the site to determine where the FCC would be located within Olana State Historic Site. They included the historic farm, Crown Hill, Ridge road, and the lake in their mapping activities. They also referred to an 1886 plan by Church to help better understand the 19th-century vision for Olana and how the 250-acre naturalistic landscape was to be connected by carriage roads and walking trails.

The Olana Partnership also identified a three-point historic corridor between the main house, the farm complex, and the lake and wanted to keep any new development outside this “historic core” to preserve Olana’s historic integrity.

The selected site is adjacent to the existing entry from NY-9G by the lake, looking up towards the house. This location positions the FCC to serve as the principal entry point for Olana. “Some people have described it as like a base camp for Olana, which I like because it’s located immediately adjacent to one of Church’s historic planned views from the lake up to the house. It will provide a transitional space for visitors before diving into the world of Frederic Church.” said Sawyer.

The location will also make it a highly visible, publicly accessible demonstration of sustainable design and carbon-neutral construction.

Sustainable Design

In building Olana, Church focused on creating his own version of an American Eden by planting trees and embracing a naturalistic landscape to create his own wilderness. There was also the opportunity to use sustainable materials and to make the FCC a green building.

“Assemblymember Didi Barret (D-106 Dutchess/Columbia) pushed us to make this project a better project, especially around its environmental stewardship,” said Sawyer. “She has wanted this to be the greenest building, sustainably designed, and she understands that this requires adequate funding to purchase long-lasting materials. She understands her influence and she is committed to environmental solutions,” said Sawyer.

Assemblymember Barrett secured $1 million to support capital development plans for Olana, the largest single grant from the Assembly to a NYS Historic Site. Assemblymember Barrett also connected Olana with colleagues around the state, including faculty at The State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY ESF) in Syracuse; specifically with Professor Paul Crovella whose primary research focuses on sustainable construction.

Faculty from SUNY ESF sat in on multiple presentations, provided advice, and met with architects from Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects and project engineers. “[SUNY ESF] is actively trying to build the capacity of the wood products industry in the state and that includes introducing the manufacturer of cross-laminated timber,” said Sawyer. “Most importantly, they’ve helped us realize the expense and the challenge to raise the funds are worth it because what we’re building will be the first publicly accessible model of engineered wood, cross-laminated timber frame in the state.” SUNY ESF will also work with Olana on the interpretation of that design for the public to help visitors understand what they are seeing in the materials used.

Currently, the State Environmental Quality Review process is underway and the project was presented for public comment in late April and is anticipated to start construction in 2023.

Leveraging a Collaborative Partnership

Olana has been a public/private partnership since the 1960s when the non-profit partnership then named “Olana Preservation” was incorporated and later transferred ownership to the New York State Historic Trust. Today the Olana Partnership operates all public programs and education programs as well as fundraising, marketing, and communications under a cooperative agreement with New York State Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation.

“This project, in particular, shows the strength of a public/private partnership to leverage both private dollars for public and public dollars for private,” said Sawyer. “From the very beginning of the planning process, it was The Olana Partnership board working closely with NYS Parks executives. Rose Harvey took a very direct role in the process. Olana was going to be a test case for capital funding to NYS Parks.” The former NYS Parks Commissioner Rose Harvey, who stepped down in 2018, helped to secure funding from then-Governor Andrew Cuomo’s office to Olana, the first time since 1974 that there was designated capital funding for NYS Park. The Frederic Church Center is a cornerstone of Olana’s larger capital development plan. “She was really focused on Olana I think in part because of the very viable strong pattern that is here,” said Sawyer. “For the Frederic Church Center, there was an agreement for it being such a visible and new construction building, that the private nonprofit, our organization, would be able to effectively fundraise. It’s a balance of the public and private funding with public funding supporting infrastructure and private funding going to more visible aspects of the project.”

Private and Public Funding Sources

The Olana Partnership has raised $7.5 million of the $11 million estimated cost for the Frederic Church Center with a goal of $10 million coming from private funding sources. In Round 11 of the Regional Economic Development Council (REDC), Olana was awarded a total of $3,268,776 –$1,868,776 from the New York State Energy and Development Authority (NYSERDA) that will support the development of a sustainably designed, carbon-neutral building with the goal to make the FCC a threshold to an immersive visitor experience of Olana as a unique, world-class carbon-neutral tourist destination at the intersection of American art and environmental consciousness. An award of $1,400,000 from Empire State Development will directly support building construction with the goal to increase Olana’s regional economic impact.

“This is not about in any way diminishing the role of the main house and its historic interiors and the decorative arts at Olana but rather about making the experience of them for people who visit more impactful,” said Sawyer. “It’s about having a real culmination of their visit by getting into the house and parallels in a way the historical experience of visiting Olana.”

Learn more about the Frederic Church Center here: https://www.olana.org/about/fccenter/

MANY Board Spotlight: Clifford Laube

Wed, 29 Jun 2022 13:45:26 GMT

Cliff Laube is the public programs and communications manager at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, part of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in Hyde Park, New York. Laube has been with the United States Federal Government for almost twenty-five years with experience in public programming, public affairs, and heritage tourism.

Laube manages visitor services, operations, and the rental of conference facilities at the Roosevelt library’s Henry A. Wallace Visitor and Education Center. He has managed volunteer programs at both Weir Farm National Historic Site in Wilton, CT (NPS) and the Roosevelt Library. Laube sits on two Library committees, the social media committee (founding member) and workplace culture committee (chair), and has helped develop and implement strategies to grow and maintain visitation to Dutchess County, New York historic sites as a board member of Dutchess Tourism, Inc.

He joined the MANY board of directors in 2021 as an ex-officio member and serves on the Marketing Committee.

Earlier this year, he took on the role of co-chair of the Program Committee. We spoke with him to learn more about his career path and what keeps him motivated.

What other jobs have you had in the museum field? Can you tell us about your journey to get to your current role?

As a student of historic preservation at Roger Williams University (RWU), I had a part-time job leading tours at the first water-powered cotton spinning mill in North America, Slater Mill Historic Site in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. It is an extraordinary place. That was my first taste of working in the field of heritage tourism and helping to make our American story more accessible to a visiting museum public. After college, in 1998, I took a job as a park ranger at Weir Farm National Historic Site in Wilton, Connecticut -- one of our most inspirational national parks, commemorating the life and work of American impressionist painter J. Alden Weir, and his visiting artist friends, including Childe Hassam, Albert Pinkham Ryder, John Singer Sargent, and John Twachtman. I loved it. I loved helping people learn about this little-known but very important historic site. After six years at Weir Farm, in 2004, I came to the beautiful Hudson River Valley to manage publicity and public programs at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum.

Cliff Laube introducing the annual Hudson Valley History Reading Festival in 2022, the first in-person program since March 2020.

What other experiences in your career have you found most helpful for your role now?

I've certainly benefited from the training provided by both the National Park Service and the National Archives, but on-the-job experience has always helped me the most. To this day, I feel strongly that -- at all levels of visitor/customer service work -- it's critical to regularly connect with museum visitors and program attendees. They know what they want and we should always know what they're thinking.

What is one of your biggest motivations to do what you do? What do you get excited about in your role as the Public Programs and Communications Manager at FDR Presidential Library and Museum?

As a civil servant, the single biggest motivation (of which there are many) is striving to do good work for the American people. I work with a team of federal employees who took an oath, believe in what they do, and continue to perform at a very high level of performance to provide access to the authentic material culture of the life and times of the Roosevelts. We strive to make the museum and programming experiences here as authentic as the collections we are charged with protecting. Every day is exciting with this as a goal.

Cliff Laube at NewsRadio 1450 WKIP promoting FDR Presidential Library and Museum’s 2019 Memorial Day Weekend World War II reenactment

What are some of your goals?

As the Roosevelt Library matures, we've been able to tackle topics that this institution hasn't focused on enough over the years since President Roosevelt created the LIbrary in 1941. I hope to continue to expand programming on topics such as Japanese American Incarceration, America's response to the Holocaust, the Roosevelts and Race, and FDR's disability. The Roosevelts were faced with many difficult decisions in their lives and careers, and we can learn a lot from the choices they ultimately made by trying to better understand why they made them based on the documentary evidence in our collections.

Would your 18-year-old self imagine that you would be where you are today?

No, at 18, I really wanted to be an architect. My educational path bounced around through the fields of landscape architecture, architectural design, and eventually historic preservation. Preservation was the discipline that finally grounded me and helped me explore how historic sites, our built environment, and our tangible history can give us a better understanding of who we are today. Two RWU professors, in particular, Philip Marshall and Michael Swanson, guided me on this path.

Can you tell us about where you grew up? What was it like growing up there? Where did you go to school?

I was born and raised in Connecticut, Milford and then Southbury. It was a fairly standard, middle-class upbringing in a close-knit community that we watched evolve from rural to suburban due to the development of a new IBM research facility in the 1980s. I lived in an older, less affluent section of town, but had a privileged childhood in a caring, hard-working family, with loving parents and two older sisters.

What was the first museum experience that you can remember?

My first museum experience was on a field trip to a small museum called the American Indian Archaeological Institute in Washington, Connecticut (now called the Institute for American Indian Studies). I remember my fascination with the buildings created in the replica Algonkian village there.

Cliff is a “regular dunkee” at the summertime Family Fun Festival

Can you describe a favorite day on the job?

I think my favorite moment at the Library so far was during the question-and-answer session following a book talk about 12 years ago. The author flipped the script in Q&A and asked the first question of a captive Hyde Park audience of about 60 people. She wanted to know to what extent Hyde Park residents were aware of FDR’s disability back in the ‘30s and ‘40s. After contracting polio at the age of 39, Roosevelt could never again walk unassisted. She unexpectedly got a firsthand account. One of Hyde Park’s longtime residents told a story from his childhood. He described a day in which FDR arrived late to church. Around the time he noticed the President wasn’t there yet, the hair stood up on his arms. A moment later, he then heard softly, and then louder, the sound of metal braces coming closer and closer to the open doorway of St. James Church. He knew -- without turning around -- the President had arrived. FDR’s disability was so much a part of who he was to those who lived and worked around him that it hardly registered as a disability at all. The audience was transfixed. We all had goosebumps. We all heard FDR approaching that door. For me, that program rose above the rest.

Do you have any key mentors or someone who has deeply influenced you? Is there any piece of advice that they gave you that you’ve held onto?

I do. Lynn Bassanese, the former Library Director at the presidential library, was an incredible boss, friend, and mentor, during the most formative professional years of my career. I am, without question, where I am -- and, most importantly, happy where I am -- because of her guidance. Lynn had a small piece of paper beside her computer (it's besides mine now) with an unattributed saying, "Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind. Always." She lives by that. And I try to. If your work involves any level of visitor/customer service, working towards this mindset can be an enlightening and transformative experience.

You have an entire museum/collection to yourself. What do you do?

I'm a big World's Fair buff. Especially the two New York fairs at Flushing Meadows. While I am too young to have experienced them myself, both my parents went to both the '39 and '64 fairs and loved them. My grandfather was Suburban News Editor for the New York Times and lived in Richmond Hill not far from the fairgrounds, as well. So, I think I would love to run around the Queens Museum -- a building that dates back to the first of the NYC fairs -- and explore all the nooks and crannies for remnants of the fairs. Of course, the amazing Panorama of the City of New York from the '64 fair is still on display there and it would be fun to have time -- by myself -- to inspect it more closely.

Letter from Erika: The Museum Study Act

Mon, 06 Jun 2022 21:45:19 GMT

Dear Friends, Members, and Supporters,

I am pleased to share the news that the New York State Legislature passed A.9710/S.8934 “An act in relation to conducting a study of public and private museums in New York state,” unanimously in the Assembly on May 24 and in the Senate on June 2. This bill will make a difference to every museum in the state regardless of budget size, discipline, or location. It now heads to Governor Hochul’s desk where her signature would enable the act to take effect immediately.

New York State's museums are inextricably linked to our communities, economies, and histories. Too many museums operate in a culture of scarcity, struggling to pay bills and wondering each year how they will keep their doors open. Museums need support to ensure they can protect and share their collections, to be strong community education partners and efficient economic engines generating $5.37B to the state's economy.

“Museums have long been synonymous with New York – from world famous icons like the Met, MoMA or Cooperstown to local history collections and cultural community hubs. Yet despite the fame and significant economic impact, our museum sector has no real “home” in the New York state government,” said Assembly Bill Sponsor Didi Barrett (AD 106). “Support for museums is spread across a host of state agencies, and many have no access to state funding at all. This legislation is a pathway to ensuring these beloved institutions have the support and stability to flourish in the 21st century.”

The Museum Study Act directs the New York State Department of Economic Development, in conjunction with the Empire State Development Corporation, Department of Education, Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, Department of Environmental Conservation, Department of State, and New York State Council on the Arts to conduct a study of public and private museums in New York State.It will identify and gather data about all museums in the state including information on size, hours of operation, visitor statistics, funding sources and amounts, and the subject of their collections. The report will help communities, legislative representatives, and individual supporters learn about museum missions, audiences, and funding needs.

“New York State is the proud home of museums, large and small. From world class art galleries to volunteer run historical societies; these institutions are part of the fabric of our communities across the state,” said Senate Bill Sponsor Jeremy A. Cooney (SD 56). “They tell our stories, enrich our lives, employ creative talent and keep dollars in our local economies. As important as museums are to New York, these institutions lack an established funding structure in state government. I am proud to have passed new legislation directing a multi-agency team to conduct a study of public and private museums to ensure the protection of collections and an equitable funding structure in the future.”

The speed at which this bill was passed is a powerful sign that your legislator knows how important your museum is to your community. As they wrap up their time in Albany, it would mean so much for you to take a minute to thank the legislators who represent your museum and let them know that you are grateful for their support. Share an example that helps define your museum as a community space. Does your museum reach an historically marginalized population? Is it a destination for tourists? Or share a unique program/event offered by your museum. Include statistics to help illustrate your museums' impact and reach. Have they been to visit lately? Invite them for a tour of your museum! Feel free to use this template for your letter.

You can be sure we will let you know what comes next!

With thanks,

Erika Sanger

Executive Director

Find your Assembly Member Here

Find your Senator Here

Click here to view Assembly Bill A9710

Click here to view Senate Bill S8934

Letter from Erika: Seeing and Making Change

Wed, 25 May 2022 15:56:20 GMT

“Quiet as It’s Kept” 2022 Whitney Biennial

Dear Friends, Members, and Colleagues,

Two years ago today, George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer. Yesterday, nineteen elementary school children and their two teachers were shot to death in Texas. Eleven days ago, ten Black people were murdered in a mass shooting in Buffalo. In our nation alone, over one million people have died from the coronavirus. Numbers like these can become meaningless without connections to people and actions that move us to change.

As our cultures, institutions, and educational systems attempt to respond to the devastation wrought by the pandemic and systemic racism, every one of us needs to play a role in changing our society and our museums. Our museums need to promote truth and dignity, to encourage every person on staff to take ownership of their work, and to respect the work of their colleagues no matter their position or title.

Lately, more people are talking about uplifting people, not objects. I understand the purpose but question a distinction that removes contemporary and historic makers, scientists, and artists -- those who are named and those whose names are not remembered -- from the products of their hands and their minds. Implementing human-centered values in our workplace does not require the exclusion of the art and material culture of our world. In fact, centering and being inspired by art and culture can lead to embracing diversity in all its forms.

So how can museums - with collections, without collections - push back against the darkness of our times? We can take one step at a time. We can create budgets that align to strategic plans, value our staff, fund professional development, and allow for the purchase of job-appropriate tools.

In the May 2022 issue of This Month in NYS Museums we launch our reformatted job board that will require employers to post salary ranges. It took us a bit longer than some, but not as long as others, to make this change. New York City will legally require salary transparency in job postings on November 1, 2022. I am proud that MANY did not wait for a law to catch up to our values.

This week we also announced the recipients of the NYSCA/MANY Capacity Building Partnership Grants. The review panels were particularly struck by the requests from dozens of museums for technology because they had been “operating” with decades old hardware and software. We are pleased that we were able to help NYSCA distribute over $500,000 to 102 museums. We know that those who were not awarded grants or did not qualify as museums using NYSCA’s guidelines were very disappointed. We will announce new opportunities for grant funding soon.

Yesterday, A9710 (Barrett D-106) “An act in relation to conducting a study of public and private museums in New York State” unanimously passed the Assembly. The study will identify and collect data about all museums in the state to inform policy making and recommend systems of support to ensure equitable distribution of state funds regardless of discipline, budget size, or location.

The bill is now moving through the Senate. Your New York State Senator needs to know that they have museums in their district that need help to serve their communities and preserve their collections for future generations. Please send an email today and ask them to support S.8934 (Cooney D-56). You can find your Senator here and use this document as a template for your email.

We are approaching change for our museums in so many ways. This one step will help us get closer.

With sincere thanks,

Erika Sanger, Executive Director

Chloe Hayward 2022 Annual Conference Opening Keynote

Tue, 24 May 2022 18:27:49 GMT

Chloe Hayward is an educator, artist, art therapist, and the Associate Director of Education at The Studio Museum in Harlem. She believes in the power of art to transform systems, selves, and structures. Her latest written work “Museums as Therapeutic Space: Centralizing the Voices of People of Color”, is part of a larger anthology Museum Based Art Therapy: A Collaborative Effort with Access, Education, and Public Programs. Hayward has worked in museums for over two decades, and regularly serves as a consultant for art institutions and cultural organizations.

Hayward was the Opening Keynote speaker at the 2022 annual conference, Envisioning Our Museums for the Seventh Generation in Corning, New York. We are pleased to share her opening remarks.

Chloe Hayward speaking at the 2022 annual conference in Corning, NY

"I want to talk about the concept of Seven Generations, and the potential this holds for museums. I want to begin with a quote about love by author, bell hooks, “Love is a combination of care, knowledge, responsibility, commitment, and trust.” When we think about what it means to consider the preservation of culture, making long-term decisions, and drawing from the past while laying the groundwork for the future - I believe these principles, the foundation of love, are exactly what is necessary and vital as we dream together about the future of museums.

How do we create spaces of care? And what does care look like? Why should we care?

I’m going to make some assumptions, and I know that’s a bold move, but it’s a risk I’m willing to take. When I talk about care, I am talking about why we do this work. We care. Museums matter. We want to see our institutions thrive. We all do our very best to make this a reality, nurturing our works of art, our exhibitions, our projects, and our programs. At the same time, museums are facing a moment of reckoning, of questioning, not if we care, but how are we enacting care? Not just for objects, but for people and for communities. There is more work to do, more changes to make. I believe true change is about collaboration,co-creation, and about making as much space as you take. This is one of the ways that museums can show up for community in the spirit of care. Community in the biggest sense of the word possible. Not just our stakeholders, but our internal ways of operating as an institution. Our colleagues, our museum community. We are all individuals part of a greater collective, and it’s important that we recognize who we are in the spaces we occupy, who we are in relationship to the communities we are with and in, for I believe it is individuality itself that is the seedling to the enactment of care we hope and need to see within our institutions, and within the museum field.

Growing up, I never had the opportunity to visit museums. When I finally did, I either didn’t see my experiences reflected on the walls and in the space, or if they were, the perspective from which stories were told, didn’t ring true for me or my culture. So who are we calling in? Who are we recognizing and giving space to? The decisions we make as museum professionals have impact in the present moment and the future, and we must remember that the how is just as important as the why. Yes, we care, but if we aren’t calling in the voices, vision, and perspectives of all people, then we are actually causing harm. As a museum professional today, I deeply value and honor the voices of artists and artwork that speak to history, culture, and identity not from a singular narrative, but from perspectives that are rich and wide.

One of the first steps we can all take in creating spaces of care is to ask. Ask what people need, what people think, and what people want. Part of that understanding is sharing knowledge.

How do we decipher what knowledge is valid, valued, and prioritized? How do we dismantle systems that negate the experiences of others? Change begins and ends with us, but we must also make space for others, leaning into the knowledge of those whose experiences may differ from our own.

I often consider the concept of “professionalism,” when I think about these questions, and how that concept has been used within institutions over the years to exclude the culture and knowledge of others whose race and identity are deeply connected to the ways in which they show up to these professional spaces. Being an individual within the collective, how do you fit or not within the spaces you occupy? Do you see yourself? Do you see your culture? I am privileged and honored to work for an arts institution that upholds and uplifts my culture. The ways in which space is made for community stems from collaborative and co-creative efforts. How are we as museums co-creating with the communities we are with and part of? How are we making space? How are we showing appreciation and not appropriating? How are we collecting, not colonizing? Are we doing the work of building care, commitment, knowledge and trust? In what ways are we aware of our privilege and how are we using that privilege to be better allies to those in the world who have been and continue to be marginalized?

Working at The Studio Museum in Harlem, there is a shared knowledge and understanding, a recognition of the importance of care, that allows me to show up as my full self. My identity is not erased but uplifted and celebrated. Through my individual experience I am able to make space for the larger community so that they may feel all of this as well. When we talk about museums and about preserving, protecting, and making decisions for the future generations; making space is part of the responsibility of this work.

What does it mean to be responsible within society? What systemic impact do our decisions have on the larger community? As humans, like it or not, we can be inherently selfish. When I think about responsibility, I think about what it means to be human and to evolve. We have at times as a society had to be selfish in order to survive, but where has that gotten us? What are we actually trying to survive for? What obstacles do we face, and what are we trying to overcome? I think the answers to these questions are very different, and depend on who is answering.

I can and will only speak for myself. As a Black woman working in what has been a historically white male field, it has been challenging to be recognized, to make space for my voice to be heard. It was not until I found my home at The Studio Museum in Harlem that I was able to surmount these challenges. I share this with you so that you may consider the ways in which you give opportunity for others to share space because this is something which has impacted me tremendously as an individual working in the field of museums. It is something I carry with me always as I work with generations of Museum professionals even younger than myself today. The solution cannot be to leave museums, which I know often happens, I’ve seen it, but how can we uplift and make space for everyone who is a part of this museum community? This institution? How can we create spaces of support? My existence here and now in this space is an example of what it means to give opportunity and make space for others, for the future generations of museum professionals.

I’d like to invite each of you to consider personal challenges you’ve faced in this world, and in this work. How have you worked to overcome them? Have you? It’s not easy to continue to do this work day in and day out. Showing up, even when things are challenging, is commitment. Choosing to work in museums and continuing to renew our commitment to this work, to our communities, is important now more than ever.

I always like to say that art is a mirror, it offers a view that reflects whomever gazes upon it. We project what we know, our thoughts, feelings and experiences onto the art work or object. In this way, museums are uniquely positioned to be spaces of reflection, a sort of psychological excavation of society. Museums offer a space for people to come together in dialogue about the world, about life, about ourselves.

The consistency we show for ourselves and others in working within the museum field lends itself to trust. When we consider the concept of Trust within museum spaces, we must ask ourselves: are the decisions we are making within museums offering spaces of safety? Are we showing up for our communities, giving care to people, places and art work within our institutions, sharing knowledge and honoring the viewpoints of others, creating not from a singular narrative, but one that is rich with the nuanced and layered fabric of our society?

Museum work is not easy, and we have done a lot. During my time working within museums, I’ve witnessed openings created for broader representation across institutions. I have created systems and structures which are collaborative and creative in nature, and provided space in the form of programming that reflects the community in which the museum resides. All of this was done through the lens of care, commitment, knowledge and trust. Even so, there is more work to be done and we have farther to go. Although I speak to you from the perspective of someone from New York City, I want to make space and acknowledge that this work is happening around the state, and around our nation. I’m sure each of us can think of examples of positive change from where you live and work, I am sure I am not alone. So how do we inspire change and growth within this field? Change begins and ends with the individual. Change comes from within.

As I’ve grown in my position and leadership within museums, one thing is very clear: never underestimate the potential of small wins. It is these small wins, when collected and put together, that create systemic change. So I ask each of you how might you win small? For I’ve witnessed over the years how these small shifts in thought, in implementation of ideas, programmatic changes, have a ripple effect. Small impacts lead to larger ones, and you truly never know the impact your small wins have on others.

I would lastly like to offer a fifth element to bell hooks' definition of love: and that is creativity. I believe museums must lean into their creativity. By definition, creativity is a process and process is an energy. It flows and is always moving. To be in the creative process is to be in the process of change. We must lean into this and always be in the process, always be in the flow of change. I’m going to make another assumption: if you are reading this now, you are a creative person and a resourceful person. How many of us don’t have enough room on our business cards to write our true title because we are doing the job of five people?

Now I may joke, but this is a very real thing. At the Studio Museum we always say we are small, but mighty. To be small, while also doing big things, takes a certain level of creativity. Let’s tap into our innate creativity to be vehicles of change in our institutions and in our communities. As we make decisions that will impact the direction and the future of museums, let's consider creativity. There is so much value in this room today. We are rich. The creative energy when we gather together as museum professionals is abundant.

In the museum world, there needs to be a commitment to care, a responsibility to share knowledge, for it is these very principles that begin to create and build trust. All these elements are interconnected, woven into the very fabric and fibers of what it means to be in community. Museums are about community as much as they are about art, about preservation, and education.

In our commitment to care, we have a responsibility to share knowledge. The ways in which we share, and what we choose to share, is what builds trust, and creates spaces of inclusivity and representation. Creativity is the fuel that drives our change, it is, by definition, change. All these elements are what we should hold in our minds as we plan for the future of museums. This is the power of intentionality. The heart of museums for the Seventh Generation is moving with intention, and with care."

Building New Skills and New Interpretation at Sackets Harbor Battlefield State Historic Site

Tue, 24 May 2022 18:22:22 GMT

Sackets Harbor is recognized by the National Park Service as one of the most significant sites during the War of 1812 in the United States. Following the outbreak of war between the United States and Great Britain in June 1812, Sackets Harbor became the center of American naval and military activity for the upper St. Lawrence Valley and Lake Ontario. The Sackets Harbor Battlefield State Historic Site includes a dozen buildings, over 70 acres, and is interpreted to the public using exhibitions, outdoor signage, guided and self-guided tours, and a restored 1850s Navy Yard and Commandant’s house. Today, as part of an initiative led by Site Manager Connie Barone, staff and volunteers are working to highlight the voices of Black and Indigenous who fought in the War of 1812. They are focused on reaching local, national, and international audiences by applying new skills in video production and making those videos accessible across multiple platforms.

Sunset at the Navy Yard, behind Commandant’s House. Photo courtesy Sackets Harbor Battlefield State Historic Site

Cross-Border Collaboration

The Sackets Harbor Battlefield Historic Site has collaborated and partnered with Canadian entities for many years. When the US-Canada Border was closed during the pandemic, Sackets Harbor Battlefield staff collaborated with the United Empire Loyalists’ Association of Canada (UELAC) Bridge Annex as part of their 2021 virtual annual conference.

“The historic site has always had a good working relationship with our Canadian neighbors because of our shared military history,” said Barone. Barone encouraged more formal tours from places like the Royal Military College Kingston, Ontario, which had been conducting informal staff visits for years. The Sackets Harbor Battlefield site was also involved with the St. Lawrence International Partnership that began over 30 years ago to help attractions in the US and Canada collaborate. “It included museums, forts, aquariums, nature centers, and any type of cultural institution,” said Barone. “It was a very strong organization, we met every month, and organized cross-border visits.” This group dissolved, but the partnerships and collaborations continued including large-scale re-enactments leading up to the bicentennial of the War of 1812.

“In 2020, Sackets Harbor was supposed to host the annual War of 1812 North American Grand Tactical as the site had in 2010,” said Barone. “It would’ve included thousands of participants, reenactors, dozens of historians, and authors.” The event was canceled due to the pandemic. Over the last three years, the Battlefield site staff in collaboration with local re-enactors has offered smaller, outdoor programs. During the pandemic, Barone had the opportunity to participate and connect with other Canadian-based groups through Zoom presentations that furthered and sparked research initiatives to help tell a more diverse history of the historic site and to expand interpretation.

War of 1812 Bicentennial Crown Forces monument dedication 2013 with US, Canadian, and British military personnel and War of 1812 re-enactors

Expanding Interpretation

Barone began researching more about the history of Black soldiers at Sacker Harbor five years ago after coming across a newspaper article dated from the turn of the 20th century about the all-Black 24th regiment who left Texas in 1908, assigned to Sackets Harbor at Madison Barracks. Barone discovered that there was a Black soldier living on Hill Street with his family. “Hill Street is part of the historic site today. Archaeologists from Peebles Island (NYS Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation) have excavated the area to examine the site to learn more. They’ve done some wonderful archeological studies and I wanted to then learn more about the families that were living there and so this article prompted me again. I wanted to learn why this soldier was living here and not in Madison Barracks. It made me think, were there other Black soldiers living in this community and what did that mean? Were they segregated in certain neighborhoods? The village was just nine or ten streets with about 1200 people, so what is this story?”

During her research, Barone discovered more African American history in Sackets Harbor that covered multiple time periods including ties to abolitionist Gerrit Smith. “There were four Black men in Sackets Harbor given land by Smith. It led me to look at their histories through the census. I discovered that these families intermarried and one of the young men enlisted in during the Civil War and now we have his whole story.”

The NYS Museum recently opened a new exhibition, Timbuctoo: Gerrit Smith’s Experiment that focuses on the 1846 NYS law that required African American men to own $250 worth of property to vote. Smith, an abolitionist, gave away 120,000 acres of land in Essex and Franklin Counties to 3,000 free Black men, enabling them to vote. This exhibition is based on filmmaker Paul A. Miller’s documentary, Searching for Timbuctoo which tells the history of this forgotten settlement. The exhibition is on view in the Adirondack Hall until December 31, 2022.

Barone also credits her longstanding relationships with cross-border organizations like the Toronto Public Library that helped with this research. A Toronto librarian discovered a court case about Mr. Endicott, a Black man who lived in Sackets Harbor, left the area, traveled to the mid-west through the Great Lakes before the Civil War, and finally settled in St. Louis. In that court case Endicott described that “He was captured by an enslaver and he appealed to his friends back in Sackets Harbor to help free him and to prove that he was a Free Black man. The Toronto librarian sent us copies of all of the court case documents that we can use to tell his story.”

When the pandemic paused in-person collaborations, the conversations moved to Zoom and included a conference with Canadian historians and re-enactors.

“I joined a Zoom presentation with Natasha Henry, a historian, educator, and the President of the Ontario Black History Society. She was presenting information about early Black history in Toronto and mentioned a Mr. Baker who served in the War of 1812.” John Baker was a Canadian soldier enslaved, later freed, and then fought for the British Crown. Baker fought at the Second Battle of Sackets Harbor in 1813 when British forces tried and failed to capture the military center of operations. This battle is listed as one of the most significant battles of the War of 1812 by the National Park Service. Baker fought with the 104th Regiment of the British Crown Forces and is believed by researchers to be the last person born into slavery in Canada to die. “I had never heard of Mr. Baker and contacted Natasha after the Zoom. She was able to connect me to the United Empire Loyalists’ Association of Canada and its “Bridge Annex” chapter located in Cornwall, Ontario. “They had done extensive research on Mr. Baker and were working on a memorial to him.” The memorial marker was installed by the UELAC in 2021. “I reached out to see what our Sackets Harbor site staff could contribute and we decided to produce a video that could be shared at their conference.” The video was a brief overview of the Battle of Sackets Harbor and was filmed by Sackets Harbor site staff member Nicole Cronk with other staff, volunteers, and re-enactors narrating. Barone did the final interview at the Crown Forces monument that honors the members of the Crown Forces killed at the Second Battle of Sackets Harbor. The monument was dedicated in 2013 and was the first of two local monuments dedicated during the bicentennial. In 2019, in recognition for the collaborative work on the Crown Forces monument verifying names and raising funds, Barrone was presented the British Empire Medal for her work to British and Canadian soldiers who fought in the War of 1812.

“After working with the UELAC to honor Mr. Baker, it led me to continue to research other members of the Crown Forces that were Black or Indigenous. We’ve always known that the Oneida Nation played a huge role in the Battle of Sandy Creek which is about 30 miles [BC(4] away but at Sackets Harbor, we had no information about any Indigenous involvement until a couple of years ago when I discovered Moses Abram from the Oneida Nation in documents that spanned over 52 pages.” The documents describe Abram’s involvement in the battle fighting alongside US troops inside the basswood barracks. “It was the first record of an Indigenous person fighting alongside US soldiers here,” said Barone.

Building New Skills to Reach New Audiences

Barone and Cronk learned new production skills to reach local and international audiences through video and audio content, contributing to the UELA 2021 virtual conference. Sacket Harbor Battlefield State Historic Site is one of the 96 museums participating in “Building Capacity, Creating Sustainability, Growing Accessibility” project organized by MANY and funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services via a CARES Act grant to support museums in reaching their audiences digitally.

“It was very important for us and for museums, in general, to not be stagnant,” said Barone. “It’s important for us to move forward and to continue to connect with our constituents in order to be relevant. It’s about keeping history relevant and in the public eye and there are so many ways to do that.”

“Connie has shown great dedication to building new skills and advocating for her continued professional development,” said Eli McClain, Building Capacity Project Fellow for MANY. “In each session, Connie displays increased proficiency and confidence using new hardware like the iPad Pro and software like Adobe Premiere Rush, Google Workspace, and Facebook. It has been a pleasure working with Connie on Building Capacity and helping her leverage new technology to strengthen local, national, and international partnerships.”

Since joining the Building Capacity program, Barone has learned video production skills including editing with Adobe Premiere Rush. Other video content included highlighting staff work, site history, historic preservation efforts, and local community events.

“When we saw the call to apply for the Building Capacity program, it was very appealing…the idea of using technology that we didn’t have or readily available. It was also beneficial to collaborate with museums outside of state historic sites. These were the main reasons we wanted to participate. At the start of the pandemic, we were asking “how can we move forward, what do we do next, and what can we do differently?”

National Park Service–Sackets Harbor Battlefield State Historic Site video: https://www.nps.gov/media/video/view.htm%3Fid%3DAA187B03-7793-449C-8909-170CF05B546C

NY State Parks: Sackets Harbor Battlefield:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmIcv6gkMLE

A Virtual Tour of Grant-Related Historic Sites Around the United States [Sacket’s Harbor 6 min 20 seconds]: https://www.nps.gov/media/video/view.htm?id=B3C45CCE-F6AD-43A6-8003-211EABB044BA

NYSCA and MANY Award 102 Partnership Grants Across NYS for Capacity Building

Tue, 24 May 2022 13:07:10 GMT

More than $500,000 awarded to NYS Museums in all 10 REDC Regions

Troy, NY— The Museum Association of New York (MANY) in partnership with the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) awarded $500,981 to 102 grantees to assist New York museums with capacity building.

“We thank NYSCA for this partnership and this opportunity to rapidly distribute much-needed funding to New York’s museums,” said Erika Sanger, Executive Director, MANY.

This grant partnership with NYSCA was developed in direct response to the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and Partners for Public Good (PPG) study “Market Analysis and Opportunity Assessment of Museum Capacity Building Programs” report published in March 2021.

Capacity Building grants were awarded in amounts up to and including $5,000 to help museums respond to pandemic-related challenges, build financial stability, strengthen board and community engagement, update technology, support leadership, and change systems to address diversity, equity, access, inclusion, and justice. Awards were made to museums of all budget sizes and disciplines.

“The arts and culture sector is facing a multi-year recovery process after two years of unimaginable challenges,” said Mara Manus, Executive Director, NYSCA. “We are grateful to MANY for their stewardship of this opportunity that will ensure New York State museums continue to grow and thrive. We send our congratulations to all grantees on their awards.”

Several museums are using grant funding to support institutional DEAI work. In New York City, the Bronx Children’s Museum’s “Accessibility Now” project will expand the Museum’s reach to thousands of children and families with different physical and mental abilities by conducting a multi-day workshop for staff.

In Central NY, the Cayuga Museum of History and Art will work with the Executive Director of the Sing Sing Prison Museum and Director Emeritus of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History to update their permanent exhibition on the history of the Auburn Correctional Facility to include discussions of mass incarceration and the modern prison industrial complex.

Other awardees will update technology to strengthen their community engagement. The Thomas Cole National Historic Site in the Capital Region will update the technology required to present in-person and virtual talks with scholars, artists, and community leaders. The Museum plans on continuing to serve their broadened online audience developed during the pandemic.

In the North Country, the Lake Placid-North Elba Historical will use this grant to support leadership in updating the organization's strategic plan that will focus on developing goals and strategies to increase the institutional capacity and the historical society’s service to the community.

Partnership Grants for Capacity Building are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

View the full list of grants awarded.

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About the Museum Association of New York

The Museum Association of New York is the only statewide museum service organization with more than 700 member museums, historical societies, zoos, botanical gardens, and aquariums. MANY helps shape a better future for museums and museum professionals by uploifting best practices and building organizational capacity through advocacy, training, and networking opportunities. Visit www.nysmuseums.org and follow MANY on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn @nysmuseums

About the New York State Council on the Arts

The Council on the Arts preserves and advances the arts and culture that make New York State an exceptional place to live, work, and visit. The Council upholds the right of all New Yorkers to experience the vital contributions the arts make to our communities, education, economic development, and quality of life. Through its core grant-making activity, the Council on the Arts awarded more than $100 million in FY 2022. NYSCA's statewide grants program supports the visual, literary, media and performing arts and includes dedicated support for arts education and underserved communities.

The Council on the Arts further advances New York's creative culture by convening leaders in the field and providing organizational and professional development opportunities and informational resources. Created by Governor Nelson Rockefeller in 1960 and continued with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, the Council is an agency that is part of the Executive Branch. For more information on NYSCA, please visit http://www.arts.ny.gov, and follow NYSCA's Facebook page, Twitter @NYSCArts and Instagram @NYSCouncilontheArts

Statement from Terry Alford, Executive Director, Michigan Street African American Heritage Corridor Commission Regarding the Tragedy in Buffalo

Tue, 17 May 2022 17:35:48 GMT

The Museum Association of New York stands in solidarity with MANY Member Michigan Street African American Heritage Corridor Commission and shares the following statement from Executive Director Terry Alford regarding the May 14th tragedy in Buffalo, New York.

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Like so many of you, our hearts are very heavy today. Like the iconic Michigan Street African American Heritage Corridor, which serves as the connector of the past, present, and future for those historic neighborhoods within and beyond the City of Buffalo, Jefferson Avenue is celebrated as a cultural beacon of African American life. Long considered the “spine” of the Black community, Jefferson Ave. has been a place where many socio-and political movements successfully began and flourished.

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops,

Weakened by my soulful cries?

We must all stand steadfast and condemn the systemic and societal issues that led to this heinous act. We all must engage in honest discussions that unabashedly and unapologetically acknowledge the scourge of white supremacist hate groups that exists in every city, town, village, and hamlet across this nation and beyond. This terrible atrocity was committed by a weak, impressionable individual radicalized by a network of hate groups upon other people who look like me. However, we are not in the least defeated. We are a strong people emblematic of so many before us who despite the hardships and obstacles placed in their way simply because of the color of their skin, still possessed the resolve to rise above them all.

We cannot begin to express the amount of grief and pain all of us continue to feel. The African American community in Buffalo has for generations been a close-knit one. Many of us are close to someone directly impacted by this violent murderous act. We cry with those families who lost loved ones, but they will not be defined as victims but celebrated as beautiful, inspiring people who loved their families and their community.

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Advocacy News! Reach out to your Assemblymembers and NY State Senators Today

Tue, 10 May 2022 19:15:05 GMT

Dear Friends, Members, and Colleagues,

I am pleased to share the exciting news that A9710/S8934 “An act in relation to conducting a study of public and private museums in New York State” was reported out of the Assembly Economic Development Committee to the Assembly Ways and Means Committee earlier today.

MANY extends our thanks to Assemblymember Didi Barrett D-108 and Assemblymember Harry Bronson D-138 for their work on this bill and their efforts in support of all of New York’s Museums. We also extend our thanks Senator Jeremy A. Cooney D-56 for introducing the bill in the Senate.

With only nine days to go in the legislative session, your outreach could make a critical difference towards advancing the bill in the legislature.

We need you to reach out to your Assemblymembers and Senators today to ask them to sign on in support of the bill.

Not sure who represents you in the Assembly? You can find your Assemblymember here.

Need to find who represents you in the Senate? You can find your NYS Senator here.

Click here to download a template that can help you write to your Assemblymember.

Click here to download a template that can help you write to your Senator.

Download the PDF, insert the name of your legislative representative and the name of your museum. The PDF also has room for your electronic signature. Please feel free to edit/adapt the language to your museum and your community.

Thank you in advance for taking the time out of what I know is an incredibly busy day to reach out in support of this important bill that will help create an accurate and relevant picture of our state’s museums to inform policy making and grow public awareness of the missions, collections, audiences, and funding needs of New York State’s museums.

Sincerely,

Erika Sanger

2021 Annual Report

Wed, 27 Apr 2022 14:43:58 GMT

Letter from Erika Sanger and Brian Lee Whisenhunt

We are pleased to share this annual report and express our sincerest gratitude to our members, donors, and sponsors who helped us find spaces and places to gather, create, and support each other’s work in 2021. Together, we faced the challenges of operating in both virtual and in-person environments and treasured the rare moments where we could pause, assess our work, and share our achievements. We are pleased by the progress we made this past year and honored by the new partnerships we forged that will help us shape a better future for museums and museum professionals.

In 2021, we supported positive changes in the field, offered information based on facts, and stopped at every possible juncture to ensure that we included the voices of indigenous and people of color in our decision making. We continue our pledge to help move New York’s museums past “cobbling things together” and “stretching limited resources” to a place where museums thrive financially, serve their communities holistically, and enthusiastically welcome visitors from all corners of our state, our nation, and our world.

MANY’s virtual programming helped us reach museum professionals from 37 states, the District of Columbia, and eight other nations. The number of social media followers grew by 30 percent, the redesigned newsletter helped us increase member engagement, and people clicked on the MANY job board almost 64,000 times. We welcomed 371 colleagues from every county in our state to in-person programming. The joyful sound of people laughing together for the first time in two years will forever echo in our ears.

In June of 2021, the board began to develop a new strategic plan that will guide MANY’s operations from 2022 to 2026. We closed the year in a positive financial position despite setbacks – we did not hold an annual conference and incurred increased program costs by limiting attendance and taking measures to maintain safety in the face of the continuing COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, MANY had 679 members, a 5% increase from 2020. We raised $1.2M through six major grants that will allow us to directly impact the work of more than 400 museums by the end of June 2022.

State level advocacy efforts in 2021, led to Assemblymember Didi Barret (NY-106) introducing Assembly Bill Number A9710, “An act in relation to conducting a study of public and private museums in New York State.” The study will help inform public policy, increase financial support, and raise awareness of the importance of museums to our state’s communities and to the economy.

We remain optimistic for the future of our museums and continue to pledge our work towards a more equitable and inclusive field. We look forward to working with our new board officers and new board members and thank departing board members who dedicated hundreds of hours in service to the field during their time on the MANY board.

We are eager to explore the ways we can work together to build a stronger, more sustainable and relevant museum community – a community where everyone’s voices are held up together.

Sincerely,

Brian Lee Whisenhunt, President, MANY Board of Directors

Erika Sanger, Executive Director

Click here to read the 2021 Annual Report

Museum Association Announces New Board President and the Election of New and Returning Board Members

Tue, 26 Apr 2022 13:45:21 GMT

MANY Elects The Rockwell Museum Executive Director Brian Lee Whisenhunt as Board President and Announces New and Returning Board Members

Brian Lee Whisenhunt, Executive Director at The Rockwell Museum in Corning, NY has been elected MANY Board President

The Museum Association of New York (MANY) is pleased to announce the election of Brian Lee Whisenhunt, Executive Director of The Rockwell Museum as Board President. Whisenhunt joined MANY in April 2018 and has served as Program Chair and Vice President. He previously served on the board of the Mountain-Plains Museums Association and currently serves on the Museum Advisory Council of the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute.

“Working for the betterment of my community, whether the city in which I live or the professional group with whom I work, is a value I hold dear,” said Whisenhunt. “The opportunity to serve the New York museum community as President of the Board of Directors of MANY is a charge I am thrilled to undertake and honored to perform. Working with Erika Sanger, the MANY staff and Board of Directors as we continue to address the evolving needs of New York’s museums; the ongoing challenges of the pandemic; and the work on diversity, equity, accessibility and inclusion within the field.”

Whisenhunt worked in museum education for ten years before beginning his career as a museum director at the Swope Art Museum in Terre Haute, Indiana where he oversaw their successful accreditation by the American Alliance of Museums. Whisenhunt has also served as the Executive Director of the Museum of the Southwest in Midland, Texas where he led a $5.4 million renovation. He joined The Rockwell Museum in January 2017.

“I am looking forward to working with Brian to implement MANY’s new strategic plan, reshape board engagement, and plan for the next generation of board members,” said MANY Executive Director Erika Sanger. “We learned so much about the value of our museum association during the pandemic and under Brian’s leadership we will be able to take the products of those lessons to advance the organization and better serve museum professionals across the state.”

Whisenhunt is joined by a new Executive Committee with co-Vice Presidents Bruce Whitmarsh (Chemung County Executive Director and previous MANY Board Treasurer) and Dr. Georgette Grier-Key (Eastville Community Historical Society Executive Director and Chief Curator), Treasurer Marissa Wigglesworth (Buffalo Museum of Science, Tifft Nature Preserve President and CEO), and Secretary Diane Shewchuk (Albany Institute of History & Art Curator).

MANY is also pleased to announce the election of six new board members and the re-election of four to their second terms.

Newly elected board members are Victoria Reisman, Beth Ann Balalaos, Joshua Ruff, Samantha Hall-Saladino, Nick Martinez, and Dr. Callie Johnson. Alexandra Drakakis, Diane Shewchuk, Marissa Wigglesworth, and Becky Wehle were re-elected to their second terms, bringing the total number of board members to 25. MANY Board members serve three-year terms and represent museums of all disciplines, budget sizes, and geographic locations as well as partner industries in New York State.

“I’m ecstatic about the skills, perspectives, experience and talent the new members of MANY’s Board of Directors brings to our association,” said Whisenhunt. “As we continue to work through the current challenges and opportunities presented to our organization as well as the institutions we serve, I appreciate the willingness of our new Directors to contribute to the success of the museum community of New York.”

Victoria Reisman is a curator at the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation’s Bureau of Historic Sites based at Peebles Island Resource Center. She previously served as the curator of the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, where she produced 21 special exhibitions, developed a nationwide juried photography exhibition program, and created a grant-funded gallery space to highlight trophies from the collection. Her museum work experience includes internships in the Learning Services department at the Australian Museum (Sydney, Australia), the curatorial department at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (Sydney, Australia), and the Lehigh University Art Galleries. Reisman is a graduate of Lehigh University (Bachelor of Arts, Design Arts) and the University of Sydney (Master of Museum Studies).

Beth Ann Balalaos is the Access and Inclusion Manager at the Long Island Children’s Museum (LICM). Beth Ann joined the Education Department in 2014 as an intern and began managing the LICM’s IMLS funded "LICM4all" accessibility program in 2016. In this role, she oversees all aspects of accessibility and inclusivity within LICM such as Friendly Hours, Sensory Friendly Performances, the LICM4all App, staff sensitivity training, adapting and creating programming, ADA Compliance, and exhibit modifications. Beth Ann is part of LICM’s Cultural Competence Learning Institute Committee. She has developed and facilitated LICM’s first programming that focuses on the LGBTQIA Community and established its Diversity, Equity, Access and Inclusion Team.

Joshua Ruff is the Deputy Director and Director of Collections & Interpretation at the Long Island Museum of American Art, History & Carriages, in Stony Brook. He is a graduate of Syracuse University with BAs in Broadcast Journalism and in History, and Stony Brook University with a MA in History. He has worked at the Long Island Museum for 24 years including as Curator of its History and Carriage Collections. He has curated more than 60 exhibitions, including, most recently, Fire & Form: New Directions in Glass (2021). In addition to co-authoring several books and exhibition catalogs, his articles have appeared in publications including Magazine Antiques; American Art Review; New York Archives Magazine; American History magazine.

Samantha Hall-Saladino is the Executive Director of the Fulton County Historical Society in Gloversville and serves as the Fulton County Historian. She received her Bachelor’s Degree in History and English from Russell Sage College and a Masters in Museum Studies from the University of New Hampshire. Over the past decade, Samantha has worked with museums across the Capital Region and along the seacoast of New Hampshire, including Strawbery Banke, the American Independence Museum, and the Albany County Historical Association at Ten Broeck Mansion. She serves as a member of the Board of Directors for the Association of Public Historians of NYS (APHNYS) and the Sacandaga Valley Arts Network (SVAN).

Nick Martinez is an educator, producer, podcaster, and activist, from New York City with over a decade of experience working at the intersections of museum education, youth, and workforce development, mentoring, and science. His passion is to engage and support BIPOC to pursue interests and careers in science and develop strategies for the promotion of diversity, equity, and inclusion in traditionally non-inclusive spaces. He began his museum career as an undergraduate intern at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in the Museum Education and Employment Program, designing and leading tours of museum halls for visiting school and camp groups. After graduation, he returned to AMNH as an internship supervisor, helping to supervise the new cohort of college interns, and was later hired to teach genetics, human evolution, and neuroscience in the Hall of Human Origins Teaching Lab, first as a Lab Facilitator and then in a full-time role as the Coordinator of the Lab. He is currently Senior Manager of Youth Initiatives and manages Middle and High School programs, Internship experiences, and Alumni Engagement. He also leads recruitment, community-building, and partnership efforts to increase diversity and promote equity and inclusivity across Youth Programs at the AMNH.

Dr. Callie Johnson is an award-winning marketing, communications, and nonprofit leadership executive. At the Albright-Knox, Dr. Johnson serves in an executive role stewarding the rebranding of America’s sixth oldest art museum, which is in the process of becoming the Buffalo AKG Art Museum. Dr. Johnson is the former Executive Vice President of Marketing for Girl Scouts of Western New York and a current member of the Forbes Communications Council, an invitation-only community for executives in communications, marketing, and public relations. She is the winner of two Buffalo Business First awards—40 Under 40 and 30 Under 30 —for making a difference both on the job and in the community. She is a Buffalo Niagara 360 Spotlight Professional for her career success and her commitment to strengthening the Buffalo Niagara region. She was awarded three Girl Scouts of Western New York Finance Certificates of Accomplishment and a Commitment to Excellence Award.

Diane Shewchuk was elected Board Secretary. Previous Board Secretary Becky Wehle (Genesee Country Village & Museum President and CEO) will Chair the Membership and Fundraising Committee. Emily Martz (Great Camp Sagamore Executive Director) will Chair the Advocacy Committee and Clifford Laube (Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum Public Program Specialist) and Natalie Stetson (Erie Canal Museum Executive Director) will co-chair the Program Committee. Eliza Kozlowski (George Eastman Museum Senior Director of Marketing & Engagement) will continue to Chair the Marketing Committee.

Suzanne LeBlanc (Long Island Children’s Museum President) will serve on the board for a one-year term as Past President.

See below for the full list of MANY board members.

Beth Ann Balalaos, Access and Inclusion Manager, Long Island Children’s Museum

Rob Cassetti, Creative Strategist, Luckystone Partners

Mariano Desmarás, Creative Director, Museum Environments

Alexandra Drakakis, Chief Acquisitions Curator, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Michael Galban, Historic Site Manager and Curator, Seneca Art & Culture Center, Ganondagan State Historic Site

Georgette Grier-Key, Executive Director and Chief Curator, Eastville Community Historical Society

Samantha Hall-Saladino, Executive Director, Fulton County Historical Society

Peter Hyde, Owner, Peter Hyde Design

Dr. Callie Johnson, Director of Communications & Community Engagement, Albright-Knox Gallery (Buffalo AKG Art Museum)

Theodore K. Johnson, President & CEO, Hadley Exhibits Inc.

Eliza Kozlowski, Senior Director of Marketing & Engagement, George Eastman Museum

Clifford Laube Ex Officio, Public Program Specialist, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum

Denise Lewis, Chief Financial Officer, Museum of Arts and Design

Suzanne LeBlanc, Past President, President, Long Island Children’s Museum

Nick Martinez, Senior Manager of Youth Initiatives, American Museum of Natural History

Emily Martz, Executive Director, Great Camp Sagamore

Melinda McTaggart, Director, Schoharie County Historical Society and Old Stone Fort Museum

Victoria Reisman, Curator, Bureau of Historic Sites, NYS Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation

Joshua Ruff, Deputy Director/ Director of Collections & InterpretationLong Island Museum of American Art, History & Carriages

Diane Shewchuk, Curator, Albany Institute of History & Art

Natalie Stetson, Executive Director, Erie Canal Museum

Becky Wehle, President/CEO, Genesee Country Village & Museum

Brian Lee Whisenhunt, Executive Director, The Rockwell Museum

Bruce Whitmarsh, Executive Director, The Chemung County Historical Society

Marisa Wigglesworth, President and CEO, Buffalo Museum of Science, Tifft Nature Preserve

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About MANY

The Museum Association of New York helps to shape a better future for museums and museum professionals by uplifting best practices and building organizational capacity through advocacy, training, and networking opportunities. Visit www.nysmuseums.org and follow MANY on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn @nysmuseums

MANY Board Spotlight: Suzanne LeBlanc

Wed, 30 Mar 2022 17:21:47 GMT

Suzanne LeBlanc has served as the Museum Association of New York’s Board President since 2018 and has spent her career working in children’s museums. Prior to joining the Long Island Children’s Museum (LICM) in 2005, she served in leadership positions at children’s museums in Boston, Brooklyn, and Las Vegas.

Most recently, LeBlanc has been an award recipient of the Premier Business Women of Long Island and Nassau County’s Women of Distinction. She was also chose as on e of the “50 Most Influential Businesswomen of Long Island” by Long Island Business News. She’s been a member of the Community Advisory Council of the Junior League and the Early Years Institute Advisory Committee. In November 2012, she received the National Medal for Museum and Library Service at the White House on behalf of the Long Island Children’s Museum for “Together to Kindergarten” a community-focused initiative for Spanish and Haitian-speaking immigrant families.

LICM recently earned accreditation by the American Alliance of Museums; one of only 16 children’s museums in the country to achieve this recognition and the only CHildren’s Museum in NY currently accredited.

LeBlanc earned her MA in Counseling Psychology from Lesley College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a BS in Journalism and Photojournalism from the School of Public Communication at Boston University. Her work has been published in museum journals, she consults, teaches, and presents at conferences.

As Suzanne concludes her tenure as President of MANY’s Board of Directors, we spoke with her to learn more about how she entered the museum field, what excites her about museum work, and more.

Long Island Children’s Museum President Suzanne LeBlanc celebrates accreditation from the American Alliance of Museums

MANY: What was your first museum experience?

Suzanne LeBlanc: When I was in elementary school, the only museum field trip that we went on was to the Christian Science Center in Boston. Their museum had a mapparium where you crossed the room on a suspended walkway with a backlit globe all around you, and I think that's where I got my interest in the whole museum world. It was my first exposure to museums.

What was the museum experience that made you think about entering the profession?

As of this past January, I’ve worked in the field for 48 years. I went to Boston University and majored in Communications and Photo Journalism. I saw Michael Spock, the son of Dr. Benjamin Spock and one of the first creators of interactivity in children’s museums, being interviewed on one of the television morning news programs. He was also the director of the Boston Children’s Museum. I found it interesting and I had never been to a children’s museum so I visited and ended up doing a photo essay on the museum. I heard that the museum offered a three-month internship, I applied, was accepted and after I graduated, I interned at the Boston’s Children’s Museum. At the time, the museum was just a Victorian house, it was small but had a large reputation. It’s the second oldest children’s museum in the world, founded in 1913 by the Science Teachers’ Bureau.

There were a couple of people there who really inspired me and who saw something in me and wanted me to stay, so I stayed. I never studied museums and I never intended on working in museums or even imagined it, but it’s something that I love.

I worked there for fifteen years, and while I was there I debated whether or not I wanted to be a director. I learned about the then Museum Management Institute that the J. Paul Getty Trust funded (it used to be a month-long residency program), applied and was accepted. It ended up being very critical to my early museum career because I was exploring what I wanted to do. It was taught by business professors from Harvard and Stanford, but every week they had a nationally-known museum professional in residence who would direct the conversations towards museums and host office hours. This was really the only formal training for museums that I had. Everything else I learned through working my way up from my internship position.

I left Boston to take the position of Associate Director at the Brooklyn Children’s Museum and when their director left for eight weeks, I was named Acting Director. Then I was recruited to go to the Lied Discovery Children’s Museum in Las Vegas (now DISCOVERY Children’s Museum) as the Executive Director and following that, was recruited to come to the Long Island Children’s Museum. That’s my trajectory and it’s been a fun and exciting one. I’ve probably done almost every museum job.

Can you tell us about where you grew up? What was it like growing up there?

I grew up in Salem Massachusetts which is about 25 miles north of Boston, and had a large French Canadian population. It’s on the water and very historic. I went to Catholic schools through high school and grew up with eight brothers and sisters as the oldest. When I was fourteen we had to move into a larger house, but really couldn’t afford it so we also rented rooms to eight college students. People were everywhere! Truthfully, growing up there as a kid I mostly knew French Canadian Catholics and reading was sort of my way out into the world. At the time, Salem State College was a one-building teacher’s college and my father used to say that one of these days that place is going to take over. Today it’s Salem University. And of course, there is the history that’s associated with the Salem Witch Trials. When I was growing up it wasn’t that big of a deal but now every Halloween about 250,000 people from all over the world come. It’s a major event with historic, touristy and Wiccan themes. It’s a very different place now then when I was growing up but it’s more aligned with the places I like to live now – more culturally diverse, more arts activities, and more variety of restaurants.

In high school, I would visit the Peabody Essex Museum which was probably my first traditional museum visit. I was interested in their Japanese collections and when I was an intern at the Boston Children’s Museum, my major area of focus was their Japanese Home. My interest in cultures developed there.

Would your 18-year old self imagine that you would be where you are today?

At first, I thought, absolutely not. I grew up in a family that varied from poor to working class, and hardly anyone in my family went to college. I loved school and reading and I was intent on going to college. I had worked two summers at a factory to save money and at the time I wasn’t thinking of college as leading to a profession, but I was just excited about the opportunity to learn more. I certainly never thought that I would end up as a museum director which now feels like it really fits me, but wasn’t something my 18-year-old self would imagine.

What other experiences in your career have you found most helpful for your role now?

Professionally what’s helped me was early on in my career at the Boston Children’s Museum, I was given responsibilities like budgeting and supervising. I found these responsibilities extremely helpful. At the Brooklyn Children's Museum, as their Associate Director, I worked with their board, attending meetings, and that introduced me to the director and board relationship.

From my education, I have a communications degree which I've found helpful as I work with stakeholders, board, staff, and funders. I also have a masters degree in counseling psychology which broadened my people skills. I’ve worked at fairly large museums with many staff members so that degree helped in all the critical interpersonal skills.

In doing so many jobs, I really understand how hard people work which I think is helpful from entry-level to the very top. I think a lot of directors come into the field as directors, but I’ve worked my way up and I try to tell new staff that story.

I adopted my daughter Tara when she was 16 and volunteering at the Children’s Museum in Las Vegas when I worked there. She is now 42, a speech pathologist and living in Wales with her wife Aimee and adopted daughter Aimee. It is the most amazing and wonderful gift from my career.

What are some of your biggest motivations to do what you do? What gets you excited about your role at the Long Island Children’s Museum?

I love working for an institution. In terms of my role, I like thinking about the big vision and helping to bring it about even if it takes a long time. I really love seeing staff grow and being a mentor. I’ve had some amazing mentors and I love mentoring others. I look at our museum as not just a learning place for visitors, but for staff as well, so I try to provide as many opportunities for that and when I can do that, it really feels like I am accomplishing something important.

Our community initiatives are highlights of my work. One program that gets me very excited is a program called “Together to Kindergarten” for immigrant families with children about to enter kindergarten. We recently hired someone who is now at Hofstra University who was in our program maybe thirteen years ago and she is now coming to work at the museum and will work in that program. She wrote a testimonial on how important that experience had been for her and also for her family who went on and supported her love of education. That’s the kind of thing that makes you cry, seeing that impact because sometimes you don’t get to see that as people come and go in a museum.

I’ve gotten really good at helping to gain national recognition for the museums I’ve worked at. I think that came from when I went to the DISCOVERY Children’s Museum in Las Vegas there were some comments from my colleagues at the time asking are there really museums in Las Vegas? So I thought that I’m going to put this museum on the map and worked hard to get state and federal funding including funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). I did the same thing for the Long Island Children’s Museum including the National Medal for Museum and Library Services, which is the highest honor for libraries and museums that are serving their communities in exceptional ways. [The Long Island Children’s Museum received the National Medal in 2012 at the White House for “Together to Kindergarten” a community-focused initiative for Spanish and Haitian-speaking immigrant families.]

Accepting the National Medal for Museum and Library Services at the White House

What are some of your goals for the museum?

One major goal that I’ve tried to accomplish and that we keep getting stopped by financial downturns is a capital campaign expansion into the airplane hangar building next door to us. The first delay was during the global financial crisis in 2008 and then there was another setback during Hurricane Sandy. Then I thought the third time's the charm and we were ready to go with architects, exhibits were planned, the county was ready with funding, and then the pandemic hit.

I’m starting to pick it back up again, and in the meantime we’ve added new exhibitions and redesigned others, but part of this campaign was to do a number of new major exhibitions. We plan to do an exhibition about immigration on Long Island. We resarched this five years ago as part of our strategic plan and we found that 18% of people living on Long Island were immigrants.

For the expansion into Hangar Five (an old airplane hangar adjacent to the LI Children’s Museum), we were going to move our non-public spaces there to create more room for exhibitions in our current facility. But getting new exhibitions is exciting and this capital campaign expansion is still something I am sure we will accomplish.

Can you describe a favorite day on the job?

I have a lot of meetings. Sometimes they’re on the more tedious side and sometimes they’re more productive, where we’re solving a problem or ideas are flowing. So a really good meeting where we’re getting someplace and then having time to really think it through and follow up on it is especially good.

I also like to take the time to walk around on the museum floor, especially after a bad day to be reminded of what impact you’re having and how much fun people are having.

I like noise around me, maybe because I grew up in a large family and had a lot of people around me, so even though I’m good at business, I don’t think that I would do really well in a regular corporate-like environment. I like having people around me with creative ideas.

Add-a-Dot Art Installation at the LICM in 2018 –a collaborative art-making experience

What is your superpower?

We’ve been getting IMLS funding every year for years and one of the things that I like to do and that I’m good at is listening to people in meetings and understanding what people want to do and thinking about what will move this museum forward with IMLS funding or other funding sources. And then conceptualizing that idea, bring people together to make it happen. I usually am not part of projects from start to end, but I’m okay with that. I’ll stay on in an advisory capacity but I don’t have to take the project from beginning to end. I do think that’s important in this role. You have to be okay with understanding your role as an Executive Director.

My first thought was my people skills, working with staff and board members and outside stakeholders. This leads to my abilities in creating a work culture that people thrive in.

During the pandemic, one of my staff told me that I am good in a crisis. I do think I’ve been good at navigating crisis situations for this time and previous ones as well.

It was interesting when the pandemic started because we were in the middle of accreditation with the American Alliance of Museums and I decided to keep going. We had already put a lot of time into it, we’d worked on it for about a year and a half. We accomplished being accredited for the first time and it ended up being a nice team-building project and something very thrilling to accomplish in the midst of the pandemic.

Do you have any key mentors or someone who has deeply influenced you? Can you tell me about them?

My most important mentor is Elaine Heumann Gurian who was the Director of the Visitor Center at the Boston Children’s Museum. I really believe that if I hadn’t worked for her, I wouldn’t have stayed in museum work. She was incredibly inspiring and I would hang on her every word. I wanted to work with her. So I stayed after my internship. At first, I was her executive assistant and truthfully I had no skills in that area, but I taught myself how to type and I would write her letters. She would say “write them how I would talk but make sure they are correct”. I would do budget work, lead meetings, I did a lot and she trusted me. She’s always been supportive of me and my career. She went on to work at the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Now she does international consulting.

Michael Spock was inspirational to me in a different way. He was an example of always having where you wanted to go on your radar even if it was going to take you a long time to get there and he had the patience to stay with it and get it to happen. Moving the museum [Boston Children’s Museum] from a Victorian house to the waterfront was his goal and took a long time.

Elaine and Michael had very different styles and approaches but I think of them both as my mentors.

There is another person who wasn’t necessarily a mentor but when I was trying to decide whether or not I wanted to be a director, her words inspired me. She was Bernice Johnson Reagon, who was a curator at the Smithsonian and also the founder of Sweet Honey in the Rock, an acapella group comprised of Black women.

When Elaine went to the Smithsonian, she knew that I was shy about speaking in public, but also knew that I needed to develop that skill to move forward. She told people at the Smithsonian to get me as a speaker. Bernice Johnson Reagan asked me to speak at one of their conferences. and when she was introducing the conference she said if you want to make a difference in the world, get yourself in a position of power. That stuck with me and it helped lead to my decision to become a director, but it also stuck with me in that I was meeting a lot of young people of color who felt like they didn’t have enough say in community outreach roles, so I would ask if they ever thought about being a director and encouraged them to think about it. I’ve tried throughout my career to try to be a mentor to others, as others have to me.

What have you appreciated the most during your time as MANY Board President?

I joined MANY before it merged with MuseumWise. At the time, I didn’t know much about the rest of the state. By joining MANY and being in a leadership role I’ve gotten to learn about the many different museums across the state, and worked with a wonderful variety of museum professionals. It’s something I’ve loved.

It’s been rewarding to see MANY grow from the beginning and be a true service to the field, especially during the pandemic. It’s great to be part of an organization that has helped so many museums.

Letter From Erika: Data-Driven Decision Making, A Call to Advocate for NYS Museums

Wed, 30 Mar 2022 16:56:11 GMT

Dear Members, Friends, and Supporters,

If I had a personal FAQ sheet, “How many museums are there in New York State?” would be at the top of the list. Believe it or not, it is a hard question to answer. MANY uses 1,400 as an estimate, but I have learned that to be an effective advocate and to counter inaccurate, commonly held beliefs and perceptions, we need to use precise and relevant data about who we are, who we serve, and what funds make our work possible.

The second FAQ would be, “What is next in MANY’s statewide advocacy agenda?” I am pleased to announce that on March 28th Assembly Member Didi Barrett (District 106 Dutchess/Columbia) introduced Assembly Bill Number A9710, “An act in relation to conducting a study of public and private museums in New York State.” The intent of the study is to identify and collect data about all museums in the state including information on size, hours of operation, visitor statistics, funding sources and amounts, and the subjects of the museums' collections. It will provide information and recommendations to the legislature about the adequacy of public and private funding sources.

The proposed study will inform policymaking and improve public awareness of the museums throughout our State. It will help identify the benefits, shortfalls, and consequences of the different sources of support for museums. The study will recommend systems of support to best ensure equitable distributions of funds regardless of discipline, budget size, or location.

AM Barrett’s Sponsor Memo recognizes how museums are inextricably linked to New York State’s identity, economy, and history, that too many of us operate hand to mouth, struggle to pay our bills, and wonder each year how we will keep our doors open.

The memo also recognizes that we need assistance to ensure the protection of our collections and to strengthen our roles as educators and community anchors.

Your responses to our State of NYS Museums and COVID-19 impact surveys helped us get attention and support for museum relief funding over the past two years. Now we need you to reach out to your Assembly Members and ask them to sponsor Assembly Bill Number A9710, “An act in relation to conducting a study of public and private museums in New York State.” Please let them know how important this new legislation is to the future of New York’s museums and ask them to email Jacob Scofield, jscofield@nyassembly.gov and indicate their preference to sponsor.

Not sure who represents you? Click here to find your Assembly Member.

I know your days are as jam-packed as mine and I extend my thanks in advance for making the time to reach out to your legislative representative and ask for their support of this bill.

Sincerely,

Erika Sanger

Museum Association of New York Announces 2022 Awards of Merit

Wed, 16 Mar 2022 21:28:26 GMT

Ten Awards of Merit will be presented at the 2022 Annual Conference in Corning, NY

Troy, NY — The Museum Association of New York (MANY) is pleased to announce the 2022 Awards of Merit recipients. Awards of Merit will be presented as part of the 2022 Annual Conference Envisioning Our Museums for the Seventh Generation at the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, NY on Monday, April 11 at 12 PM.

Awards of Merit recognize outstanding and innovative programs, staff and volunteers who have enriched New York State museums with new and remarkable projects. This year, the review committee reviewed over 50 nominations and awarded ten recipients in six categories.

The Anne Ackerson Innovation in Leadership Award recognizes a board member or staff leader that saw their organization through a critical challenge or significant opportunity in a creative, effective manner. This year, Brenda Simmons, Founder and Executive Director of the Southampton African American Museum, recieves this year’s most prestigious award. “Brenda is truly a force of nature who has demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to inclusion and the African American community on the East End of Long Island,” said Assemblymember Fred W. Thiele. Members of the review committee noted her leadership and tireless work makes her a worthy recipient of the Anne Ackerson Innovation in Leadership Award and is an inspiration to the museum field.

The Award of Merit for Individual Achievement recognizes devoted staff or volunteers who are instrumental in moving their organizations forward over a sustained period. This year, the Individual Achievement was awarded to Melissa Dunlap for her incredible 30 year career as Curator and Executive Director of the Niagara County Historical Society. Over the course of her 30 year career, Dunlap increased the number of permanent staff, increased the historical society’s operating budget, reorganized the archives, increased school tours, led two major capital campaigns, relocated the historical society–including building a new gallery space and redesigning exhibition spaces. The committee applauded her dedication and leadership that supported and grew the Niagara County Historical Society.

The Rising Star Award recognizes a museum professional who is under the age of 35 and currently employed at a cultural institution. The Rising Star displays creative thinking and inspired institutional change. This years’ RIsing Star is Mary Tsaltas-Ottomanelli, Special Programs & Engagement Manager at the Fraunces Tavern Museum. Mary’s investigation into visitor interests, her detailed research, and the stories she chooses to tell have pushed the Museum to collectively reexamine how they interpret their collection and to think strategically about the stories the Museum chooses to tell. Her work inspired others to share the lesser-known stories found in the Museum’s collection and she is a champion for diverse narratives.

The Excellence in Design Award recognizes an exhibition produced by a cultural institution that articulates content through engaging design and creates a satisfying visitor experience. This year, the committee awarded the Museum of Arts and Design’s Story Makers: Burke Prize 2021, an interactive exhibition that highlights 16 finalists and winners of the Museum's Burke Prize, which honors excellence in contemporary craft. The review committee was impressed by the multimedia interactive website and how this reimagines the exhibition experience for a digital audience.

The Innovation in Collections Access Award recognizes exemplary projects that broaden access, preserve, and catalog museum and heritage organization collections. This year the committee recognizes Digital Carpet Restoration for Historic House Access at Frederic Church’s Olana. This project sought a creative solution to the restoration and preservation of the rugs owned and used by the Church family. Olana staff utilized high-resolution photography and digital printing to produce highly accurate reproductions of historic flooring and carpeting materials printed on a rubber-backed material that provides a protective layer against visitor traffic. The review committee was impressed by the innovative use of technology to offer authentic visitor experiences and promote long-term conservation of collection assets. Olana State Historic Site is one of the first instiutitions in the United States to use this technology alongside Mount Vernon and Geroge Mason’s Gunston Hall.

The Engaging Communities Award recognizes organizations that use creative methods to engage its community and build new audiences. Projects can include collections interpretation, exhibitions, lecture series, educational or public programs, focus groups, strategic planning, or other community engagement efforts. This award is given to organizations based on the size operating budget.

Volunteer- $100,000

Standing on their Shoulders: 101 Years of Voting and Still Marching for Women’s Rights – Historical Society of Woodstock

Based on the campaigns of two early US women’s rights workers as documented by their Woodstock-related descendants, this was the final exhibition in the Historical Society’s yearlong women’s rights centennial series “Standing on their Shoulders,” a project made possible by a grant from Humanities New York with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities. This exhibition included early 20th century photographs and artifacts with interactive videos and music. It highlighted the social justice work of Elisabeth Freeman (1876-1942) and Edna Kearns (1882-1934) whose activism and use of horse-drawn wagons as campaign plaforms inspired generations.

$100,000-$500,000

A Visual Dialogue on Environmental Issues –Long Island Explorium

Long Island Explorium partnered with Stony Brook University’s Department of Art students to curate a digital art exhibition “A Visual Dialogue on Environmental Issues.” This exhibition focused on the balance of local community needs fueled with artistic insight on environmental justice. It also encouraged innovative multi-disciplinary artistic exploration by individual artists that expressed how the arts and new media can propose solutions to environmental issues and create alternatives that support sustainability and climate justice, fostering cooperation and an exchange of ideas.

$500,000-$1,000,000

Jupiter Hammon Project –Preservation Long Island

The Jupiter Hammon Project is a major, long-term initiative focused on developing a more relevant and equitable interpretation of the life, literature, and world of Jupiter Hammon (1711- ca. 1806) and the other individuals enslaved at Joseph Lloyd Manor, one of Presevation Long Island’s four historic properties. While enslaved at the Manor, Jupiter Hammon wrote powerfully about the social and moral conflicts slavery raised in the newly formed United States, becoming one of our country’s earliest published Black authors. Preservation Long Island hosted three public roundtable discussions over Zoom with nearly 700 total attendees that brought together scholars and professionals to explore the legacy of slavery on Long Island via the life and work of Jupiter Hammon. The public’s response to the scholarly information presented in the roundtables will shape the interpretation of Jupiter Hammon’s story.

$1,000,000-$5,000,000

Tomashi Jackson: The Land Claim – Parrish Art Museum

Tomashi Jackson is a multidisciplinary artist working across painting, textiles, sculpture, and video to place formal and material investigations in dialogue with recent histories of displacement and disenfranchisement of people of color, resulting in formalist compositions of exuberant color, bold geometries, and intricate layerings of material. In 2021, Jackson was invited by the Parrish Art Museum as part of their annual project series for artists to consider the entire Museum as a site for workers that transcend disciplinary boundaries, encouraging new ways to experience art, architecture, landscape, and community. Tomashi Jackson: The Land Claim focused on the historic and contemporary lived experiences of Indigenous, Black, and Latinx families on the East End of Long Island, and how issues of housing, transportation, livelihood, migration, and agriculture link these communities.

Over $5,000,000

GATHER: Conversations led by Black & Indigenous Changemakers – Guild Hall of East Hampton

Devised specifically for community leaders, services workers, teachers, and developers, GATHER: Conversations led by Black & Indigenous Changemakers platforms the voices and experiences of BIPOC scholars, artists, and leaders, providing both lessons on our past histories and strategies and examples of how to progress forward together. The July 2021 GATHER series was programmed in tandem with the Guild Hall exhibition, “Alexis Rockman: Shipwrecks, platforming indigenous experiences, traditions, and histories with our waterways and systems.” The four events were led by Jeremy Dennis, artist and tribal member of the Shinnecock Indian Nation, Anthony Madonna, Guild Hall’s Patti Kenner Senior Associate for Learning and Public Engagement, and a rotating panel of historians, artists, and/or leaders of the Hamptons, including Roddy Smith, Andrina Wekontash Smith, Tecumseh Ceaser, Chief Harry Wallace, Dr. Georgette Grier-Key, Donnamarie Barnes, and Skip Finley.

The Award Ceremony will take place at 12 PM on Monday, April 11 at the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, NY. Photo opportunities will be available. For further information please contact meves@nysmuseums.org or 518-273-3400.

Museum Association of NY Executive Director Erika Sanger Awarded Advocacy Leadership Award from the American Alliance of Museums

Mon, 07 Mar 2022 22:11:42 GMT

The Museum Association of New York (MANY) is pleased to announce that Executive Director Erika Sanger was awarded an Advocacy Leadership Award from the American Alliance of Museums during Museums Advocacy Day 2022. These awards are presented to advocates who have demonstrated exemplary leadership in their advocacy for the museum field.

“[Erika’s] tireless work to represent New York museums at all levels of government, cultivating deep and meaningful relationships with legislators, is a true model for the museum field,” said Laura Lott, President & CEO for the American Alliance of Museums. Lott cited Sanger’s years of capitalizing on opportunities to speak up for museums. She is a trusted resource and a highly knowledgeable representative of the New York museum community. Her advocacy work throughout the pandemic helped museums receive $3 billion in federal relief funding over two years that saved jobs, programs, and museums from closure.

“Erika Sanger brings a wonderful passion and commitment to leading and representing New York State museums at all levels of government, working tirelessly to cultivate deep and meaningful relationships with legislators. We applaud Erika’s proactive leadership to ensure that New York museums are seen and heard, and in supporting the large and diverse Museums Advocacy Day delegation from New York.”

“Congratulations to Erika Sanger on her Advocacy Leadership Award! I applaud her tireless work in advocacy of museums in New York and across the country,” said Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer. “We thank her for her dedication to strengthening and protecting museums which are vital pillars of cultural strength and community.”

“New York’s museums are world-class cultural institutions, attracting visitors from around the world, providing vital educational programming, and serving as cornerstones of their communities,” said Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. “In the face of the many challenges museums have faced throughout the pandemic, Erika Sanger has worked tirelessly to advocate on their behalf. I congratulate her on this well-deserved award and look forward to continuing to work with her, the Museum Association of New York, and the American Alliance of Museums to ensure that our state and nation’s museums have the resources they need to thrive.”

“I want to offer my congratulations to MANY’s Executive Director Erika Sanger, who has been awarded an Advocacy Leadership Award from the American Alliance of Museums,” said Rep. Antonio Delgado (NY-19). “Erika's tireless advocacy to support the arts and keep museums funded enriches our communities and helps ensure that these museums may be enjoyed by folks for years to come. I look forward to continuing this work alongside Erika and other advocates at MANY and AAM to support our museums and the local arts.”

“I am honored to be recognized for my advocacy work on behalf of all of our museums. Museums are places where people share cultural experiences that define our communities, our state, and our nation,” said Sanger. “These valuable economic contributors, community anchors, and education partners are struggling to find stability in the wake of the pandemic. The Museum Association of New York is working hard to amplify the contributions they make to our communities and their need for state and federal financial support.”

MANY Executive Director Erika Sanger with Congressman Antonio Delgado (NY-19) and Hudson River Maritime Museum Executive Director Lisa Cline at the Smithsonian Museum on Main Street Water/Ways traveling exhibition in 2019

About Erika Sanger

Erika Sanger joined the Museum Association of New York in 2016. She is the leading ambassador and advocate for museums and cultural institutions in New York State. Sanger is recognized as an innovative professional who leads projects from vision to funding, from implementation to evaluation, and from community engagement to fiscal accountability. She is a highly effective administrator, an inspiring educator, and an engaging speaker. Her expertise in the interpretation of material culture is complemented by a commitment to build public engagement in the diversity of our shared histories.

Sanger gained her extensive experience in museums through positions held at renowned institutions including the International Center of Photography, the Jewish Museum, the New-York Historical Society, the Brooklyn Museum, the Albany Institute of History & Art, and the Asheville Art Museum in Asheville, NC. She served as Director of Development at Penland School of Crafts in Western North Carolina, where she participated in the design and implementation of campaigns for capital and endowment funds. Programs produced under her direction have received funding from state and federal agencies, including the Institute for Museum and Library Services and the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities.

Sanger holds a B.F.A. from Clark University, in Worcester, MA, and an M.A. from New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.

About MANY

About the American Alliance of Museums

The American Alliance of Museums (AAM) is the only organization representing the entire museum field, from art and history museums to science centers and zoos. Since 1906, AAM has been championing museums through advocacy and providing museum professionals with the resources, knowledge, inspiration, and connections they need to move the field forward. AAM’s Alliance of 35,000 museums and museum professionals seeks to better our communities, and our world, through collaborative human-centered experiences, education, and connection to histories, cultures, the natural world, and one another. For more information, visit www.aam-us.org.

MANY Board Spotlight: Brian Lee Whisenhunt

Mon, 28 Feb 2022 13:20:55 GMT

Brian Lee Whisenhunt has worked in art education and museums for more than twenty years and more than anything enjoys connecting people with art. He served as the Director of Education at the Wichita Art Museum in Kansas and was the inaugural manager of public programs for the Blanton Museum of Art in Texas when it opened in 2006. He then became the Executive Director of the Swope Art Museum in Terre Haute, Indiana where he oversaw their successful reaccreditation by the American Alliance of Museums, and then the Executive Director of the Museum of the Southwest in Midland, Texas where he led a $5.4M renovation and the celebration of its 50th anniversary.

Whisenhunt joined The Rockwell Museum in Corning in January 2017. Since then, he has been diversifying the collection to reflect the museum’s new focus on art about the American experience while working to increase overall attendance to the museum, its programs, and events. He joined the MANY Board in April 2018 and has served as Program Chair and Vice-President. This April, he will become the MANY Board President. He lives in Painted Post, NY with his husband Mitchell Hurricane Smith and their two dogs, Stella Josephine Parker and Nove Delphine Parker.

We spoke with him to learn more about when he knew he wanted to work in museums, his career path, and what keeps him motivated.

Brian Lee Whisenhunt speaks up for NYS museums at the 2020 American Alliance of Museums Advocacy Day with Corning Museum of Glass President and Executive Director Karol Wight in Washington, DC

MANY: What other jobs have you had in the museum field? Can you tell us about your journey to get to your current role?

Brian Lee Whisenhunt: I began my career in museum education, interpretation, and audience development–with positions as director of education and manager of public programs. There are numerous educators in my family, so I think that’s why it was in many ways a natural fit for me. I do love research, scholarship and writing about art and all the work considered curatorial. But what I’m passionate about, more than all of that, is taking that research, knowledge, and understanding and translating it into a tool empowering people to look more closely, think more deeply, and connect to a work of art. It’s exciting to me and what I truly love about museum work.

I worked in museum education for about ten years, but then became more interested in the inner workings of museums and cultural organizations –how things came together in the bigger picture. So, I began my career as a museum director at the Swope Art Museum in Terre Haute, Indiana. It is a small museum with an amazing collection of American art. From there I went to the Museum of the Southwest, which is a multidisciplinary museum in West Texas including an art museum housed in an historic home, a children’s museum, a planetarium, a science center, and a public sculpture collection.

One of the reasons I went to the Museum of the Southwest was because I enjoy the interplay of the disciplines and I love mixing things up. It makes things more interesting for our audiences because it shows there are innumerable ways to approach a museum experience and connect through different modes of understanding. We did a big renovation of the art museum when I was there. It was three different buildings– one of them an historic mansion –so spaces from three eras cobbled together in this weird way. We were able to rethink and refresh the spaces, bring unity and cohesion, and create a more contemporary experience for our visitors.

From there I went to The Rockwell Museum. I looked at the job when it was first posted, and I wasn’t sure if it was for me. After talking to the recruiter and learning a lot more about The Rockwell’s history and mission, it felt like the perfect fit. Education, community engagement, and collaboration have been at the core of The Rockwell’s work for decades. At the other organizations that I’ve worked, it was necessary to spend a lot of time convincing the leadership and some of the people I worked with that those values were going to help us connect with our audience and propel the organizations forward. Those organizations embraced those ideas, understood and believed them, and eventually benefited from that shift. But it took a lot of convincing. There are so many expectations around what “blockbuster” exhibitions can do for an organization, but that’s not the whole picture–that’s not always what really helps people create a deeper connection with an institution. Looking at The Rockwell, I knew I wasn’t going to have to advocate for that sort of shift–it was already here. I wasn’t going to have to convince anyone how important education was because they all believed it and we could just keep building on that great work to expand how we serve our communities in the Chemung Valley and the people who visit Corning from all over the world.

Brian Lee Whisenhunt in the gallery at Alfred Ceramic Art Museum at Alfred University with Wayne Higby, Director of the Alfred Ceramic Art Museum examining “Temple’s Gate Pass” by Wayne Higby.

What other experiences in your career have you found most helpful for your role now?

I can think of three experiences from before I started working in museums. At one point, I was teaching art appreciation at two high schools. That work was fundamental to my understanding of how to talk to people about art in a different way. Prior to that, I’d been in an academic setting. I’d been in a department of art historians and artists who all wanted to talk about museum experiences and art history in a scholarly way. When I went into the high school to teach teenagers, they were really interested in what we were looking at, but I had to use a different lens than what I’d done before. It was formative for me and my perspective on how to connect people with art in the museum experience and what inspired them.

Also, my time at the Getty Leadership Institute (GLI), now the Museum Leadership Institute (MLI), was incredibly important to me and I was part of the cohort in 2014 when they rebooted the program. I’m a collaborative leader and bring a non-hierarchical approach to working with other people and that is not always reflected in the educational materials around leadership style. I felt unsure about my mode of leadership because it did not feel affirmed–which has, of course, changed in the past few years. So, I went to MLI with a question of “am I following the right path and am I going the right way in how I’m thinking about myself as a leader? Is this a way that I can be successful and true to my own personal values?” The program affirmed that because it teaches to look at your strengths as a leader and how to play to and build on those strengths. It helped me see the path I was on more clearly and that my approach to leadership was going to be a strong, authentic way for me to be a museum director.

Lastly, the thing that’s been so important to me for many years is serving on the boards of other nonprofits, museums and membership organizations. In addition to MANY, I’ve served on the board of the Mountain-Plains Museums Association, an HIV/AIDS service organization and am on the Museum Advisory Council of the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. And I’ve also served on various committees for other associations throughout the years. It's important for me because I believe it is essential for us to give back to our field in whatever way we can, but it also helped me understand working with my own board in a more holistic way. Having the experiences of being on other boards helped me think about the people who were serving on my own museum board differently.

Can you tell us a little more about your experience with the Getty Leadership–now Museum Leadership–Institute?

It’s a competitive application process and the reboot in 2014 really expanded the program to an international cohort. I had colleagues from around the world–China, Europe, South America, Mexico, Canada. It was really an amazing group of people. The experience and connections to those people are essential to me– we were and still are incredibly close. Even seven years later, during the pandemic, we were gathering virtually trying to support one another and assist some who were going through transitions in their careers. We gathered as a group to listen, console and offer direction. One of the best things for me is to connect people in our field to support one another and the work that is happening.

What is one of your biggest motivations to do what you do? What do you get excited about in your role as the Executive Director of The Rockwell?

I think my motivation starts with the visitor experience and the primary goals of a museum educator. Even though I now serve as the Executive Director, I still see my work through the lens of museum education and visitor engagement. I want to inspire people when they come into the museum. I want them to think about their own lives. I want to give them a way to consider the lives of the people around them through the lens of the work in the collection. Building that engagement with our audiences is what will strengthen our organizations because it allows people to see the museum experience as essential to their lives and not just something that they do on holiday.

A visit to a museum can both fortify a person’s understanding of themselves and allow them to consider the world around them in a more meaningful way. I think there’s been a real shift in the last few years in how the museum experience is perceived. At The Rockwell, it’s how we further ideas around engagement, and how we promote a better understanding of ourselves and the people around us, particularly as it relates to the American experience. With much of the rhetoric we have in our country right now, there is this idea there is one way or two ways to be an American and that’s so untrue. There are as many ways as there are people to be American and we all bring our own experiences, backgrounds, heritage, and complicated histories to what it means to be American. What we’re trying to do at The Rockwell is to generate more empathy and understanding towards one another and an appreciation for the fact that we are a multiplicity, not a monolith.

Brian Lee Whisenhunt leads a tour at The Rockwell Museum for the MANY Board in September 2020.

What are some of your goals?

2026 is a very important year for The Rockwell Museum because it’s our 50th anniversary. We are working on celebrating five decades of service. The Museum was a bicentennial gift to the community and we’re trying to position ourselves for the next fifty years of service as well as celebrate all that we’ve accomplished.

At the same time, we will also be going through the American Alliance of Museums’ reaccreditation process. Accreditation is about the organization’s internal work, but also how the museum serves the community. The process looks at our finances, our collections care, our policies, and other things like that, while the celebration of our 50th anniversary will be very public and outward. Both are significant milestones!

Would your 18-year-old self imagine that you would be where you are today?

I did know that I wanted to work at a museum. I was trying to figure out what I needed to do and what education I needed to pursue. When I was seventeen, I went to the University of Oklahoma for a college tour and as part of that experience, I went to the campus museum connected to the art school and art history program. I met with the curator of education and talked about her work and the museum and what I needed to pursue to follow that path. It was at seventeen and even before, that I was thinking about a museum career. The person I spoke with was Susan Baley who is now the Executive Director of the Grinnell College Museum of Art–we’ve known each other since I was seventeen and she’s been a longtime mentor to me as well as a dear friend.

Can you tell us about where you grew up? What was it like growing up there?

I grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma which is a large, beautiful city that most people have probably never had occasion to visit. However, with the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Massacre in 2021, more people became familiar with the community and that horrible history. The racist past of the city wasn’t something I was taught much about as a young person, so I also received a lot of reeducation last year about my hometown and the horrors of white supremacy that were enacted in that time. I also came to understand how those events formed the basis of and continued to impact the community where I grew up. Oklahoma is also home to one of the largest numbers of Native American Tribes or Nations who were forced to relocate there and then subsequently had the lands they were give taken away or diminished. As a result of these terrible histories, the state, and Tulsa in particular, had incredible wealth that allowed it to establish numerous cultural organizations in the early 20th century. In Tulsa alone, there is an opera, a ballet company, a philharmonic and two major museums, the Gilcrease Museum of Art and the Philbrook Museum of Art. Museum origin stories are important and of interest to me. But it’s essential we look at not just the communities or people who established them, but also the cultural context, exclusion and oppression that might also have made them possible.

Both Gilcrease and Philbrook were a part of my early museum experiences. My parents worked in education and so they valued my interest in the arts. They took me to museums so that I had opportunities that were reflective of my interests. Gilcrease is interesting because it’s a collection that is American and predominantly Western. In the 1970s they regularly held a family program called “Rendezvous” with an outdoors component where you could fire a musket on the museum property. True story! My dad would take me and my brother because I think it captured both of our interests—my brother got to fire guns and I got to explore the galleries and art. And when traveled, we would go to museums and exhibitions. Often it was ‘divide and conquer’ with me and my brother –my mom would take me to museums and my dad would take my brothers to do something else. So, it was very much part of how I grew up.

The defining museum experience for me was when I was about twelve years old and the Armand Hammer Collection was touring the country. It was a major exhibition. It’s a collection that has Leonardo and Rembrandt –a true, classic blockbuster exhibition! There was a connection to Tulsa through the family, so the Philbrook Museum of Art was one of the venues for this exhibition. This was major and I don’t think that this happens the same way anymore but there were people standing in lines all over the country to see this exhibition. Philbrook was doing a lot of programs around this exhibition and because my father was an administrator for the schools, he was invited to an evening opening reception and took me rather than my mom. It was an eye-opening experience because I had been to museums and museum programs and art camps, stuff like that, but I’d never been to an opening. I’d never been to an exhibition program like that, and I thought “wow people work here? It’s not just the art on the walls!” but there seemed to be all these things happening that I didn’t know about.

That’s when I first had the idea that this was what I wanted to do, work in a museum and be a part of that experience. It felt special. We had an amazing evening looking at this collection and it’s a clear memory for me. These museum experiences that I had as a kid are still a touchstone for me and they’re still a reason for why I do what I do.

Can you describe a favorite day on the job?

My favorite days are the ones where I can be in the galleries with other people. Whether that’s with one other person on a tour, a docent training or a program. That to me is the absolute best experience and workday. During the pandemic when everything became virtual and I didn’t get to have that experience, it was truly challenging. Doing virtual programs was great and I had a lot of fun with it, and still am, but when we got back to the museums and back into the galleries with people talking about art, it was such an amazing moment. My heart was overwhelmed. And I just love talking to anyone about art in the galleries–it doesn’t matter if you know anything about art for me to enjoy looking at a painting with you. It’s almost better when you don’t! Recently, I was working on preparation for a program and was looking at a work of art that was part of the research that I was doing and Sherry Kirk, who’s the museum’s executive liaison and finance manager, made the mistake of walking by and I called her over to talk to me about this print. I honestly needed other eyes on it and to understand what others think about it and how I should approach my presentation. To me, that’s the point of appreciating the different perspectives that we all have. Someone else and what they think about a concept or how they see a work of art through the lens of their experience, or their education, or their life, can help me understand it in a way that I never would from just reading about it or looking on my own. It’s definitely the best workday for me when I can talk to other people in the gallery about works of art and what interests them.

MANY Executive Director Erika Sanger with Brian Lee Whisenhunt at the Museum of Art and Design’s Vera Paints a Scarf: The Art and Design of Vera Neumann exhibition in 2019.

Earlier, you briefly mentioned Susan Baley and identified her as one of your mentors. Can you tell us more about how she influenced you and is there any advice that she gave you that you’ve held onto?

She was, and is, a great museum educator and a great example of what I could do in that role and the impact that I could have. She’s a very thoughtful person and a great leader; she influenced me just through her example. Also by just encouraging me to do things like present at a conference and be part of an organizational board. She served on the Mountain-Plains Museums Association board and encouraged me to be on the education committee and eventually take over the role of scholarship chair from her. Her service to the field is one of the things that inspired me to also give back to my professional community in that same way.

I have another friend Stephanie Jung who is a now drawing professor but was working in museums at the start of my career. The advice that she gave me and that I’ve shared with many other people was “when you see a good idea, steal with both hands.” Whenever you see something inspiring to you, take in all of it that you can and internalize it and make it something that works for your perspective and for your organization. I never want to steal something in a literal way, but I do want to steal the inspiration, the impact, and the idea and I think that’s something that we don't always do. As a field, there’s often a lot of repetition or replication of programming but the truly successful iterations take an idea and dig into it, considering how it will influence and impact your own work and the visitors to your organization.

We think about mentors and people who have influenced us and its often people who are older than we are, who preceded us in our careers and that’s the case with Stephanie and with Susan. But I’ve also been thinking about the people that I’ve worked with that have been part of my team, especially early in my career and how their careers and the work they’ve gone on to do has really influenced me. I take a lot of inspiration from everyone that I work with regardless of where they are in their careers. I’m so proud to see the people that I’ve had the opportunity to be on a team with go on and do amazing things, like Amanda Thomas Blake who is Director of Education and Library Services at The Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, TX and Emily Lew Fry, who is the Director of Interpretation at the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL.

For fun, you have an entire museum/collection to yourself. What do you do?

If I’m somehow able to sneak into The Met, the first thing I’m going to do is call all my friends because I wouldn’t want it all to myself! Yes, there’s this enticing idea of having a space all to yourself, but again, the most exciting thing for me is looking at, experiencing, and talking about art with other people. So, if I was by myself the first thing I would do would be text everybody I know to drop everything and meet me at the side door. I’m also a wanderer. I usually have a two-fold mission when I visit museums. There are things that I want to see, but at the same time I enjoy serendipity and appreciate chance. Especially if you’re at someplace like The Met because you never know what experience you’re going to get or what you’re going to notice that you hadn’t before or see what’s changed. I really love meandering and finding things that are interesting, investigating them with people that I’m with, and learning what they think about them, or why they appreciate them, or why they don’t, or what’s challenging about it, or what’s easy about it, or what’s familiar or strange. That’s always my approach and that would definitely be my approach. I would also probably get them to help me move some things around because I like mixing things up.

Investing in Long-Term Financial Stability to Western NY Museums: The Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundation

Mon, 28 Feb 2022 13:18:22 GMT

In December 2021, The Ralph C. Wilson Foundation established an endowment and committed $100 million to transform the financial strength and long-term viability of Western New York’s art and culture community. The Foundation will contribute nearly $60 million over the next ten years through a new endowment at the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo. This investment will create a permanent operational funding stream for 13 of the region’s largest arts and culture institutions and will provide an annual grant opportunity for additional arts and culture organizations across Western New York.

Key Goals

“This investment was out of the Foundation’s Economic Development focus area,” said Jim Boyle, Vice President of Programs and Communications at the Ralph C. Wilson Foundation Jr. Foundation. “Our intention with making this substantial investment is two-fold. In the short-term, we knew many of these institutions were facing urgent needs related to the economic impact of the pandemic, so there was a desire to get funds out immediately while the endowment is being built on a parallel path. Overall, the Foundation’s goal with this initiative is to help transform the strength and long-term viability of the region’s arts & culture sector as regional economic drivers, in addition to supporting inclusion and access strategies to better serve all communities.”

To ensure that the program has an immediate impact, the Foundation plans on providing an additional $33.75 million in grants beginning in 2022 and continuing over the next nine years while the endowment is growing $3.7 million in annual funding will be dispersed and utilized in three areas:

$500,000 will be available each year for primarily small to mid-size arts and culture institutions across the nine counties of Western New York. Organizations will apply through their regional community foundation. “We recognize that arts & culture institutions of all sizes play a tremendous role in shaping the unique identity and fabric of communities,” said Boyle. “This sector’s contributions to Western New York’s quality of life and economy through job creation, local spending, consumer purchases, tax revenue, and tourism are significant, in addition to attracting and retaining talent.”
$3 million will be allocated to provide operational support for 13 arts and cultural institutions located throughout Buffalo and Western New York identified as economic drivers in their communities to assist with sustainability and inclusion efforts. These institutions are the Albright Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo & Erie County Naval & Military Park, Buffalo History Museum, Buffalo Museum of Science, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Buffalo Zoo, Burchfield Penney Art Center, Explore & More: he Ralph C. Wilson, Jr, Children’s Museum, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Martin House, Michigan Street African American Heritage Corridor and anchor institutions, National Comedy Center, Shea’s Performing Art Center, and The Strong National Museum of Play.
$250,000 in funding to the community foundations that supports permanent capacity to manage and operate the funding and community engagement work required, as well as support ways that the sector can improve upon inclusion and access for individual organizations of all scopes and sizes.

“The Foundation’s trustees wanted to make a bold statement with this significant and meaningful investment that builds upon and complements the substantial and long term investment that many local and national funders, individual donors, and critical public funding streams have made in these treasured entities, which have helped them become the regional economic drivers they are today,” said Boyle.

Identifying Institutions for Funding

The Foundation selected the 13 institutions in Western New York to receive annual endowment funding through an internal process that was data-informed. “There is an incredible amount of beloved and celebrated arts and cultural institutions across the nine counties of the Foundation’s geographic focus in Western New York,” said Boyle. “However, with the Foundation’s desire to make an impact in the region and within the organizations identified for funding, we had to narrow the selection to a handful of institutions that contribute substantial economic impact within the region, with many driving significant tourism, in addition to local visitation and some that carry local and national prominence with cultural-specific missions,” Boyle said that the Foundation had to make a cut at some point but that the Foundation knew that small and midsize cultural organizations also contribute significantly to the regions’ economy.

Impactful Museum Support

Buffalo Museum of Science will receive $200,000 annually from the Ralph C. Wilson Foundation

“As we prepare to embark on a new multi-year strategic plan, this incredibly generous source of funding will serve as a catalyst for jump-starting a number of ambitious objectives,” said Marisa Wigglesworth, President and CEO of the Buffalo Science Museum and Tifft Nature Preserve. “It will better position us to develop and strengthen community connections through which we can deliver informal STEM education and provide science content that is relevant, meaningful, and accessible to new and continuing audiences.” The Buffalo Museum of Science, which will receive $200,000 annually, previously received support from the Foundation through their STEM 2035 Initiative which invests in advancing STEM education opportunities in Western New York. The funding helped re-launch the Museum’s Teen STEM Initiative, an out-of-school time program that provides teens from backgrounds under-represented in STEM careers with STEM-leaning and job-readiness skills. The Museum also received support from The Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Legacy Funds at the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo to complete a feasibility study to build a fully accessible trail at Tifft Nature Preserve.

The Buffalo History Museum will receive $150,000 annually from the Foundation through this new funding stream. “The Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation recognizes the vital role of endowments and through this program addresses two of the largest challenges faced by culturals, especially in this pandemic-aware climate,” said Melissa Brown, Executive Director of the Buffalo History Museum. In 2017, the Foundation provided $600,000 to the Museum’s Restore, Reactivate, Reconnect capital campaign that helped fund rehabilitation of the second floor West Gallery of the Museum, home of the exhibit “Icons: The Makers and Moments of Buffalo Sports.”

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Martin House will receive $100,000 annually. “The Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation’s support of multiple institutions of all sizes through their Art Initiative is a unique partnership that will sustain our cultural community in perpetuity,” said Mary Roberts, Executive Director of the Martin House. “It is a testament to the value of the arts. These are local institutions who are relevant and respond to the needs of the community. We are grateful for their support and endorsement of our work.”

These annual funds are unrestricted and can be designated for general operating needs. “For some, this might mean strengthening cash reserves for emergencies, completing much-needed facility repairs, or hiring key staff,” said Boyle. “These funds are not intended for programmatic expenses.” The Foundation hopes that this process will result in shared agreements across the institutions regarding these operational metrics. “These operational metrics often don’t get the attention they deserve in terms of keeping these entities healthy and helping them to reach their potential to serve their communities and patrons.”

“This wonderful opportunity will lead to long-term financial stabilization, sustainability, and viability–for us, this truly is a gamechanger,” said Terry Alford, Executive Director of the Michigan Street African American Heritage Corridor Commission. The Michigan Street African American Corridor was established in 2007 through NYS legislation that created a historic preservation area on Buffalo’s east side. Cultural anchors include the Michigan Street Baptist Church, the Nash House, the Colored Musicians Club and Museum, and the WUFO Radio Black Radio History Collective. “Our inclusion serves as a meaningful and significant recognition of the important role the African American Heritage Corridor plays in creating a thriving cultural center on the east side of Buffalo. We are grateful to the Wilson Foundation for establishing an endowment that will create a permanent path forward for our Commission to work together with the anchor institutions to honor and preserve this historic district’s legacy for many generations to come.”

Supporting Capital Projects

Architectural rendering of the new 30,000 square foot addition to the 1905 building on the main Albright-Knox Campus. Photo courtesy Albright-Knox Art Gallery

The Foundation is also awarding two $5 million capital grants to support the expansion of the Strong Museum of Play in Rochester and the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo.

The $5 million grant to The Strong will support its $60 million “Powered by Play” capital campaign.

“The Strong is deeply grateful to have been chosen by The Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation as one of 13 recipients in New York to receive annual support and to also be recognized for the museum’s international reputation and strength as an economic driver through a capital grant to directly support the museum’s transformative expansion project, including a new 90,000-square-foot museum wing,” said Steve Dubnik, President and CEO of The Strong. “In addition to helping fund the significant costs of operating the museum, The Foundation’s annual support will help ensure The Strong’s long-term viability and resilience in the face of future potential large-scale challenges and global uncertainties.”

The Albright-Knox will use the $5 million to support its construction of an “Indoor Town Square” which will become a year-round destination that will be free and open to the public.

“In December, the Wilson Foundation announced that it was awarding the Buffalo AKG Art Museum a $5 million capital campaign gift as well as $500,000 of annual operating support in perpetuity,” said Jillian Jones, Director of Advancement at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum (formerly, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery). “As we prepare for the opening of the Buffalo AKG in Spring 2023, the Wilson Foundation has brought us $5 million closer to reaching our capital campaign goal for the construction project. At the same time, they have ensured that the museum will have the funds necessary to operate our expanded and revitalized campus. For years, the Wilson Foundation and its leadership have realized the vision of Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. in Western New York by supporting arts and cultural organizations. Their unprecedented support is a testament to their belief in the power of institutions like the Buffalo AKG to contribute to economic, social, and cultural life across the region.”

Long-term

“It’s our hope that the funding we are providing to these 13 organizations in Western New York will be transformative, but we know that more is needed to support them and there are hundreds more that have similar needs,” said Boyle. “It’s our hope that other funders will join us in this approach with a focus on operational support and the use of endowment as a tool and trust these institutions will be good stewards of their assets.”

Learn more about the Ralph C. Wilson Foundation: https://www.ralphcwilsonjrfoundation.org/

Letter from Erika: Less Than or Yes, And: Why We Advocate

Thu, 24 Feb 2022 16:34:23 GMT

Dear Members, Supporters, Friends, and Advocates,

On Wednesday, February 16th, I had the honor of testifying at the New York State Legislature’s 2022 Joint Budget Hearing on Economic Development. I have testified at hearings called by the Assembly Standing Committee on Tourism, Parks, Arts, and Sports Development, but this was my first time at an Economic Development Hearing. Although I only had three minutes to speak, with my comments, those of others giving testimony, and the questions asked of us, I am certain the word “museum” has never been said more frequently at a New York State Economic Development hearing.

We asked to speak out in that forum because even though most museums operate as nonproﬁts, they generate signiﬁcant tax revenues for federal, state, and local governments. Every direct job at a museum supports an additional job in the economy. The most recent data available shows that museums have a financial impact on New York’s economy of $5.37 billion dollars and that more people visited an art museum, science center, historic house or site, zoo, or aquarium in 2018 than attended a professional sporting event.

My testimony included that New York’s museums reported losing half of their visitor attendance and 63% of K-12 school group visits in the past two years. At the end of 2021, museums had reduced open hours by a third and their staff by 12%.

New York’s museums are in desperate need of support to allow them to recover and reclaim their roles as economic drivers, community anchors, and tourist destinations.

MANY is advocating for funding for our state’s museums that can be distributed equitably regardless of discipline, budget size, or location. We are speaking out for changes to our funding systems to actively incorporate the work and voices of BIPOC and historically marginalized communities.

We have asked for funding to:

respond to the ways in which the pandemic forced changes in museum operations;
restore our staff and services;
build our capacity to serve our communities;
invest in digital technologies; and
secure historic properties for future generations.

We know that New York’s museums need consistent, long-term financial support to achieve economic stability so that when the next flood, fire, or pandemic hits, our museums are not at risk of shutting their doors permanently.

In my testimony, I extended thanks to Governor Hochul for including $40 million in rescue/recovery funds for the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) in her 2022-23 budget and asked the legislature to include this critical funding and more in the final budget.

I thanked NYSCA for their $6.6 million in 220 grants to museums made to date for 2022, and for our new partnership program for Capacity Building Grants. I also stressed that significantly more of the state’s relief funding needs to be allocated to such a vital part of our economy.

MANY’s staff and board of directors will need your help in the coming weeks to speak out for museum funding. Half of the museums that responded to our March 2021 survey said that they have advocacy built into their annual work plan or strategic plans. Almost seventy percent said they conducted advocacy work in 2020 and 2021 by reaching out to local, state, and federal elected representatives for pandemic relief.

On Monday February 28th and Tuesday, March 1st we will be participating in the American Alliance of Museums’ “Museums Advocacy Day” along with 56 representatives from New York’s museums. I will be writing again soon to ask you to help us elevate museums to a high priority for state funding in the Legislature’s proposed budget for 2023. I know I can count on you to join together in support of our museum community.

With thanks,

Erika Sanger, Executive Director

MANY Spotlight: Georgette Grier-Key

Wed, 26 Jan 2022 16:31:37 GMT

Dr. Georgette Grier-Key is the inaugural Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Eastville Community Historical Society. Under her leadership at Eastville, membership increased by 30%, funding increased by 52%, and the organization created a strategic plan. Additionally she is the President of the Long Island Historical Societies, serves on the board of the Preservation League of NYS and the NAACP Brookhaven Town Branch and is an adjunct assistant professor at CUNY Medgar Evers College and director of the Long Island History Institute at SUNY Nassau Community College.

Grier-Key received her Bachelor of Arts from State University of New York at Old Westbury in Visual Arts with a concentration in Electronic Media, her Masters of Arts from Adelphi University in 2004 in Education with a concentration in Art Education, and her Doctorate of Education in 2012 from the Dowling College.

She has served on the Museum Association of New York’s board of directors since 2017 and will begin her tenure as Vice President in April 2022. We spoke to Dr. Grier-Key to learn about her role in arts and cultural organizations on Long Island’s East End.

How did you end up as the Executive Director and Chief Curator at Eastville?

I’m the first Executive Director for Eastville. Before I got involved, the organization was 100% volunteer. We’re still a heavily volunteer organization. I joined the organization in 2009 at the suggestion of my Godmother who at the time had a house in Azurest and was a member of Eastville Community Historical Society and a volunteer.

What other jobs did you have before you arrived at Eastville?

In 2011, I started at the Huntington Arts Council as the Grants for the Arts Outreach Coordinator where I worked to increase minority participation in grant applications. I also served as a panel review for the JP Morgan Chase Grant Program in 2013 and for the Long Island Decentralization Grant Program from 2011 to 2012. At the same time, I was an administrative Assistant and Volunteer for the Parrish Art Museum in Southampton. I’ve also worked for Guild Hall in East Hampton, and was an art instructor at the Children’s Museum of the East End.

All of these places are located on Long Island’s East End so the East End has been a part of my life for a long time.

Can you tell us more about your background?

When I was going to school, art wasn’t encouraged. But art was always in my life and a lot of people in my family are artists including Lionel Hampton who was an American Jazz artist. My family came to Harlem through the Great Migration. My grandfather was an Underbishiop for one of the major of the Black churches and had 145 churches under his jurisdiction from Bridgehampton to Brooklyn and that's what brought us to the East End.

My family wanted us to focus on professional careers. But I decided that I was able to incorporate art into whatever degree that I was doing even in my Masters Degree where I was studying education, but I was concentrating on art education.

When I started working at the Huntington Arts Council, we were working on a program with the NAACP and the Children’s Museum of the East End to create a program to help immigrant mothers integrate into the school district by trying to help them feel comfortable by using the museum as a resource. Almost all of my work has been working with museums.

When I met with the board at Eastville and learned more about the Executive Director position, I got excited it allowed me to incorporate both art and history. I thought that this was a great opportunity. Throughout my time at Eastville, I understood more and more the significance of what this place was and how to deal with it. It just was in the cards for me so to speak.

What are some of your main motivations to do what you do? What gets you excited in the work that you do?

That’s the thing with Eastville, it’s been a regional group and most of the work that I do is tied to them.

Right, because you are also a founding member and lead organizer of the Pyrrhus Concer Action Committee in addition to your work on the Preservation League of NYS.

Yes, with the Pyrrhus Concer house, Eastville served as a regional organization. We tell the story of the Black Whalers because this was the whaling port for our area–Sag Harbor - where the first customs house was located. Pyrrhus Concer was a Black Whaler and he also had family in the area.

When it came time to advocate for his property, the Eastville Community Historical Society was there. Preservation is in our mission. It’s in our articles of incorporation and it’s in our charter. It’s preservation for these buildings and preservation for these BIPOC stories. Along with art and everything else. It’s something that the founder of this organization did from the start. I really commend my institution. They were ahead of their time especially when you think that while the institution is forty years old, the community started in the 1830s and because of the Eastville community, SANS [Sag Harbor Hills, Azurest, and Ninevah Beach Subdivisions Historic District] community started to develop in the 1940s. Eastville has been able to survive through the creativity of the people who were there and the arts that surround them. I’m talking about artists that defied all odds from performing arts to visual arts. I work to protect and preserve what was a haven for 19th century African American and Native American artists like Olivia Ward Bush Banks–a poet and journalist of African and Montauk descent, Amaza Lee Meredith– who laid the blueprint for Azurest, Daisy Tapley– a classical singer, and Nathan Cuffee–a Native American author who co-wrote Lord of the Soil. Part of my job is to highlight their art but also protect it and teach it. How do we fit their stories into the story of the East End and how do we continue to add to that story thinking of artists like Standford Biggers and Colson Whitehead is our challenge.

Where did your passion for preservation start?

I think it naturally happened alongside everything else that I was doing. There’s such a void on Long Island because we are so spread apart. I think that’s part of why I would always seek out other people’s advice and help. It’s one of the reasons why I got involved with MANY and the Preservation League of NYS. There’s a need for this knowledge about the importance of preservation. An example is the cemetery that Eastville owns, the St. David AME Zion Church cemetery [an adjacent century-old cemetery to the St. David AME Zion Church in which African and Native Americans of the earlier St. David's Church membership are buried, many of whom were Sag Harbor Whalers]. We needed a survey of the cemetery and it led us to a grant and further understanding of this historic district and the preservation of it. And of course, preserving the Pyrrhus Concer house which has been an eight year struggle.

Eastville has always served as a regional organization and organizations in the East End count on Eastville for help. That’s why preservation has been important to us, to preserve the built environment.

Do you have a favorite day on the job? Or a favorite moment?

During the first event we were having in the first summer of the pandemic I got a call from one of our regular donors affiliated with a prominent African American business. She called to let me know that she was still going to support our organization at her regular level. That really made my day because everybody was going through this time where we didn’t know what to expect or how to deal with things. There were so many things that were way more important going on in the world, but she remembered us. It showed me the love and support for community and for Eastville. That moment stood still for me and it stands out as one of the best days on the job.

This is my job but I feel like I’m charged with a greater call to continue the mission of this organization because it’s important to the community and it’s important to me.

What is your superpower?

I’m a hands-on type of director and we’ve grown in many ways. When I first came to Eastville we didn’t have a digital imprint and we didn’t have a website. My progression as a director really follows my career in that everything I learn, I incorporate. It’s one of the things when I meet other small organizations especially in my capacity as the President of the Long Island Historical Societies. I let them know that it’s okay to be small and you can still learn how you do it. I love to pass that advice on to other organizations that are trying to survive in this new digital age. These are the organizations that I try to help by sharing resources that will help them grow. I’m a connector and I raise people up.

Do you have any key mentors or someone who has deeply influenced you?

For the qualities of leadership that would be my maternal grandfather, Rev. Dodenhuff Green [1915-2014, who founded Christ Temple Church of God in Christ Church in Uniondale], my father –George W. Grier, and Bishop Frank Otha White who has gone on. I have heavy influence from them but then as far as the historical society, the founding historian Kathy Tucker. She was a heavy influence to me as well as someone who I trained under and learned most about the organization and about the area.

Would your 18 year old self imagine that you would be where you are today? What would you say to yourself?

Absolutely not. I thought I would be dancing around the world. But I would just say enjoy it because it goes fast.

Learn more about Eastville Community Historical Society:

https://www.eastvillehistorical.org/

Learn more about Long Island Historical Societies: https://lihsocieties.org/

Letter From Erika: Doing Community Differently

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 22:25:39 GMT

MANY members on our 60th birthday, 1/25/22

Dear Colleagues, Friends, and Members,

This winter the Hudson River has frozen over so hard that Ice Yachts are sailing across and down the River. It is a tradition that dates back to the nineteenth century. On January 25, we marked sixty years of the Museum Association of New York serving our state. I’ve spent a lot of time recently thinking about our traditions.

I was going to write this letter about our past and recount all we have accomplished for our museum community. But news of the pandemic this morning reminded me that we can not repeat the past, we can only move forward differently.

MANY’s past is documented on paper stored in cardboard boxes stacked in our Troy office. It is also in the collective memories of three generations of museum professionals who have gathered and learned together under the MANY banner.

The ways we gather and learn together will continue to change in 2022. We are pleased to announce that the free, virtual series “Museums Support Democracy” produced in partnership with Museum Hue will begin on Friday, February 25. These programs will explore Museums and Civil Rights, Protest Through Visual and Performance Art, Environmental Justice, Healing Historical Legacies, Ethical Collections, Expanding Interpretive Lenses, and Citizenship. Each topic will be presented and discussed by museum professionals from a broad range of locations and disciplines featuring the work of culturally responsive museums.

I hope you can join us virtually on Friday, April 1 at noon for our annual business meeting, welcome the members of our board of directors class of 2022-2025, and thank those stepping down who have so generously served the field. Registration for these programs will open soon!

Registration for the 2022 annual conference in Corning, NY will open on February 7th. Attendance will be limited so we can maintain the highest levels of safety protocols. Special events will be organized in small group gatherings. I look forward to seeing all who can join us in person in Corning.

The Google pins that cover the state on our member map bring me joyful reminders of travels across the state and visits to museums. In most cases, I can put a face and an image with each pin. On these cold winter days, the wind off the frozen Hudson brings warm memories of all of you. I send sincerest wishes for everyone’s health and safety as we strive to find meaningful ways to keep our community connected.

With thanks and hope in my heart,

The Power of Youth Voices for Climate Action: The Wild Center at COP26

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 20:57:12 GMT

In November 2021, The Wild Center sent a ten-person delegation to Scotland to attend COP26, the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties. The Museum was one of only two museums in the world to participate as observers in the Blue Zone–the area of COP where the international climate change negotiations take place and only accredited individuals and organizations are permitted within the Blue Zone. Youth climate leaders and delegates participated in the Conference of Youth (COY) – the largest youth conference related to UN climate processes.

The Wild Center COP26 Press Conference

What is COP26?

COP26 stands for the Conference of the Parties. Each year, 197 countries come together to agree on a path for climate action. The 26th gathering was held in Glasgow, Scotland from November 1st to the 12th, 2021.

During COP26, countries reviewed the progress made since the signing of the 2015 Paris Agreement and worked on developing a concrete plan to meet the targets outlined in that agreement.

Observer Status

“Any organization can apply to attend a UN COP event, the process is quite involved and takes close to two years from start to finish, requiring multiple steps and approval process,” said Jen Kretser, Director of Climate Initiatives at The Wild Center. There are three categories of participants at UN meetings – representatives of countries known as Parties, press and media, and Observers. “The Wild Center has official NGO Observer status and we’ve had that status since the late 2000’s,” said Kretser. “Our first UN event was COP21 in Paris in 2015 and we also were a witness to the historic signing of the Paris Climate Treaty at the UN in New York city in 2016. It was an extraordinary honor to be one of two museums in the world that attended and represented the cultural sector.” This accreditation status allowed Youth Climate Program delegates inside access to panels and discussions closed to the public.

The Wild Center also presented with two other cultural organizations, the Science Center of Minnesota and the Phipps Conservancy in partnership with America is All In at the US Climate Action Center in a session titled Culture Over Carbon: The US Cultural Sector Advancing Climate Action. “As trusted members of communities, museums are in a unique position to serve as catalysts for addressing issues of critical importance to society–whether it’s hunger, poverty, gender equity or climate action,” said Kretser.

The Wild Center’s Delegation

The Wild Center delegation included six college students and recent graduates who presented in multiple events throughout the conference and posted regular updates of their observations online. Youth delegates included Andrew Fagerheim from Columbia University; Gina Fiorile, Coordinator, Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network at the University of Colorado-Boulder; Elise Pierson from St. Lawrence University; Silas Swanson from Columbia University, Witter Swanson Sustainable Energy Advantage, Boston, MA; and Emma Venarde from Brown University. The Wild Center also sent three members of its leadership team; Chair of the Museum’s Board of Trustees Karen Thomas, Director of Climate Initiatives Jen Kretser, and Executive Director Stephanie Radcliffe.

“Youth voices need to be part of the discussion on climate change action because you are going to be needed for leading climate change action,” said Radliffe. “Our Youth Climate Program has already empowered thousands of students around the world to be forces for change in their communities. Participating in COP26 is an incredible opportunity for our delegates not just to be heard, but to gain critical understanding into the way power works–and how they use it.”

Inside the Blue Zone at COP29. Left to right are Andrew Fagerheim and Silas Swanson from Columbia University and Jen Kretser, Director of Climate Initiatives at The Wild Center.

The Wild Center’s Youth Climate Program (YCP) is a global initiative that works to convene, inspire, and network young people through youth climate summits, empowering them to lead and act on climate change solutions in their schools and communities. At the center of the program is a two-day retreat, the annual Adirondack Youth Climate Summit that brings together over 200 high school and college students to learn about climate change.

“The Wild Center has long believed in the power of youth voice to galvanize climate action,” said Kretser. Since the first Adirondack Youth Climate Summit in 2009, The Wild Center has worked to grow the network of Youth Climate Summits around the world as well as to support student-led climate action projects, and elevate youth voices for climate action. Using The Wild Center’s Adirondack Youth Climate Summit as a model, students as far away as Sri Lanka have implemented solutions in their own schools and communities. So far, almost 100 Youth Climate Summits have been held in seven countries.“The current generation of youth will be the most impacted by the effects of climate change throughout their lifetimes,” said Kretser. “[they] are the last generation with the change to lessen the impact. In climate negotiations and discussions at all scales, youth input is critical to ensure that climate targets, goals, and plans will result in a liveable future for younger generations.”

Centered –Gina Fiorile, Program and Communication Coordinator for the Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN) leads a youth panel discussion.

Takeaways and Next Steps for The Wild Center

Among some of the key takeaways for The Wild Center Delegation was that local action matters a great deal. “While actions at an international and/or national scale can feel far away and overwhelming, actions at the community, regional, and state scale are manageable and achievable,” said Ketser. “The Wild Center recognizes that in order for our world to thrive, climate change must be addressed robustly across all sectors of society.”

Partnerships and collaborations are essential to our ability to reach a just and equitable transformation to a low-carbon society. “We met so many incredible people from around the world, all doing amazing work on climate change,” said Ketser. “It was inspiring to meet a team from Bangladesh who are working on building floating schools, hospitals, and even gardens to adapt to rising sea levels. Or a youth activist from Rwanda who is planting 10,000 food-producing trees across her country to help reforest and feed her people. Or an organization in Chicago that is connecting youth around the world on climate and water issues.”

The Wild Center plans to continue to build its global network of summits through its free online planning toolkit and monthly network calls to support summits. As part of the Youth Climate Program, The Wild Center will host a Climate Change Education Institute for Educators and a Youth Climate Leadership Retreat in the Adirondacks in partnership with the Finger Lakes Institute and funded through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Environmental Literacy grants program.

“It is our mission to offer the public scientifically based examples and stories of how communities can work together to find solutions here in the Adirondacks and beyond through our Youth Climate Program and our new Climate Solutions exhibition and experience opening in the summer of 2022.”

The ClimateSolutions exhibition and experience was awarded $249,549 from the Institute of Museum and Library Services in 2019 and is set to open in July 2022. “It’s a museum-wide initiative comprising a new long-term exhibition, with enhancements to exhibitions found throughout The Wild Center,” said Kretser. The core of the Solutions exhibition is a 3,000 square foot space featuring large-scale imagery, video, interactive activities, and first-person accounts from leaders in climate solutions as well as those most impacted by climate change, including youth and indigenous communities. Solutions also includes a hands-on experimental studio and education programs for K-12 students and general audiences. “Climate Solutions will focus on the people and innovations working to mitigate the negative impacts of climate change in the northeast and around the globe,” said Kretser.

“We want to use our presence at COP26 to drive a greater awareness of the power of our Youth Climate Summit model,” said Ratcliffe. “But we also want to use our participation to highlight to all our visitors that they can take action also. This work needs to be done on multiple levels. We’re all responsible for doing what we can.”

Learn more about The Wild Center’s participation in COP26: https://www.wildcenter.org/our-work/cop26/

Finding Financial Stability and Growing Outreach: The Children's Museum of Science and Technology and the Children's Museum at Saratoga

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 20:55:07 GMT

In September 2021, the Children’s Museum of Science and Technology (CMOST) and the Children’s Museum at Saratoga (CMAS) signed a management agreement. They will reopen in June of 2022 at a new shared location at the Lincoln Bathhouse in Saratoga Spa State Park. This new space will create a regional children’s museum with CMAS managing all aspects of operations, programming, and administration and CMOST expanding their programming. This relocation will feature a larger space with new exhibitions, interactives, classroom space and access to the natural resources and amenities of the State Park.

CMAS Executive Director Sarah Smith and CMAS Board President David Martin speak at the groundbreaking. Photo courtesy of Melissa Schuman, MediaNews Group.

Strength in Partnership

CMOST and CMAS have a long history of collaboration and partnership. Current CMAS Executive Director Sarah Smith previously served as the CMOST Executive Director. Smith left CMOST in November 2019 to join the staff at CMAS and immediately began working with CMOST to share resources, including sharing staff. “By that December we actually contracted to share the development officer between both museums with a 50/50 split,” said Smith. “Those sorts of resource sharing began at that point and it was similar to what happened previously. My predecessor had been the director of education at CMOST and then she wrecked at CMAS and I followed that same trajectory.” Sharing staff helped both museums continue programs while providing salary and benefit support.

When the pandemic forced both museums to close their doors to the public, potential merger discussions accelerated. Smith cited the importance of fulfilling the missions of both organizations and that was reaching the children. “We saw that our friends were in trouble and we [CMAS] went ahead and served those people that were traditionally served by CMOST.” CMAS raised money from companies including Regeneron and Capcom to create 6,000 hands-on science-based learning kits and distributed them to Boys and Girls Club of Troy. “The kits were delivered to public housing, along with food provided by the Boys and Girls Club,” said Smith. The kits were also distributed throughout the Capital Region YMCA. “We continued to send out materials and information and provided our online resources and we reached close to 200,000 people that first year through online programming. We just felt very strongly that by serving the public that was traditionally served by both museums without financial gain, fulfilling the mission was critical and that really laid the groundwork for this merger.” CMAS and CMOST saw a partnership agreement as an opportunity to expand programming to reach most students and families as a regional organization. CMAS plans on utilizing CMOST programs to create hybrid and virtual versions to expand their reach throughout and beyond the Capital Region.

CMAS and CMOST announced their formal management agreement in September with the intent to merge in the future. CMOST, which closed its location in the early days of the pandemic in North Greenbush, will not reopen to the public. Both museums will initially continue to operate under their own brand identities as they work toward a combined entity, joint programming, and a new shared location at the Lincoln Bathhouse in Saratoga Spa State Park.

Reimaging a Space for the Future

Second-floor rendering at the Lincoln Bathhouse

Built in the 1920s and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Lincoln Bathhouse is located in Saratoga Spa State Park. The State Park is the home to arts and cultural organizations including the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, the Saratoga Automobile Museum, and the National Museum of Dance. CMAS signed a lease with NYS parks in April 2021 and hired Bonacio Construction, Peter Hyde Design, M. Catton & Co., Envision Design, and Empire Exhibits and Design for the renovation and redevelopment.

The museum space will be 16,000 square feet (double the size of the old CMAS location on Caroline Street). “This building deserves to be a children’s museum. It’s such a beautiful building and we like that it was a healthcare facility,” said Smith. “Even before COVID times, cleanliness was a big concern for children’s museums, and this space has materials that are easy to clean.” The building also has a 4,000 square foot interior courtyard that Smith is excited to incorporate into the exhibition spaces. “We knew we needed more space and we knew how imperative it was to have access to the natural world. This [interior courtyard] was a huge selling point for us.” Exhibitions will be inside and out and will occupy two floors of the bathhouse.

Both museums plan on designing spaces that have an emphasis on universal access, building on their existing goals of hands-on learning. Large scale building sets from CMOST and other CMOST exhibitions will be incorporated into the exhibition including the imagination blue box and rigamajig skyline toolbox. Many exhibitions will be updated in order to meet accessibility requirements to make them more inclusive as well as create an exhibition floor with sightlines from one end to the other.

Most of the exhibitions will be housed on the second floor, accessible by elevator, with a target age range of zero to 12. The museum will use labels and icons for children in pre-literacy stages. The science gallery that will be located in the middle of the exhibition floor is intended for all age ranges and encourages families to learn together. Programs will target older children.

Rending of the fire station interactive exhibition.

“We will also be able to tell the story of the building itself and the park,” said Smith. “I think it’s important that New York State bought this land to preserve its natural resources. It’s super early environmentalism which ties into the environmental science we teach.” Design plans include tracing some of the mechanicals on the ceiling of the second floor. “We want to articulate the engineering systems so when we’re talking about taking kids and teaching them a little bit about architecture we can also talk about the bigger picture using this building,” said Smith. “I think we call it preschool to trade…giving kids other paths that are more hands-on and really engaged in building trades like plumbing and carpentry. It’ll be creating maker space-type activities.”

Funding

Renovations to the Lincoln Bathhouse began in November. The entire project is expected to cost $3.5 million. Empire State Development awarded the project $600,000 and over $2.3 million was raised from a combination of corporate and individual sponsors.

CMAS is also selling its building at 69 Caroline Street and will use those funds towards renovations. The building and its adjacent parking lot are listed at $2.25 million. Smith said that in its fundraising efforts, the museum plans on setting aside funds to help create an endowment that will grow over time. “It’s something that we haven’t had and it’s important to have protected funds to help our financial future. We’re planning for the future, so we have a little bit of money from our incredibly generous corporate sponsors and generous private foundations. We’re still not done with fundraising.”

Future Impact

The museum expects to serve close to 100,000 people a year and will offer outreach education programs in school districts in 11 counties across the Capital Region and beyond. “This operating agreement and potential merger between these two organizations has really enhanced our reach,” said Smith. “The financial acumen and business practices of CMAS with the programming success and outreach at CMOST just shows it’s just such a great idea to leverage the strength of both organizations. This affiliation will capitalize on the strength of each organization while making us more financially stable.”

Learn more: https://cmssny.org/about-us/#lincolnbathsproject

Letter from Erika: What Are You Learning?

Thu, 13 Jan 2022 14:43:16 GMT

New York State Education Department Historic Marker, 1932, Cooperstown, NY

Dear Friends, Members, and Colleagues,

When I was young and was asked what I wanted to do when I grew up, I didn’t have an answer. I tried being a park ranger, an artist, and a teacher before I found museum education. At the time, being a museum educator encompassed everything I sought in a career. But the thing that kept me motivated in the face of innumerable challenges was that I was able (and required) to continuously learn new things.

Professional development opportunities for people entering the field may have been more prevalent forty years ago. I regularly attended trainings in content, pedagogy, and administration as I moved forward in my career. Today, the acquisition of a university or college degree can be a barrier for many people interested in museum work. But lack of access to time and money for formal education doesn’t mean that museum professionals must stop learning. In fact, to keep our field vital and current, staff professional development should be a priority no matter the budget size or discipline of a museum.

We are fortunate that in 2022, the New York State Council on the Arts has made a significant investment in professional development for New York’s museum professionals. With the American Association of State and Local History annual conference in Buffalo, the American Alliance of Museums annual conference in nearby Boston and their virtual museum advocacy training (MANY members get discounted registration), and of course, MANY’s conference in Corning, there are exceptional opportunities to advance your professional practice, build connections, and learn with your colleagues in 2022.

Applications for New York State Council on the Arts Professional Development grants are due on February 7th, and you can access the application here.

In 2022, I hope to learn how to be a better listener, grow MANY’s advocacy for New York’s museums, and discover ways to call out things that can create positive change.

The historic marker pictured above was placed in 1932 as part of the commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the American Revolution. By the late 1960s, the function of the state’s historic marker program shifted from a short-term commemorative program to a long-term educational program. With all that we have learned in the past 100 years, the approaching 250th anniversary presents us with an opportunity to expand our learning together and change the stories we tell to more accurately reflect the history of all who call New York home. I look forward to learning together this year and changing the things that we can.

With hopes for the new year,

Erika Sanger

MANY Board Spotlight: Diane Shewchuk

Wed, 15 Dec 2021 22:53:22 GMT

MANY Board Spotlight: Diane Shewchuk, Curator, Albany Institute of History & Art and MANYBoard Secretary 2022-2025

A native of New York's Capital Region, Diane Shewchuk has more than 30 years of experience working in museums and historic houses throughout New York State. She has held the positions of Curator at Clermont State Historic Site, Historic Site Manager at John Jay Homestead State Historic Site, and Curator promoted to Director at the Columbia County Historical Society in Kinderhook. Today she is the Curator at the Albany Institute of History & Art.

She has curated numerous exhibitions including Spotlight: Albany and Anti-Suffrage, Well-Dressed in Victorian Albany, and The Schuyler Sisters and Their Circle.

Shewchuk has an MA in Museum Studies: Decorative Arts from the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York City. Throughout her career, she has worked on the treatment of museum collections with conservators at the New York State Bureau of Historic Sites as well as those in private practice. Shewchuk was elected to the Museum Association of New York Board of Directors in April 2019. We spoke with her to learn more about her path to museums, what she gets excited about in her role, and what motivates her.

Albany Institute of History & Art Curator Diane Shewchuk speaking with the media at 2019’s The Schuyler Sisters and Their Circle Exhibition. Photo courtesy of Albany Institute of History & Art

MANY: Do you remember your very first museum experience?

Diane Shewchuk: Maybe it was visiting the Clark [Art Institute] in high school. I’m not really sure. I didn’t grow up going to museums as a child with my parents, so it likely was some school trip. But I was always interested in art and I always liked being surrounded by beautiful art. So I think when I went to the Clark, it was the first place that I really learned to appreciate art.

When did you first become interested in art?

I think it was because I would always do crafts. It goes back to my heritage, making Ukrainian Easter eggs, embroidery, and just learning the traditional arts associated with my culture. I was often representing my community through the arts and then teaching others.

My parents didn’t take me to museums but encouraged me to travel when I was in college so I could see great art. I went to study at the Ukrainian University in Rome for a summer where I got to see my first Michaelangelo. The trips abroad were an important way for me to see great art and great museums.

Tell us more about where you grew up and what was it like?

I was born in Albany but my parents were Ukrainian and came to the United States after World War II. My father was a prisoner of war in Italy and they were both technically born in Poland that is now a part of Ukraine because the border shifted. They ended up meeting each other in the United States and settled in the Capital Region where many other Ukrainians settled.

My parents came to this country where everything is new and I think what shocked them is that I wanted to surround myself with old things. They never really understood that because I took a non traditional career path that they didn’t understand. I didn’t become a nurse or teacher or something that they could relate to.

It’s hard thinking back and explaining my career choice to my parents. We never spoke English at home. I didn’t even know English until I went to kindergarten. The Ukrainian community is very close. But my parents worked hard so that we (my brother and I) could do the things that they thought were the American dream. I did want to escape, so I went to New York City for grad school for museum studies.

What other jobs have you had? What was your journey to get to your current role?

I liked that throughout my career I have worn many different hats which helped me discover what I like to do and what I don’t like to do. My first museum job out of graduate school was Curator at Clermont State Historic Site. It’s located in a really beautiful setting. Technically I worked for the Friends Group, not the state [NYS Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation ]. I loved that even though historic houses are basically giant exhibitions, you get to tell the story of a family in depth. I liked telling the story of the Livingston family and at that time, many members of the family were still alive. So I got to meet them and that was really exciting.

After I left Clermont, I did a little bit of consulting work and then worked as the Coordinator of Special Events in the development office at the College of St. Rose in Albany. I learned a lot in the development office and I worked there until the registrar position opened up at the Albany Institute of History & Art.

Then I took an opportunity to become the director of the John Jay Historic Site. I moved to Westchester and lived on site in the coachman’s house. I supervised a very large staff with grounds people, education, and worked closely with the sites’ friends group. I relied on my previous connections with conservators from my days at Clermont which helped, but I ultimately didn’t enjoy being a site manager. I didn’t want to do trail maintenance. I didn’t want to worry about rabid animals or hazardous trees. My parents were getting older and I wanted to move back towards Albany to be closer to them. I left and did more consulting work at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, the Shaker Heritage Society, and the Columbia County Historical Society working on object-based cataloging. Eventually, the Columbia Historical Society hired me as a full-time curator, and later on when their director left, I was promoted to curator/director.

When the curator position opened at the Albany Institute, I applied and got the job. I was happy to return and I’ve been here for six and half years.

What have you learned from those other jobs that have impacted your current role as a curator?

By working in different departments I’ve had the opportunity to learn a lot because I’ve had to do many different jobs. I’ve learned what education does, I’ve learned what development does. I’ve learned even more about special events, the gift shop because when you’re a small site you’re stocking, buying, and selling gift shop items. A curator normally doesn’t learn all of these different roles but because I’ve worked in places with a small staff, you do a little bit of everything, including learning how to manage people. At the John Jay Historic Site, I ended up managing a larger staff. I’ve also done a lot more public speaking than I ever thought I would do. I enjoy speaking to reporters and taking them through the galleries, talking about the shows I’ve curated. I love talking to people about exhibitions.

My biggest takeaway from all of my previous roles is maintaining my connections with colleagues. That’s what’s been the most important thing in my career. They’ve helped me be successful in what I do today. I can speed dial a whole group of people and get their help on areas that I’m not an expert in. I’ve had this great honor of working with people in this field. We’re losing generations of historians now and I really feel like my work stands on the back of their work.

Diane Shewchuk and Norman S. Rice, Former Curator and Executive Director at the Albany Institute of History of Art of which he was associated for nearly 70 years, starting in 1953. Rice passed away early this year at age 95. Photo courtesy Erika Sanger

What do you get excited about? What motivates you to do what you do?

What gets me excited is that we have this facility at the Albany Institute where I can handle amazing things and share them with the Albany community and other visitors. I love the power of the authentic object. Having a facility where the climate and security are top-notch allows me to dream really big.

I like getting people excited about history and I will piggyback on things that are popular in pop culture. People think that I curate a lot of costume shows, which I do because we have an audience for that but it’s actually exhibitions about the anti-suffragists [Spotlight: Albany and Anti-Suffrage] and the Schuyler Sisters [The Schuyler Sisters and Their Circle] that get me more excited because of their stories and they’re real people. I remember getting the email from the Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Columbia University for Eliza Schuyler Hamilton’s wedding ring and it was beyond what I had expected… to get that ring back to Albany where Hamilton put it on her hand. It came here and I never got to touch it, you know, because the courier came and we stitched it into the case, highly alarmed, but it was powerful to think about what that ring witnessed.

I can’t tell the whole story in an exhibition label and that’s why I do a lot of gallery tours. You can only say so much in a label and I really like to tell people what goes into curating an exhibition like that because it helps people from outside the museum world understand.

Photo courtesy of Albany Institute of History & Art

Can you describe a favorite day on the job?

I love walking through the galleries and seeing people enjoying the exhibitions. Sometimes the most trivial thing has a great story and in the end, I love the objects...they don’t talk back to some people, but they do to me. I can make an object ‘talk’ in different ways and sometimes the same objects are in five different exhibitions for five different reasons.

What is your superpower?

My master’s degree is in museum studies and I study antiques. I got to turn my hobby into a career and I’m incredibly lucky. I work with the museum staff to create the look of the exhibits. I get to create the installations that showcase the objects and the environments to help tell the story. I always knew I’d be in the creative field and I think museums are more creative than people give them credit for. I think that I can create anything on a relatively low budget –which I think is a strength because we often have to stretch small pots of money to fit big projects.

Letter from Erika: Light in the Darkest Days

Wed, 15 Dec 2021 22:13:28 GMT

Dear Members, Friends, and Supporters,

I wake early this time of year to see the glorious colors of winter sunrises. All of us have worked so hard over the past two years, it may be hard to remember that we are just a few days away from the solstice when we can welcome the increasing light. Last week I was in Corning, NY for meetings about our 2022 annual conference. I woke up in our conference hotel and for a moment didn’t quite remember where I was - this tends to happen after a lot of travel. I crossed the room, lifted the shades to watch the sunrise, and was gifted the sight of a bald eagle flying up the Chemung River.

We have been challenged this week to keep up with all the announcements of funds granted to New York museums for 2022. There is good news from so many of our funders that renewed my hope for 2022 being a brighter year.

Grants to museums from the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) for general support and recovery totaled almost $7.5 million, including the NYSCA/MANY Capacity Building partnership that will award $500,000 in 100 grants of $5,000 each to museums through a competitive grant program.

If you received a grant from NYSCA, please take a moment before the end of the year to thank your New York State legislators for their generous appropriation this year. Let them know how the funds will make a difference to your museums and how much we need to maintain, or even increase, the level of funds available to museums for 2023. Not sure who represents you in Albany? You can click here for Assembly Members and here for Senators.

Yesterday, Governor Hochul’s office announced $196 Million in awards through Round XI of the Regional Economic Development Council Initiative. Almost $21 million was awarded to 31 museums for preservation and marketing projects. You can also send a thank you note to Governor Hochul whose unparalleled support for our sector will help us sustain our organizations into the future.

Humanities NY announced $360,000 in “SHARP” (Sustaining the Humanities Through the American Rescue Plan) Action Grants to 43 New York cultural nonprofits affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. In September, HNY announced SHARP general operating grants totaling $710,000 to 67 New York museums.

Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor in partnership with the NYS Canal Corporation awarded IMPACT! Grants totaling $64,323 to seven organizations including three museums.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services awarded 33 NY Museums $1,422,104 in American Rescue Plan funds for FY 2021.

Earlier this month, MANY asked its members and supporters to help us advocate for state recovery funds by comparing calendar year 2019 to 2021 in a survey of visitor attendance, open hours, staff, and number of school groups. 97 NYS museums of all sizes, locations, and disciplines reported:

An average loss in visitor attendance of 48%

An average decrease in the number of open hours of 29%

An average loss of FT and/or PT staff of 12%

An average decrease in K-12 school group visits of 63%

I look forward to working with you in 2022 to raise awareness of our current needs and to ask for recovery support to allow New York’s museums to reclaim our roles as essential community anchors, economic engines, and tourist destinations.

With best wishes for the New Year, e

The Strong's Neighborhood of Play

Wed, 15 Dec 2021 22:09:58 GMT

This past April, the Strong National Museum of Play broke ground on the second phase of a $75 million, 90,000 square foot expansion that will be the centerpiece of the new Neighborhood of Play in downtown Rochester. Included in this expansion are two exhibitions dedicated to the ways that video games and technology changed play, a state-of-the-art welcome atrium and admissions area, and a new flexible Maker’s Space/Play Lab for interactive workshops, classes, and activities. The expansion is expected to increase annual attendance from 600,000 to nearly 1 million visitors.

Concept rendering for the gateway building and new wing. Image courtesy of The Strong Museum

Need for Space

“Since we opened our doors in 1982, the Strong has always had a kind of philosophy to try to improve and move forward,” said Museum President and CEO Steve Dubnik. “We’re always looking for opportunities to continue to improve and grow so we can present more things.” The Museum has undergone two previous expansions– the first in 1995 that added the atrium and the second in 2006 that added 135,000 square feet for the Museum’s reading adventure land.

By the mid-2000’s the Museum realized that video games were an important part of where play was going. “We needed to begin preserving and representing video games in our collection and exhibitions,” said Dubnik. The Museum started seriously collecting video games in 2007 and formed the International Center for the History of Electronic Games. Today the collection contains more than 60,000 artifacts and hundreds of thousands of archival materials, including games and the platforms on which they are played on, game packaging and advertising, game-related publications, game-inspired consumer products, and other items that illustrate the impact of electronic games in people’s lives. “As we started growing this collection, we began looking for ways to display and to talk about the impact of electronic games on play. We began reallocating space while always kind of keeping an eye out. It was an ongoing goal to expand.”

Expansion construction in October, 2021. Photo courtesy of The Strong Museum

The new museum wing will house the Worlds Video Game Hall of Fame and the Digital Worlds Gallery. The Galley’s two exhibitions, “High Score” and “Level Up” offer an interactive look at the history of video games. Exhibitions will also highlight the contributions of Women and People of Color to the video game industry. “We wanted to use this expansion as an opportunity to celebrate, preserve, and study the impact of video games in order to help people understand that while video games are played there is a lot of learning happening,” said Dubnik.

Digital Worlds Gallery exhibit ‘Level Up’ rendering. Image courtesy of The Strong Museum.

Another reason for this expansion was that the Museum’s audience continues to grow. “We reached close to 600,000 people in 2019 and there were days where the museum was close to capacity,” said Dubnik. “So if we wanted to continue to grow and attract more people, we needed more space. All of these things came together and led to the idea of creating a neighborhood of play as a way to increase our footprint. We were looking for a way to increase our marketing area to bring more people into Rochester from 4 to 5 hours drive time away. And if we were going to do that, we would need a place for them to stay that was nearby.”

Creating a Neighborhood of Play

In 2013, the City of Rochester was awarded a $17.7 million Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant from the Federal Government to fill in portions of its Inner Loop, creating pockets of developable land, including the southeast loop adjacent to The Strong. The City wanted to “bridge the moat” between the city center and communities like the Neighborhood of Play that have been separated by the Inner Loop since the 1950s. “Now we had buildable land next to us,” said Dubnik. “We started engaging planning consultants and reached out to our community to talk about what were some of the possibilities for the museum. We started planning and the whole idea of creating a neighborhood of play with the ability to live, work, and stay in the same area and in a neighborhood that is focused on play really grew from that whole process.”

The Museum partnered with two local commercial developers–a developer who owns and operated multiple hotels in the Finger Lakes region and the other who is focused on mixed-use development. “We partnered with them but we don’t actually have an economic interest in those portions of the development. It’s not a legal partnership but we very much act like partners in that we use the same civil engineering firm and the same architect so that the design is consistent and cohesive. We are using different builders, but they’re meeting and coordinating on all these different elements.”

The first phase completed was a new, five-story covered garage with 1,000 parking spaces completed in 2020. “We doubled our parking spaces from 500 to 1000 and going vertical with a parking garage freed up land that we could sell to our development partners,” said Dubnik.

The Neighborhood of Play features a 17,000 square foot outdoor play exhibit, a 125-room all-suites Hampton Inn and Suites, 240 residential units with 17,000 square feet of retail space that includes a play-oriented restaurant called Nirvana. The video game-themed restaurant will open in late 2022.

Outdoor play garden rendering. Image courtesy of The Strong Museum.

Market Research

“The other key part of this expansion was creating additional space for more visitation, so we conducted a marketing study as part of this project,” said Dubnik. The Museum surveyed communities in Toronto, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, areas in eastern New York to find out what would attract people to Rochester. “We needed to find out how many people we could expect to come and visit Rochester and the survey revealed that we could get more than half a million with certain types of development, including video games, and so we built a business plan around getting 400,000 more people to visit the Museum.” The Museum also spoke with neighborhood residents and business leaders about what they wanted to see developed. “We worked with our other cultural partners in Rochester and formed what we call ‘Play Rochester,’ a partnership where we do some joint marketing campaigns,” said Dubnik. ‘Play Rochester’ includes the Rochester Museum and Science Center, the Seneca Park Zoo, the Eastman Museum, and Genessee Country Villiage & Museum. “We very much made this expansion project a collaboration within the community, businesses, and with other cultural organizations.”

Funding Sources

The project is supported by the Museum’s $60 million “Powered by Play” capital campaign which has raised $50 million thus far through private and public donations. New York State’s Upstate Revitalization Initiative was one of the first contributors with $20 million that helped start the project. Other support has come from the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Support from private foundations include $100,000 from the Kilian J. and Caroline F. Schmitt Foundation to build three video game preservation labs, a $5 million capital grant from the Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation, and $500,000 from the Louis S. and Molly B. Wolk Foundation in which the Museum will name the new admission area the Wolk Admission Area.

The Museum also entered a naming partnership with ESL Federal Credit Union. ESL Federal Credit Union committed $1.5 million which gives them naming rights to the 24,000 square foot Digital Worlds Galley for 25 years.

“One of our goals has really been to be a national museum and we’ve focused on building our relationship with the toy and video game industries,” said Dubnik. “We’re the home to the toy hall of fame and we work with those larger toy companies for their help in our expansion and likewise with the larger video game industry whether it’s Microsoft, Nintendo or Sony. Creating those national and international collaborations and bringing that to Rochester has been an important part of what we do.”

The expansion and Neighborhood of Play are expected to open to the public in summer 2023. For more information visit, https://www.museumofplay.org/support/expansion-campaign/ and https://www.neighborhoodofplay.org/

Westchester Children's Museum Partners With NASA

Wed, 15 Dec 2021 22:06:55 GMT

Earlier this year, the Westchester Children’s Museum was among 500 museums from across the country selected by NASA to celebrate the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, NASA’s new space science observatory. The Museum used this distinction to forge new partnerships, highlight new and existing exhibitions, and feature programs that focus on space exploration. The culminating celebration event for the Museum’s James Webb Telescope Launch initiative was held on November 13.

Selection by NISE

The Museum was selected through a competitive proposal process administered by the NASA/National Informal STEM Education Network (NISE). NISE is a membership community of informal educators and scientists dedicated to supporting learning about science, technology, engineering, and math across the United States. The organization offers an entire resource page online dedicated to NASA that includes a digital download Earth and Space toolkit, content training videos, and other recorded workshops.

“We’re a NISE member and we learned about this opportunity through them,” said Leta Wong, Acting Director of the Westchester Children’s Museum. “At the beginning, there were a few occasions maybe a month apart where NISE inquired if any museum would be interested in being a celebration site for NASA. We were interested and sent them an outline of what we wanted to do for the celebration. It was a simple application process and what’s great about NASA is that size didn’t matter. We’re on the smaller end, but we were accepted.”

Making Connections

Wong was fortunate to meet Peter Sooy of NASA at the last in-person meeting for the Association of Science and Technology Centers (ASTC) in Toronto in 2019. “[Peter] represented NASA in the section of the conference that had presenters and exhibits about sustainability, climate, and environmental issues,” said Wong. “We had a very good discussion about sustainability, what NASA does regarding their education materials which are extensive and free, and topics they cover in the STEM education section of their website.”

The James Webb Telescope is the largest and most complex space science telescope ever built and will be the premier observatory of the next decade. The telescope is equipped with a 21.3 foot primary mirror that makes the Webb the farthest-seeing telescope ever built. This international mission, led by NASA in partnership with the European and Canadian space agencies will launch on the Ariane 5 rocket on December 18, 2021.

Celebrating the Launch

The Westchester Children’s Museum transformed its 5,000 square foot MakerSpace into an outer space STEAM experience with free activities for children of all ages. “NASA was very flexible and generous when it came to the requirements for the Museum’s participation,” said Wong. “Anything that we did had to be free and open to the public because it was helping NASA's goal to promote earth science, space exploration, and climate.”

To-scale models of planets in our solar system created by Artistic Coordinator of the Museum Lisa Archigian. Photo courtesy of Westchester Children’s Museum

On November 13, the NASA-related activities and exhibitions began in the Museum’s reception area and workshop room. Children were given a sticker from NASA and a badge that museum staff made withthe NASA logo and the text “Museum Think Tank Authorized Personnel.” Lisa Archigian, the Artistic Coordinator for the Museum created to-scale models of each planet in the solar system including a 5-foot beach ball for Saturn. Each planet was suspended from the ceiling in the MakerSpace. There was also a two-third scale model of the James Webb gold mirror with information about what the telescope sees on the light spectrum. Exhibitions included three videos with hands-on activities including a virtual trip through the Orion Nebula and atmospheric effects.

Building Partnerships

The Museum also had activities outdoors with celestial day-viewing on the boardwalk led by the group Westchester Amateur Astronomers. “NISE encourages partnerships to help expand their network,” said Wong. “This was the first partnership we had with them [Westchester Amateur Astronomers] and it kind of happened by accident.”

Westchester Amateur Astronomers on the boardwalk in front of the Museum. Photo courtesy of Westchester Children’s Museum

Wong met the Westchester Amateur Astronomers before COVID closed the Museum outside on the boardwalk. The group was viewing a planet and Wong struck up a conversation. “They said that they would be happy to partner with the museum for any events or classes. They were the first group I thought of to partner with for this celebration.” Westchester Amateur Astronomers helped Wong confirm which weekend would be best for the Museum to host their celebration so that it was also the best time for viewing planets.

288 people attended the museum’s James Webb Telescope Launch celebration with people participating in both the free NASA activities and exploring the museum’s exhibitions. “It was great to see that people who came for the free NASA activities stayed and paid the special discounted admission to explore the museum afterwards,” said Wong.

“We as a staff, and I especially, feel like we can never do enough with partnerships so we are always looking for new partnerships,” said Wong. “We wanted to do this just because it’s with NASA but also to expand our reach. We’re trying to get our neighbors involved with our programming and that’s really our vision–to be a community hub and do as many partnerships as we can with as many organizations as we can.”

31 NYS Museums Awarded in Round 11 REDC Funding

Wed, 15 Dec 2021 18:14:53 GMT

Governor Kathy Hochul announced an additional $196 million in Round 11 of the Regional Economic Development Council Initiative.

31 New York State Museums were awarded a total of $20,872,895.

CAPITAL REGION–5 museums totaling $4,125,020

Albany County Historical Association, $283,350

Ten Broeck Mansion's Stabilization and Accessibility Project

The Albany County Historical Association, which operates the 1798 Ten Broeck Mansion and over 4 acres of historic gardens as an educational museum, will complete Phase 1 Critical Stabilization and Community Accessibility work. This critical work will preserve the 18th-century Mansion and remediate water infiltration and deterioration, while creating an accessible and welcoming community greenspace in the heart of Albany's Arbor Hill neighborhood, contributing to downtown Albany's revitalization.

Columbia County Historical Society, $75,500

The Luykas Van Alen House Moisture Mitigation & Stabilization Project

Columbia County Historical Society continues restoration projects at Luykas Van Alen House located at 2589 Route 9H in Kinderhook. The current project focuses on issues of moisture mitigation caused by the 1967 pond added to decorate the front lawn. This project will drain the pond and return the front lawn to its original natural environment; address restoration of front stoops, and finally stabilize the house's south gable end wall.

The Olana Partnership, $3,268,776

Frederic Church Center

The Frederic Church Center (FCC) is a sustainably designed, carbon-neutral visitor center for the Olana State Historic Site. The FCC will be the threshold to an immersive visitor experience of Olana as a unique, world-class carbon neutral tourist destination at the intersection of American art and environmental consciousness.

Olana State Historic Site will use capital funds to construct the Frederic Church Center, a new carbon-neutral visitor arrival and orientation facility. The facility is projected to increase Olana's overall number of visitors as well as the regional economic impact.

Thomas Cole National Historic Site, $360,000

Thomas Cole Master Plan: Infrastructure for Economic Growth

The Thomas Cole Master Plan - Infrastructure for Economic Growth Project invests in new facilities and infrastructure improvements at a national historic landmark to accommodate increased tourism and visitation to the Capital Region. A new 1,800 square-foot Visitor Center with exhibit space and outdoor terrace will be constructed. Facility upgrades to multiple iconic buildings will increase energy efficiency and improve climate conditions for historic preservation. Infrastructure upgrades will improve visitor safety and site accessibility. Spaces will be reconfigured to maximize and expand programming, and events and outdoor areas will be landscaped to enhance the rural feel of the campus and make it more visually compatible with the environment.

The Hyde Collection, $137,394

Reimagine The Hyde Collection Tourism Marketing Plan

The Hyde Collection will use fund to develop and implement the REIMAGINE project, a three-year initiative designed to improve the visitor experience and promote the Museum, its collection/exhibitions, and Glens Falls and the overall Capital District region, as a significant travel destination for art and cultural tourists.

CENTRAL NY–4 museums totaling $2,050,000

Seward House Museum, $500,000

Barn and Carriage House Rehabilitation

The Seward House Museum will save two historic structures on its campus by converting them into usable space for the public. After performing intensive preservation work, the Museum's barn will serve as a multipurpose space for year-round use and the carriage house will become an accessible exhibition space for the Seward carriage. Altogether, this adaptive reuse will enhance the Museum's campus and offer new experiences for all to enjoy.

Oneida Community Mansion House, $500,000

Revitalization of Historic Oneida Community Mansion House: Phase 2

National Historic Landmark - Oneida Community Mansion House will complete Phase 2 priorities of its Exterior Rehabilitation Project. The complex is a museum, lodging, cultural performance and event venue that needs this Phase 2 restoration to preserve its cultural significance, historic status, and economic value to the Central New York Region and upstate's renaissance.

Everson Museum of Art of Syracuse and Onondaga County, $800,000

Everson Sculpture Park

The Everson Museum of Art will use the grant funds to expand and renovate the existing Everson Community Plaza, by creating an iconic outdoor gathering space for the CNY region. The Everson Sculpture Park will become a must-see destination for travelers while visiting the Central New York region.

Discovery Center of Science and Technology, $250,000

MOST - Digital Theater Upgrade

The Discovery Center of Science and Technology (dba the “MOST”) will renovate its existing Omnitheater and convert it into a state-of-the-art digital planetarium and theater. The current Omnitheater is outdated and facing increasing limitations on available content and programming opportunities. Completion of this project will redefine the MOST by providing an experience unlike any other in the region, making Armory Square a true destination for visitors.

FINGER LAKES–3 museums totaling $1,172,500

George Eastman Museum, $447,500

George Eastman Museum and Joshua Rashaad McFadden Tourism Special Event & Marketing Plan AND George Eastman Museum Tourism Capital Project

George Eastman Museum, a world-renowned tourist destination, will launch a comprehensive tourism marketing campaign to promote the Finger Lakes Region and special exhibition by Joshua Rashaad McFadden. This important exhibition by a Rochester-based Black artist examines some of the most challenging subject matters of our time.

George Eastman Museum will use the grant funds to renovate over 3600 sq. ft. of unrestored space in Eastman's mansion to create new galleries dedicated to sharing a contemporary, balanced interpretation of Eastman's life and educating visitors about the evolution of photographic technology. The project includes accessibility improvements and the addition of a catering kitchen.

The Strong National Museum of Play, $225,000

Play Rochester Tourism Marketing Plan

Play Rochester is a collaborative tourism marketing project featuring a variety of regional cultural attractions. Created and lead by The Strong National Museum of Play, the project will use grant funds to market and drive tourism to the Rochester region from five-hour drive markets by allowing consumers to create tailor-made packages when planning their trip to the area.

National Women's Hall of Fame, $500,000

Seneca Knitting Mill

The National Women's Hall of Fame will continue renovation of the Seneca Knitting Mill, including a full stairwell, upper floor build-out, and re-build of the bell tower. This work will enable full access of the 16,000 square foot building for final build-out of exhibit, programming, and gathering spaces. This 1844 site on the Canal will be a national destination showcasing the Inductees and drawing visitors to Seneca Falls and many attractions within the Finger Lakes Region of New York State.

LONG ISLAND–1 museum totaling $1,120,000

Long Island Science Center, $1,120,000

Rooftop Planetarium, Functional Agritech & Wind/Solar Exhibit, MakerSpace & Facade Enhancements

The Long Island Science Center, a STEAM Learning Museum, will construct an iconic regional attraction with a Planetarium/lecture hall, functional agritech & energy exhibits, and an "Inventorium" MakerSpace to contribute to Long Island's economy through family-based regional tourism.

MID-HUDSON–5 museums totaling $3,950,980

Friends of Mills Mansion, $30,500

Wall and Ceiling Restoration in Staatsburgh State Historic Site's Kitchen Suite Rooms

The Friends of Mills at Staatsburgh will restore to their historic appearance, the painted ceilings and tiled walls of three rooms in the mansion's kitchen suite at Staatsburgh State Historic Site. This will allow the site to tell a more inclusive story of this fascinating part of the estate's operations and interpret for visitors the lives and careers of the domestic staff of this Gilded Age estate on the Hudson River.

Storm King Art Center, $2,600,000

Storm King Art Center Capital Project

As a leader in the field of art in nature, Storm King launched Art that Moves You Outside. The Capital Project is part of a larger Master Plan and includes two buildings: the Welcome Sequence and the Conservation, Fabrication, and Maintenance Building. These buildings will be built to achieve carbon-neutral performance and will have an immediate impact on the visitor experience.

The Art Center will begin Phase 1 and includes two building elements: the Welcome Sequence and the Conservation, Fabrication, and Maintenance Building. The Welcome Sequence will streamline the arrival into Storm King, and the Art Center’s Conservation, Fabrication, and Maintenance Building will protect the safety of staff and the artwork.

Hudson River Maritime Museum, $240,000

West Gallery Building Rehabilitation

Hudson River Maritime Museum will stabilize the western portion of the main museum building by installing helical piers under the building foundation, making it safer from rising waters and mitigating the implications of climate change for long-term resiliency. The interior will be renovated to create a more efficient administration and archival space. Stairway access will be installed from the ground up to the Tug Mathilda's deck.

Sing Sing Prison Museum, $480,480

Preservation of the Powerhouse for Sing Sing Prison Museum

The Sing Sing Prison Museum will renovate the former prison Powerhouse garage as an arts and humanities center for temporary exhibitions, films, performances, lectures, seminars, workshops, conferences, and live-streamed events.

Historic Hudson Valley, $600,000

Historic Hudson Valley Projects 2021

Historic Hudson Valley will remediate the Rt. 9 roadbed that bisects Van Cortlandt Manor and reconfigure the entrance for safety. This project will improve the entryway to the park that will provide pedestrian and vehicular safety at Van Cortlandt Manor in Croton-on-Hudson and position the National Historic Landmark site for the 21st-century.

MOHAWK VALLEY–3 museums totaling $849,255

Munson-Williams- Proctor Arts Institute, $520,192

Mitigation of Water Infiltration in Munson- Williams-Proctor Arts Institute's Two Museum Buildings

This project will address critical water infiltration issues that threaten the Munson- Williams two landmark buildings both listed on the National and State Registers of Historic Places: the Museum of Art building, built in 1960; and Fountain Elms, an 1850 Italianate house that was home to the Munson-Williams founding families.

Norman Rockwell Summer Special Exhibition Expanded Marketing

Grant funds will be used to support the exhibition Norman Rockwell, exclusively shown at Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, and will attract thousands of visitors to Utica, engage new audiences, contribute to economic development, enhance the quality of life, and reinforce Munson-Williams as a cultural tourism draw. Through local partnerships, Munson-Williams will increase audience diversity and sustainable community participation.

Fenimore Art Museum, $104,063

Wyeth Exhibit Tourism Special Event

Fenimore Art Museum will use funds to promote a major Wyeth exhibition and programming that will reignite art tourism and youth engagement, drive downtown revitalization, and support regional economic recovery following the pandemic. A strategic marketing campaign to increase Mohawk Valley tourism ensures a significant impact on the community, regional businesses, and visitors to Cooperstown.

National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, $225,000

Baseball Hall of Fame Tourism Attraction Website Redesign

The National Baseball Hall of Fame will use grant funds for the redesign of the Museum's website including an updated design, improved usability and a complete overhaul of the Plan Your Visit section of the site to improve user experience and in turn drive additional visits to Cooperstown, Otsego County and the Mohawk Valley Region.

NEW YORK CITY–3 museums totaling $5,023,500

Green-Wood Cemetery, $3,275,000

Stormwater Initiative

Green-Wood Cemetery will use GIGP funds to install bioretention and a harvest and reuse system. This project will reduce stormwater runoff to the surrounding combined sewer areas, while also decreasing the potable water usage from the New York City Water Supply System.

Education and Welcome Center

Green-Wood Historic Fund is constructing an Education and Welcome Center directly across the street from The Green-Wood Cemetery’s main gate. It will welcome both neighbors and tourists, offer additional public programming and educational opportunities, and engage visitors in the art, history, and nature of this National Historic Landmark cemetery.

Childrens Museum of Manhattan, $1,500,000

New Building Project

The grantee will use the grant funds to renovate the Children's Museum of Manhattan future home at the historic building at 361 Central Park West, enhancing the destination as a premiere attraction for families visiting New York City.

Museum of the City of New York, $248,500

Museum of the City of New York Tourism Marketing Plan

The Museum of the City of New York will use grant funds to promote group experiences across the five boroughs and support tourism initiatives in connection with its Centennial celebrations in 2023. Marketing and promotional efforts will strategically position New York as a preeminent tourism destination and target groups interested in celebrating the city's history and thriving culture through unique experiences.

NORTH COUNTRY–3 museums totaling $1,300,475

Historic Saranac Lake, $500,000

Trudeau Building Museum Project

Historic Saranac Lake will rehabilitate the Trudeau Building into a museum in downtown Saranac Lake.

Six Nations Iroquois Cultural Center, $150,000

Phase II of our New Building Project

The grantee will use the capital funding to renovate and construct a new facility to house the current museum and exhibits. The new facility will allow for an enhanced visitor experience as well as drawing more visitation to the area and overall North Country region.

The Wild Center, $650,475

More to Explore: Build Back Better Tourism Marketing Plan

Grant funds will be used by The Wild Center to develop and promote "More to Explore: Build Back Better" a marketing plan that uses a suite of strategic promotion activities to promote expanded year-round indoor and outdoor Wild Center exhibits and programs that will rebuild the prior audiences while attracting new, more diverse visitors to the region. The 2-year project will include new exhibits, special programs and events that will increase tourism and enhance the economy.

SOUTHERN TIER–1 museum totaling $10,165

Roberson Museum and Science Center, $10,165

Museum and Carriage House Preservation Plan

Roberson Museum and Science Center located in Binghamton will hire a preservation architect to create a plan to restore key architectural features of the Roberson Mansion, perimeter fence, and Carriage House. The goal is to set forth a plan for the restoration of both buildings to their original state and prevent further deterioration.

WESTERN NY–3 museums totaling $1,271,000

Buffalo Museum of Science, $161,000

Antarctic Dinosaurs Tourism Special Event

The Buffalo Museum of Science will use the grant fund to host the special exhibit Antarctic Dinosaurs. This new exhibit will immerse guests in exploration of one of the most isolated and dangerous environments on Earth, and increase tourism to the area and overall region.

Old Fort Niagara Association, Inc., $435,000

Old French Castle Restoration

The Old Fort Niagara Association is applying for support to restore deteriorating masonry and provide a new roof for the 1726 French Castle at Old Fort Niagara. In recent years, the Castle has experienced missing mortar, falling stones and serious roof leaks that endanger the building.

The Aquarium of Niagara, $675,000

Niagara Gorge Experience Center

The Aquarium of Niagara will renovate the vacant Niagara Gorge Discovery Center on the Niagara Gorge rim, creating new space for Great Lakes-focused exhibits along the new greenspace created through the recently-completed removal of the Niagara Scenic Parkway. This project expands the capacity of the Aquarium of Niagara as a major driver of tourism in the Niagara region. It builds on other recent investments into the Aquarium that have expanded its exhibits and ability to attract visitors.

Learn more about NYS REDC here: https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-announces-additional-196-million-awarded-through-round-xi-regional-economic

Letter from Erika: Are We There Yet?

Thu, 02 Dec 2021 21:31:36 GMT

Dear Friends, Members, and Supporters,

Since early September we have been speaking with elected officials to let them know that New York’s museums are trailing other nonprofits and performing arts organizations in their pandemic recovery. Legislators and staff were genuinely surprised when we let them know how few museums have received federal and state support so far, how few have seen school group visits, and how few are back to full capacity.

I have been asked what recovery will look like for museums and how long will it take to get there. I’ve replied that although my crystal ball is in the repair shop, I know that we are not there yet, and that relief funding has fallen far short of our needs. We are looking forward to a busy holiday season in our museums, but the New York Times recently reported that tourism spending in 2021 will be half of what it was in 2019.

MANY has been asked to gather information and share a comparison of 2019 to 2021 for four data points to help quantify NY museums’ recovery:

Number of hours open
Number of visitors
Number of staff
Number of school groups

Please click here and let us know how you are doing.

We have been asked for a rapid response. The survey will be open for one week and will close on Thursday, December 9 at 5 PM. It should take you less than 5 minutes to answer the four questions once you have your 2019 and 2021 estimated through year-end numbers in hand.

We all retain hope that additional funding will be distributed to New York’s museums soon and eagerly await the upcoming announcement of New York State Council on the Arts Recovery Grants.

MANY’s 2022 work plan includes a major advocacy effort to secure funding for New York’s museums that helps us recover from the pandemic and meets our current needs. Your input, feedback, and support will be essential to our efforts on your behalf.

With thanks in advance for your time,

Museum Association of NY Announces Call for Proposals for the 2022 Annual Conference “Envisioning Our Museums for the Seventh Generation”

Tue, 16 Nov 2021 16:07:11 GMT

The Museum Association of New York (MANY) is excited to announce the 2022 Annual Conference “Envisioning Our Museums for the Seventh Generation.”

The Seventh Generation is a core value among the Indigenous nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora peoples. The principle, which is rooted in the preservation of Indigenous culture, underscores the importance of the human continuum. It advocates for informed, long-term decision-making that recognizes and draws from the past while laying the groundwork for the future.

The annual conference will be held in Corning, NY on April 9-12, 2022 on the ancestral lands of the Seneca. Attendees will have the opportunity to meet and connect with colleagues in beautiful, unique museum spaces including The Rockwell Museum and Corning Museum of Glass. Conference plans include Saturday Workshops, Conference Capstones, special events, and more than a dozen sessions that will advance professional practice and develop leadership skills.

MANY is seeking session proposals that address the theme, that are engaging and interactive, and offer multiple perspectives.

In addition to sessions that meet the “Envisioning Our Museums for the Seventh Generation” theme, we are looking for sessions about how museums:

Change systems to address diversity, equity, access, inclusion, and justice
Build financial stability
Create digital access to collections and born-digital content
Partner to share collections and resources
Revisit foundational policies and procedures to adapt to change
Break down barriers and convey that museums are for everyone
Strengthen community engagement
Employ and expand the use of technology
Support staff leadership
Reconstruct interpretation
Expand board engagement and resource development
Respond to pandemic-related challenges

We are also calling for proposals from emerging museum professionals and students for 10 x 10 sessions where EMPs and students can share their vision for the museum field through 10 PowerPoint slides in ten minutes.

Proposals from organizations in the Southern Tier can include Saturday Workshops and Tuesday Capstone Programs. Workshop and Capstone Programs should offer attendees a closer look at museum practices, exemplary projects, hands-on learning opportunities, and offer perspectives from the leadership of organizations hosting the program.

All session proposals are due by 5 PM on Wednesday, January 5, 2022. Proposals will be reviewed by a committee of MANY board members and museum professionals from the Corning area. Lead presenters will be notified at the end of January and conference registration will open on Monday, February 7, 2022.

For more information, visit nysmuseums.org/annualconference, email info@nysmuseums.orgor call 518-273-3400.

NYS Museums receive $1.4M in ARP IMLS Funding

Thu, 28 Oct 2021 19:37:29 GMT

The Institute of Museum and Library Services awarded $15,255,733 in American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act grants to institutions across the country. 390 projects out of 572 applications we awarded funding including 33 New York State museums that received a total of just over $1.4M. These funds are to support the role of museums in recovering from the coronavirus pandemic. New York State museums plan to use these funds to upgrade digital infrastructure, increase access to collections, invest in digital and online content staff, support and strengthen DEAI initiatives, and more.

Click here to for the full list of NYS museums

Adirondack Experience, $50,000

The Adirondack Experience (ADKX) in New York will partner with the Adirondack Diversity Initiative, Akwesasne Cultural Center, Mountain Lake PBS, The Nature Conservancy’s Adirondack Chapter, and The Wild Center to facilitate a series of free virtual public programs throughout 2022 that reexamine the history of Adirondack Park through the lens of environmental justice, especially regional inequities established by policies to manage land and water access, as well as conservation principles. The collaborative will facilitate a series of livestreamed discussions as a launching point for public engagement and host a symposium to convene Indigenous and non-Indigenous historians, educators, storytellers, and social scientists to discuss these issues. ADKX seeks to address the combined impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and social injustice protests on the region through these virtual programs.

Albany Institute of History & Art, $37,801

The Albany Institute of History & Art (AIHA) will create an online resource of one hundred digitized items from the museum’s collection exploring the Black experience in Albany, New York, from 1650 to 1877. AIHA’s project team will identify, contextualize, digitize, and upload collection items highlighting Albany’s African American history as the first part of the much larger Albany African American History Project, which seeks to expand the limited scholarship and research about African American lives in Albany during this period. The project pairs seasoned museum professionals with emerging museum and library/archives professionals in a collaborative mentorship model to grow the pipeline of underrepresented professionals in the field. The project will help with COVID-19 pandemic recovery by creating more online resources, building staff capacity through mentorship, and establishing a framework for future online projects.

Alice Austen House, $30,693

The Alice Austen House (AAH) in Staten Island, New York, will implement the Expanded Digital Access Project developing three 3-D virtual tours, online artist talks, and exhibition catalogues for learners of all ages to expand the museum’s audience geographically, culturally, and socioeconomically. The virtual tours, talks, and catalogues will incorporate the work of three women, BIPOC, LGBTQ+ artists whose work exposes societal inequities. This project will promote community healing from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic while expanding the reach of important photographic works to a national audience of all ages and create financial support for the AAH as we await a full resumption of our financial support through educational programming and in-person attendance.

American Folk Art Museum, $50,000

The American Folk Art Museum in Long Island, New York, will upgrade its software and database to make more images of art and archival information available online. Digital content has been an important element of the museum’s work following the COVID-19 pandemic. The new software will allow the museum to add audio, visual, and other media files to its website for the first time, including adding archival photos, letters, ephemera, and recordings to an artist’s web page to give a fuller understanding of their work. The upgraded software will be available to individuals from any web-connected device. The museum will prioritize digitizing images and archives for artists who have been historically underrepresented in the art world—including Black, Indigenous, and other artists of color; women-identified artists; and neurodiverse artists—to more accurately reflect the museum’s collections.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden, $32,105

Brooklyn Botanic Garden in New York City will restore an assistant position to rebuild its community greening outreach programs. In a typical year, the garden’s community greening outreach programs impact an estimated 70,000 residents. Since the pandemic’s onset, the garden scaled back and modified its programs for remote or socially distanced delivery in line with evolving public health guidelines. Fully staffed, these programs once again will have the capacity to engage residents in gardening, nature appreciation, and environmental stewardship. Feedback from past program workshops, listening circles, and check-ins during the pandemic consistently highlighted that these outreach programs contribute to community resilience, a key driver of recovery from the collective trauma of COVID-19. The organization will survey participants to evaluate program success.

Brooklyn Museum, $50,000

The Brooklyn Museum will create intensive arts education curricula for up to 10 underserved schools during the 2021–2022 academic year. The museum aims to create inspiring encounters with art that transform the ways we see ourselves, the world, and its possibilities. Through its school partnerships, the museum expects to reach roughly 1,000 K–12 students, specifically prioritizing Title I schools whose districts have experienced severe trauma resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. This project will address multiple issues facing New York City educators right now, including the need for arts education curricula that aligns with New York City Department of Education learning objectives; content that addresses history and art through an anti-racist lens; and free or low-cost arts education resources.

Burchfield Penney Art Center, $29,000

The Burchfield Penney Art Center in Buffalo, New York, will hire a full-time social media and digital content specialist to manage the center’s website, social media channels, emails, and digital communications and marketing buys to meet audience needs through a hybrid model of on-site and online programming during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. This new hire will work with the center’s curatorial, educational, and public program departments to plan and create content, including evaluating the center’s work against its diversity, equity, and inclusion vision and goals. The center serves the eight counties of western New York and has strong ties to the Buffalo community. The center is gathering data to better understand and leverage potential opportunities with broader local, national, and international audiences.

Center for Jewish History, $34,891

The Center for Jewish History had to shift its programs and offerings online during the COVID-19 pandemic. This caused staff at the Center to realize they needed to be more accessible to its diverse patrons. When the Center reopens, it hopes to be a more inclusive institution by increasing accessibility of its online and onsite programs and services and by installing a hearing loop in its auditorium and at all service counters. It also plans to implement accessibility features on its website, provide high-quality live captions for a lecture series, and add closed captions to all recordings of public programs in order to better serve all visitors.

Dyckman Farmhouse Museum, $27,882

The Dyckman Farmhouse Museum Alliance in New York City will hire a digital content and programs coordinator to help the museum continue responding to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic by expanding its online impact. This individual will film and post livestreamed and pre-recorded programs, publish museum and exhibit digital guides, post upcoming events on local media event calendars, and create content about the active museum initiatives Growing Uptown (which helps community members grow food in their apartments) and Talking About Race Matters lecture series. Through this new hire’s work, the museum intends to increase program attendance by 30 percent, increase its in-person and virtual programs by 20 percent, and increase its community partnerships by 20 percent. The museum will track progress through participant surveys and other measures.

Everson Museum of Art, $50,000

The Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, New York, will upgrade its digital infrastructure to provide patrons with enhanced access to its collections and programs. The pandemic underscored the need for expanded technology to reach the growing number of virtual visitors and reduce barriers to participation. The upgraded systems will improve the museum’s efficiency, sharing capabilities, and data security. Upgrades will include two new servers, cloud-based technology, video production equipment, and collections database software. These combined technological upgrades will provide patrons with digital access to more than 10,000 objects in the museum’s permanent collection. They also will support patrons’ access to a wide range of programs and events via improved video streaming capabilities.

Historic Hudson Valley, $49,750

Historic Hudson Valley in Tarrytown, New York, will strengthen its institutional capacity and respond to teachers’ needs for online resources during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The project team will hire interpretive staff with the digital storytelling skills needed to lead virtual programs and train them in the organization’s content about slavery in the colonial North. The nonprofit also will train existing interpretive staff in the differences between historic, site-based, and hands-on learning, as well as fostering engagement in a remote classroom setting. This work will help the organization continue to develop virtual field trips that deliver accurate, empathetic, and engaging information about the history that shaped the nation. This program will serve students unable to visit historic sites because of geographic or economic constraints, and will measure success through teacher surveys, focus group recommendations, and staff evaluation.

Historic Saranac Lake, $50,000

Historic Saranac Lake in New York will carry out several initiatives to catalog its collections, respond to research requests, and prepare for expansion of the museum. The museum preserves and interprets the region’s history as the birthplace of the sanatorium treatment for tuberculosis in the United States and is a center for scientific research. During the COVID-19 pandemic, in the number of research and genealogical requests increased dramatically, ad did donations to the collection. The museum will replace—and expand—a staff position lost due to reductions during the Covid-19 pandemic to manage the initiatives. This new collections assistant will respond to research/genealogical requests, process donations to the collection, and manage volunteer-completed collections projects. The additional staff support will increase the museum’s ability to properly care for its collections and make them available to the public.

International Center of Photography, $49,500

The International Center of Photography in New York City will reinstate its library-based public programs at the William Randolph Hearst Library and create hybrid virtual and in-person programs for individuals who are not yet ready or able to attend in person. Virtual programs were highly popular during the pandemic and will continue alongside in-person programming that gets filmed. Programs will include book events, film screenings, a community day, and exhibition-based activities. The center will hire a part-time videographer/audiovisual producer and a public programs coordinator to support this expanded programming. Through its new programs, the center will continue delivering accessible resources and content to meet the community’s needs.

Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, $50,000

The Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, based in New York City, will broaden outreach for its long-standing leadership and science program for girls to provide families and communities with an essential support network. In particular, the museum will encourage youth from low-income neighborhoods, which have been especially hard-hit by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, to pursue education and careers in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields. The museum’s free yearlong program integrates STEM disciplines into real-world experiences and applications, introduces girls to female role models active in STEM fields, and provides girls with social and professional support, including near-peer mentors from the program’s alumnae network. The museum will conduct community outreach at New York City Housing Authority housing sites and develop informational resources that are welcoming, inclusive, and culturally responsive to enable parents and caregivers to encourage youth participation.

Irish American Heritage Museum, $34,800

The Irish American Heritage Museum in Albany, New York, will expand its programming, reinvest in its collection, and strengthen its staff to preserve and tell the story of the contributions of the Irish people and their culture in America. Shortly after relocating in early 2020, the museum closed due to the pandemic, but it built a significant online following during that time and will continue to prioritize additional digital offerings. The museum will build new connections in the community through diverse public programming. The museum will hire a full-time content and engagement manager, who will develop new exhibitions and programs. Storage of and care for the museum’s permanent collection will be improved, which will allow the museum to increase the rotation of objects on display and create diverse temporary exhibitions.

Katonah Museum of Art, $24,669

The Katonah Museum of Art will expand and enhance its in-school artist residency program for students grades 2–6 at Thomas Cornell Academy, a Title I elementary school in Yonkers. Through this 10-session sequential program, students will be guided by teaching artists and a school-based arts instructor to create poetry, visual artwork, and choreographed movement pieces in response to the museum’s exhibitions, culminating in an event for families featuring student presentations of their work. This program seeks to fill the gap in access to arts enrichment activities, an issue exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, $50,000

The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art will adopt a more flexible and robust web-based cataloguing software to provide greater public and scholarly access to research on LGBTQ+ art and the artists who create it. Requests from researchers and virtual audiences during the COVID-19 pandemic informed the museum’s plan to accelerate cataloguing, develop a more rigorous online database for the permanent collection, and recover collection staff to make research accessible. As part of the project, the museum will invite independent scholars to review the collection and inform the database management process, data, and user experience. The museum will develop image digitization and database migration plans to ensure that the collection is widely accessible to scholars of all disciplines.

Long Island Children's Museum, $49,974

Long Island Children’s Museum in New York will expand its Westbury STEM Partnership, a school-museum teaching collaboration with Westbury School District that serves first and second grade students, to include third grade students, their teachers, and their families in STEM learning. This expansion will mitigate the significant learning loss that these students experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic. The program addresses the ongoing need for high-quality STEM education in a school district that is largely low-income and non-white, with significant numbers of immigrant students. Among other activities, the program will build students’ STEM-related skills and knowledge by providing multiple opportunities to engage in inquiry-based activities using problem-solving and critical thinking skills.

Memorial Art Gallery, $50,000

The Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester will expand its free arts education programming in partnership with five under-resourced elementary schools in the Rochester City School District. Students will visit the museum once a week over a 4-week period to engage in a series of curriculum-based, hands-on, in-gallery experiences that reinforce classroom learning. A museum educator will lead discussions and activities, and the students will create their own artwork under the guidance of a teaching artist. These programs aim to help participants heal from the trauma of the COVID-19 pandemic while developing the language, skills, and tools they need to understand, interpret, and discuss art.

Museum at Bethel Woods, $31,900

Bethel Woods Center for the Arts in New York state will maintain its preservation fellowship—its most ambitious program to date and a necessary addition as the museum overcomes pandemic-related interruptions—through October 2022. Continuing the fellowship will enhance and expand existing programming that has increased the museum’s institutional capacity to respond to community needs, strengthen public programming, and partner with other community-based organizations. The fellowship encompasses oral histories, public engagement projects, and the opening of new areas of the 800-acre historic site to exploration and public use. The previous fellowship project involved helping the museum plan, document, and preserve the historic site of the 1969 Woodstock Music & Art Fair. The museum will design fellowship activities to enhance the visitor experience and add authentic new material and understanding to the historical record.

Museum of the City of New York, $50,000

The Museum of the City of New York will hire a full-time Education & Community Coordinator to facilitate online and onsite programming for students, teachers, families, and intergenerational audiences with a focus on building, sustaining, and advancing community-based initiatives throughout the museum’s neighborhood of East Harlem and across the five boroughs of New York City. The coordinator also will lead trainings for museum staff to support inclusive, trauma-informed education programs and help build partnerships with schools, city agencies, and community organizations. This project will help the museum reconnect with its community following disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and responds to the community’s need for free, arts-based programming identified during the pandemic.

Museum of the Earth, $49,915

The Museum of the Earth will develop the Here on Earth component of Earth@Home online, an open educational resource platform that will provide high school teachers with regionally contextualized geoscience content and career path guidance that they can integrate into their lessons and classrooms. Here on Earth will increase awareness of Earth science among high school students, increase awareness of geoscience careers, and help diversify the geosciences workforce. The museum will partner with high school science programs, natural history museums, and national public parks around the country to connect existing PRI Earth science learning resources with a wider national community of high school teachers and their students. This online learning resource for teachers seeks to address the weakness and limitations in available online learning resources exposed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Museum of the Moving Image, $48,556

The Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, New York, will increase its capacity to serve local communities and national audiences by upgrading its digital infrastructure and equipment and providing training for staff on hybrid programming. The infrastructure upgrade will support digital media education programs that fuse online and on-site programs. Enhanced technology will allow the museum to increase the amount of livestream programming and improve its quality. A new digital media makerspace located in the museum’s core exhibition area will increase technology-based education opportunities for youth. These strategies are intended to address the widening digital divide highlighted during the pandemic. By implementing a hybrid system of programming, the museum will increase its ability to connect with audiences by enabling participants to access programmatic and media resources remotely as well as on-site.

National Women's Hall of Fame, $49,748

The National Women’s Hall of Fame (NWHF) in Seneca Falls, New York, will expand its virtual forums to engage the community in dialogue about past, present, and future leaders in women’s history. NWHF will host six forums (one every other month) highlighting women’s equality, women in business, and medical researchers working to advance women’s health. The forums will place special focus on providing a platform for women of color to showcase their expertise. Panel discussions targeted toward Generation Z and millennials will focus on conducting job searches in the post-pandemic era. Lessons learned during the pandemic about digital programming will enhance the NWHF’s ability to expand its reach far beyond its physical walls and support its long-term growth and sustainability.

Reher Center for Immigrant Culture and History, $50,000

The Reher Center for Immigrant Culture and History in Kingston, New York, will expand its multicultural and educational programs to serve immigrant, school-age, and older adult populations and to counteract the learning difficulties, isolation, and trauma Kingston residents are experiencing as a result of the pandemic. The center will hire a multicultural programs and education director to oversee new initiatives and engage with target communities. The center’s Worry Dolls Project (Proyecto Muñecas Quitapenas) will expand to include five additional elementary schools. High school students and older adults will have access to five in-person, virtual, or hybrid programs relating to the Sewing in Kingston exhibition. The center will organize a multicultural festival with free activities for children and families.

Rochester Museum and Science Center, $49,632

The Rochester Museum and Science Center and community partners will provide a full-day field trip experience to the museum for third grade students as well as three public program days. The disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Black community, combined with local events, created a new consensus around the need for systemic change to address racism. In collaboration with the Take It Down Planning Committee of community activists and the Rochester City School District, the program will utilize the "Take It Down" exhibit, which tells the story of a community led effort to remove racist artwork from a historic carousel, as a tool for anti-racism education. Designed and taught by museum educators and Black community activists, the program engages participants in activities and dialogue to inspire and empower audiences to work for change.

Sciencenter, $41,386

Sciencenter in Ithaca, New York, will conduct a capacity-building project to improve the museum’s digital infrastructure and expand community access to programming. COVID-19 exacerbated typical patterns of learning loss, and the Sciencenter worked with teachers, libraries, and community organizations to support online learning throughout the pandemic. To continue this momentum, they plan to upgrade the museum’s Wi-Fi connectivity, increasing access and reliability for visitors and supporting the development of digital programs for target audiences. Working with community partners, Sciencenter will create interactive STEM programs that complement classroom learning for students in grades pre-K through 6. By relating content to students’ personal experiences and surroundings, they will foster higher engagement in activities and help to address the pandemic’s impact on STEM learning.

South Street Seaport Museum, $31,130

The South Street Seaport Museum in New York City will revitalize and expand its educational programming and restore activities that were cancelled during the pandemic. The museum’s core programming, which will safely reopen indoors in stages, will include school-age education programs, letterpress printing workshops, and public exhibitions. All programs, including virtual offerings piloted during the pandemic, will engage participants to make connections between their own lives and the historical development of the seaport. To increase access for broader audiences, the museum will make its collections and archives available online. The museum also will continue to maintain and preserve its fleet of historical ships in accordance with historical vessel preservation standards.

The History Center in Tompkins County, $36,721

The History Center in Tompkins County, New York, will collaborate with the Southside Community Center, Latino Civic Association, and Ithaca Asian American Association to make its collection more representative and diverse. Currently, the community archive predominantly reflects the white communities that have called Tompkins County home, which became apparent as a result of increased inquiries about the history of different minority groups during the COVID-19 pandemic. The center will sponsor a collaborative effort to assess the representation of Black, Latinx, and Asian communities within its archives and 3-D object collection; create public outreach strategies to address significant gaps in its historical record; and develop institutional programs and partnerships to document and archive both the COVID-19 pandemic and the future of Tompkins County. This project is critical for The History Center to build the partnerships and trust necessary to continue its progress toward becoming a true community archive.

The Studio Museum in Harlem, $50,000

The Studio Museum in Harlem will develop the Thomas J. Price Exhibition, Witness, and the 2021-22 season of inHarlem community-based collaborative programming. The museum will deepen its roots in the community through inHarlem by providing arts-based programming for families, teens, and adults through both digital and in-person initiatives that operate with the help of local NYC libraries, parks, community centers and public schools. The inHarlem exhibition Thomas J. Price: Witness involves erecting a nine-foot bronze figure sited within Harlem’s Marcus Garvey Park that addresses Black masculinity, stereotypes and shared diasporic experiences and will be the U.K. artist's first-ever U.S. museum solo exhibition. The museum will engage its resilient communities via inHarlem programming and aid in recovery as they overcome the devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic together.

The Wild Center, $49,962

The Wild Center, a natural history center in New York state, will create a fellowship program to support recovery from the economic and social impacts of COVID-19 and attract young people to Adirondack Park, a rural, underserved region of the state. The fellowship program will diversify the center’s workforce to better reflect changing demographics, especially as it expands its online educational offerings beyond the region. The Wild Center will recruit, hire, and mentor a diverse cohort of fellows to prepare them to work in a science center or museum and teach them to facilitate online programming at the center during their fellowship year. This program will help rebuild the center’s institutional capacity to serve digital pre-K through 12th-grade audiences and families, in addition to its approximately 100,000 annual on-site visitors.

Weeksville Heritage Center, $50,000

The Weeksville Heritage Center will hire and train a new staff member to build the curriculum for an online and in-person educational program for K-12 schoolchildren. Located in Brooklyn, the Weeksville Heritage Center tells the story of Weeksville, one of the largest free Black communities in pre-Civil War America. In response to the need for virtual educational programming prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the museum will plan and coordinate professional development training for K-12 teachers. Additionally, the museum will host school groups for virtual tours, workshops, and events. A Fall 2022 Open House event will invite local teachers to learn about the institution and make available resources and tools for teaching about the impact of Weeksville on Brooklyn’s history.

Whaling Museum in Cold Spring Harbor, $32,089

The Whaling Museum in Cold Spring Harbor, New York, will research, design, install, and evaluate a 2-year exhibition exploring and expounding on the role of Black mariners in whaling history. The exhibit will highlight and bring into perspective the significant but marginalized experiences of whaling in American history. The exhibition will correspond to present-day issues, promote democratic values, highlight new research about the experiences and impact of local Black whalers, and strengthen the visibility of Black perspectives on Long Island. Geared towards underserved populations on Long Island, particularly those of color, who have faced disproportionate impacts of the pandemic, the project will encourage audiences to foster new connections and gain an understanding of how Black seaman played a role in the evolution of Black communities through the American landscape.

About the Institute of Museum and Library Services

The Institute of Museum and Library Services is the primary source of federal support for the nation's libraries and museums. We advance, support, and empower America’s museums, libraries, and related organizations through grantmaking, research, and policy development. Our vision is a nation where museums and libraries work together to transform the lives of individuals and communities. To learn more, visit www.imls.gov and follow us on Facebook and Twitter .

Letter from Erika: People in Actual Rooms Talking About Museum Work

Wed, 27 Oct 2021 13:12:04 GMT

Building Capacity Workshop at the Museum of Arts and Design, October 26, 2021

Dear Friends, Members, and Supporters,

I write from the Museum of Art and Design in New York City. The twenty-five museum professionals with us are bouncing energy around the room. My heart is filled with joy to be here among such passionate, and dedicated people. In this fall’s Forums, we are learning how partnerships help museums reach new audiences, grow resources, and interpret collections. Today, the New York City Building Capacity program participants are sharing their successes, challenges, and hopes for the future.

I am beyond grateful for those of you who have let me know that our virtual programs helped you remain connected and informed. I apologize for my frequent tears in response to your thanks, but when we closed the Zoom on Friday afternoons, it sometimes felt like all the air had been let out of the room and I could do nothing but nap. Other times the momentum kept me going for a week. But if the pandemic raised doubts in my mind about the importance of being with colleagues in creative, actual spaces discussing our work, today silenced every doubt.

While we finish our fall workshops and prepare for the grant opportunities announced last week, we have begun planning for our 2022 annual conference “Envisioning Our Museums for the Seventh Generation.” The Seventh Generation is a core value among the Indigenous nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora peoples. The principle, which is rooted in the preservation of Indigenous culture, underscores the importance of the human continuum. It advocates for informed, long-term decision-making that recognizes and draws from the past while laying the groundwork for the future.

We invite you to connect with colleagues and consider this concept from April 10th through the 12th in Corning, NY, on the ancestral lands of the Seneca. Conference plans include visits to unique museum spaces, Saturday Workshops, Conference Capstones, special events, and more than a dozen sessions that will advance your professional practice.

Our call for proposals to New York’s museum professionals are for sessions that address the theme, that are engaging and interactive, and offer multiple perspectives.

Watch for an email and MANY social media channels in the coming weeks for the Call for Proposals and the schedule for submitting Awards of Merit nominations.

With tears of gratitude and joyful hopes for the spring of 2022, e

ArteJuntos/ArtTogether with Katonah Museum of Art

Wed, 27 Oct 2021 13:08:21 GMT

Located about an hour north of New York City, the Katonah Museum of Art is a non-collecting institution producing three to four exhibitions each year that cover a range of art and humanities topics. The Katonah Museum of Art’s bilingual family literacy program, ArteJuntos/ArtTogether promotes school readiness for preschool children. It fosters social inclusion through parent engagement and access to informal learning experiences. Supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), ArteJuntos/ArtTogether empowers parents to become resourceful facilitators of their children’s learning while encouraging families to enjoy museums together. Since its inception almost 15 years ago, ArteJuntos/ArtTogether has strengthened and grown with its partner organizations for Westchester County’s growing Latino community.

The exterior of the Katonah Museum of Art in Katonah, NY

ArteJuntos/ArtTogether

“ArteJuntos/ArtTogether started as a response to the museum wanting to be better connected to the changing demographics of our area and to our communities in general,” said Margaret Adasko, Katonah Museum of Art’s Curator of Education. “Over the years, this program has taken many different forms. We’ve worked with school and community organizations, but the main goals of the program are to work directly with parents and their young children so that we are sharing all the ways you can use museums and art to learn together.” ArteJuntos/ArtTogether uses artwork from the museum’s exhibitions as source material for inquiry-based discussions and collaborative art-making activities.

“It was the museum’s former director of education who had a relationship with a family literacy program based in Tarrytown funded by Even Start, which no longer exists. The museum was seeking ways to support the parent community and started offering some programming in partnership with this group,” said Helena Vidal, Program Manager. Even Start was funded by the US Department of Education and offered grants to support local family literacy projects that integrated early childhood education. “This collaboration between the KMA and Even Start was so successful that word got out in Tarrytown and then in Ossining. Eventually, there was a desire and interest when the Even Start program ended for the Museum to continue working with a family literacy program in Ossining. This led to the original IMLS grant application that laid the groundwork for the curriculum, the community partnerships, and refining the program’s objectives and outcomes,” said Vidal. The museum was awarded an IMLS Museums for America Grant in 2010 for just over $115,000 for the development of ArteJuntos/ArtTogether.

“In every iteration of the ArteJuntos/ArtTogether we’ve tried to stay connected with our partners to be flexible and to support their needs,” said Vidal. “We see it as part of our primary objective of the program– to support what our partners are trying to do and what they offer their constituencies.”

How the program works

Each ArteJuntos/ArtTogether program includes ten sessions that take place at partner site classrooms and at the museum. It begins with a parents-only session with a discussion about cultural institutions as informal learning resources. The goal of this first session is to support New Americans who don’t yet feel that museums are a space created for them.

A parents-only session is designed to support immigrants who may not yet feel that museums are a space created for them. This session includes a discussion of cultural institutions as informal learning resources, the role of parent support at home, and the use of dialogue to develop observation, critical thinking, and emergent literacy skills in preschool children. The Katonah Museum of Art educator models inquiry-based teaching, giving parents tools to engage children in discussions about works of art, books, and the world around them. The parents also participate in an art activity that will later be introduced to their children. In the activity pictured here, connections between line and emotion are explored.

“An important component of the program is parent-only sessions.” said Vidal. “During these workshops we talk about the value of museum learning and ask the caregivers to share their own experiences in museums.”

The program also includes a discussion about the role of parental support at home, the importance of play, and the use of dialogue to develop observation, critical thinking, and literacy skills. Museum educators model an inquiry-based teaching methodology, giving parents tools to engage children in discussions about works of art, books, and the world around them. “We’re modeling conversations with works of art and demonstrating not only how to engage a child with a work of art but with the art-making,” said Vidal. To support parents at home, the museum models collaborative, open-ended art activities and provides bilingual “Art at Home” activities and art supplies.

Father and daughter display their series of portraits made with a variety of art materials in connection with the exhibition Matisse Drawings: Curated by Ellsworth Kelly From the Pierre and Tana Matisse Foundation Collection.

“It’s all part of sharing strategies for how we look at art, how we talk about art, and how you can engage your children in a discussion about art and art-making that is also supporting their school readiness,” said Vidal. “We support the idea that a parent is their child’s most important teacher, which is an objective of effective early childhood programs. ArteJuntos is aligned with our partners goals of supporting parents’ development of this role.”

Through this program, the museum wants to create multiple entry points by eliminating barriers such as language and transportation, and by giving parents the tools to support a positive museum experience. “I like to talk to them not just about the Katonah Museum of Art as an entity that we want them to visit but we really want them to feel comfortable visiting any museum,” said Vidal.

Reaching Community

Student artwork is displayed in an annual exhibition at the Ossining Public Library, where families, friends, and members of the community can view it. A combination of students’ individual artworks, families’ written descriptions of the artworks, collaborative class projects, and photos of the program are included in the exhibition.

In order to reach the Latino community, the museum started with an internal committee that was tasked with reaching out to different organizations. “We talked with teachers, and we talked to community organizers,” said Adasko. “Recently, Helena [Vidal] and I went on several listening sessions and identified many organizations that were responding to these immigrant communities. We had meetings with all of them.” Through these community-based organizations, Adasko and Vidal were able to speak directly with organizational leaders and asked what they needed most, what they wanted, and to better understand what were the opportunities for collaboration. “From these listening sessions, we were able to develop a few target partners that we’ve continued working with to today.”

Through the Pandemic

The ArteJuntos/ArtTogether program continued through the pandemic virtually utilizing Zoom and drop-off art kits that partner organizations delivered directly to families. “Early on in the pandemic, spring 2020, we started making take-home packets that included art materials, books, and online and written materials for parents to continue the program on their own,” said Adasko. The museum distributed 350 packets in the first year and slightly more in the second. “It didn’t make up for not being able to work with families in person in the museum but we were happy to provide resources that supported parent and child engagement at home.”

The take-home packets were given to families even if they were not directly involved in the program. “We were able to expand our reach significantly through the distribution of these resources to families that were not engaged specifically in the ArteJuntos program and hopefully provide some support during those difficult months.

The museum also used funding from existing grants to purchase larger screens and update technology for classrooms so that the program could be presented virtually.

At the conclusion of the 2020-2021 program, after an almost entirely virtual year, parents and children visit the Katonah Museum of Art together to view the art they had learned about virtually and practice their new art-looking skills. Photo courtesy of Margaret Fox Photography.

Measuring Success

Since the program began, nearly 1500 families have participated. The Katonah Museum of Art grew its partnerships with organizations including First Steps Early Literacy, Neighbors Link, Mount Kisco Child Care Center, Head Start of Mount Kisco, and the Community Center of Northern Westchester. The museum further engaged with these community partners in correlation with the current exhibition, ARRIVALS, which explores American origin stories through five centuries of art. “Neighbors Link in Mount Kisco is an important anchor organization that we’ve worked with over the years with ArteJuntos ,” said Vidal. “As a result, we were able to engage the organization and participation of their constituencies in aspects of this exhibition.”

The museum measures success in other ways too. “Sometimes we will be in the Learning Center and will see a family that has previously participated in the program and it’s rewarding to see that they have come back,” said Vidal. “A lot of the families that we work with have multiple children that go through the program When these families return, the parents often talk about things that their older children remember from the program and it’s exciting to hear the impact.”

Photo courtesy of Margaret Fox Photography.

What’s Next

The Katonah Museum of Art just completed a two-year $50,000 IMLS Inspire! Grant for Small Museums that increased the total number of sessions and increased the number of partner organizations. In 2021, the museum was awarded $25,000 from the NEA, its second NEA grant for ArteJuntos/ArtTogether.

“We’ve experienced how drastically things can change in the past two years,” said Vidal. “As a result, we have learned that listening and being responsive to what the community needs is essential to the success and impact of this program”

Learn more about the Katonah Museum of Art: http://www.katonahmuseum.org/

Museum Association of NY Awarded $20,000 from Humanities NY

Tue, 26 Oct 2021 13:05:59 GMT

The Museum Association of New York (MANY) is honored to receive a $20,000 SHARP grant from Humanities New York (HNY) to support New York’s museums.

HNY awarded a total of $1.2 million in American Rescue Plan (ARP) funding to 120 NYS cultural nonprofits affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. These SHARP (Sustaining the Humanities Through the American Rescue Plan) Operating Grants focus on organizations with a core humanities mission and ranged from $1,000 to $20,000. Grants will be used to cover day-to-day activities or ongoing expenses such as staff salaries, utilities, and rent, as well as for humanities programming and professional development.

"HNY is delighted to support MANY's work advancing the museum field. We are excited that the SHARP grant will help MANY provide tools and resources to cultural organizations seeking to promote diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility,” said Sara Ogger Humanities New York Executive Director.

HNY reviewed nearly 200 applications from cultural organizations requesting over $3 million in funding. Just over 60% of applications were funded. HNY prioritized equitable grantmaking by considering geographic location, mission, and the importance of reaching underrepresented communities in its funding decisions.

“Humanities New York has been an incredible partner to us and our museum colleagues helping us deliver in-person and virtual programming including our fall Partnership Forums,” said MANY Executive Director Erika Sanger. “We thank HNY for their continued support of the Museum Association of New York and their dedication to cultural nonprofits.”

"MANY's virtual and in-person workshops, as well as their annual conference, are valuable opportunities to learn and connect with museums from around the state,” said Scarlett Rebman, Humanities New York Director of Grants.

Learn more about other NYS museums awarded HNY SHARP grants here: https://nysmuseums.org/MANYnews/11130581

Read the full press release from Humanities NY: https://humanitiesny.org/humanities-new-york-awards-1-2-million-in-arp-act-funding/

# # #

About MANY

The Museum Association of New York inspires, connects, and strengthens New York’s cultural community statewide by advocating, educating, collaborating, and supporting professional standards and organizational development. MANY ensures that New York State museums operate at their full potential as economic drivers and essential components of their communities. Visit www.nysmuseums.org and follow MANY on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn @nysmuseums

About Humanities New York

About SHARP: HNY SHARP (Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan) is made possible with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities via the federal American Rescue Plan Act.

Visit Humanities New York online:

https://humanitiesny.org

https://twitter.com/humanitiesny

https://www.youtube.com/humanitiesny

MANY awarded $575,000 from NYSCA to distribute 100 grants to NYS museums

Tue, 19 Oct 2021 13:13:05 GMT

The Museum Association of New York (MANY) is excited to announce a new regrant partnership with the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) to distribute 100 grants of $5,000 to assist New York museums with capacity building.

Grants will be awarded for museums to respond to pandemic-related challenges, help build financial stability, strengthen board and community engagement, update technology, support leadership, and change systems to address diversity, equity, access, inclusion, and justice.

"The economic struggles resulting from the pandemic have impacted arts institutions especially hard, threatening many of the organizations and partnerships that play such an important role in our state's vibrant, healthy communities," Governor Hochul said. "These grants will provide the critical funding arts partnerships can use to access public support and bolster creativity in local communities."

“Museums and art institutions are some of our best tools for preserving New York’s rich history and folk traditions, and for highlighting communities whose narratives have been marginalized or erased,” said Senator Gillibrand. “Over the last year this industry has suffered tremendously in the wake of the pandemic, which is why I fight every year in the Senate for Institute of Museum and Library Services funding. NYSCA’s $575,000 investment in the Museum Association of New York will ensure our communities can continue learning from New York’s many wonderful museums and storied history of art, music, dance, language, and literature. I will always fight to support these essential community institutions and to make educational and cultural opportunities more accessible for all.”

“We are excited to partner with NYSCA to distribute this state funding,” said MANY Executive Director Erika Sanger. “This is an incredible opportunity to help support New York’s museums and increase access to NYSCA funding.”

“NYSCA supports local artists and non-profits by administering vital funding to regrant partners across all regions of our great state,” NYSCA Executive Director Mara Manus said. "Our Fiscal Year 2022 strategic goals prioritize expanding eligibility and increasing access for the full and richly diverse ecosystem of artists and arts organizations of New York. Museum Association of New York regrants are critical to NYSCA's mission to develop and support the diverse spectrum of artists living and creating in New York State."

"We are grateful to Governor Hochul and the Legislature for their recognition of the critical role the arts play in the health and vitality of New Yorkers and our economy. This historic Fiscal Year 2022 investment in the arts is essential to New York's multi-year recovery, our collective spirit, and the revival of local economies," NYSCA Chairwoman Katherine Nicholls said. "Since NYSCA announced their opportunities for Fiscal Year 2022, they have deployed critical funding and hosted numerous virtual convenings on an expedited timeline to reach the outstanding arts organizations and artists of New York State. On behalf of the Council, I am proud of their dedication to reach new applicants - including new partnership grants - which in turn will inspire artists and the communities in which they create."

“This is an amazing accomplishment for the Museum Association of New York,” said MANY Board President Suzanne LeBlanc. “What we are about to do for a hundred museums across the state with the support from NYSCA, is far-reaching and will make a huge impact on museums and museum professionals in New York State.”

This grant program partnership with NYSCA was developed in direct response to the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and Partners for Public Good (PPG) study “Market Analysis and Opportunity Assessment of Museum Capacity Building Programs” report published in March 2021.

“Advancing and supporting America’s museums through our research efforts is core to IMLS’s mission,” said IMLS Deputy Director of Museum Services Laura Huerta Migus. “That this report inspired direct action and success on this scale is inspirational and an important model for the field.”

Guidelines will be available on the MANY website in January 2022 and the application portal will open in February with applications accepted through April and announcements made and funds distributed in May.

For more information email info@nysmuseums.org or call 518-273-3400.

# # #

About MANY

About the New York State Council on the Arts

The Council on the Arts preserves and advances the arts and culture that make New York State an exceptional place to live, work and visit. The council upholds the right of all New Yorkers to experience the vital contributions the arts make to our communities, education, economic development, and quality of life. Through its core grantmaking activity, the Council on the Arts awarded more than $40 million in FY 2021. Through the statewide grants and regrants program, the council supports the visual, literary, media and performing arts and includes dedicated support for arts education and underserved communities.

The Council on the Arts further advances New York's creative culture by convening leaders in the field and providing organizational and professional development opportunities and informational resources. Created by Governor Nelson Rockefeller in 1960 and continued with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, the council is an agency that is part of the Executive Branch. For more information on NYSCA, please visit www.arts.ny.gov, and follow NYSCA's Facebook page, Twitter @NYSCArts and Instagram @NYSCouncilontheArts

MANY awarded $49,884 from NEH to produce new virtual series

Tue, 12 Oct 2021 14:30:51 GMT

Partners with Museum Hue to Produce “Museums Support Democracy” series

The Museum Association of New York (MANY) is pleased to announce Museums Support Democracy, a series of six virtual programs created in partnership with Museum Hue and funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan (ARP).

Programs will explore Museums and Civil Rights, Visual and Performative Protest, Environmental Justice, Healing Historical Legacies, Ethical Collections, and Multiplying Interpretive Lenses. Each topic will be presented and discussed by museum professionals from a broad range of locations and disciplines featuring the work of culturally responsive museums.

“Museums serve vital roles as educational, cultural and historical resources for our communities,” Congressman Paul Tonko said. “This pandemic shuttered museums across the nation and—without strong federal support—threatens to close many facilities permanently, endangering tens of thousands of jobs and risking the loss of treasured heritage. Since the beginning of this crisis, I have pushed for critically-needed relief for these cultural sites. I am ecstatic to see funding delivered through our American Rescue Plan and congratulate the Museum Association of New York on this deserved award that will give voice to diverse perspectives and enable museums to continue to educate and inspire those in our Capital Region and beyond.”

“With NEH ARP funding, the Museums Support Democracy virtual program series will allow us to partner with Museum Hue and combine expertise to inspire museum professionals across the nation as we approach the US Semiquincentennial,” said MANY Executive Director Erika Sanger. “We are honored to be able to share the exceptional work being done in museums who work with communities, audiences, and stakeholders to promote democracy."

“Many of our museums' approaches and pedagogy places people and community care at the center of their practice and makes meaningful connections between their constituencies' experiences and their offerings (exhibitions, programs, and social services). They provide the framework and thought-leadership needed today more than ever to push forward racial, cultural, and economic equity,” said Stephanie Johnson-Cunningham, Executive Director of Museum Hue.

These programs will bring together like-minded people who are separated by geography, discipline, and the size of their institutions but joined together by similar issues and passions.

This is the second MANY virtual program series produced in partnership with Museum Hue. In 2020, “Essential Work in the Cultural Field” a five-part virtual discussion series featured museums working with their communities to address urgent needs exacerbated by the national health and economic crisis. That series reached hundreds of museum professionals in 31 states.

Museums Support Democracy programs will be held January - March 2022, participation free, advance registration required.

For more information email info@nysmuseums.org or call 518-273-3400.

# # #

About MANY

About Museum Hue

Museum Hue is a nationally recognized organization that works to paint a larger portrait of the arts and culture field by providing greater support and recognition for Black, Indigenous, and people of color throughout museums and other cultural entities across the United States. Founded in 2015, Museum Hue has partnered and collaborated with arts and culture entities throughout the nation. Visit https://www.museumhue.com/

About the National Endowment for the Humanities

Letter from Erika: More than Destinations

Thu, 30 Sep 2021 13:38:56 GMT

Outside The Rockwell Art Lab on Market Street in Downtown Corning, NY

Dear Friends, Members, and Supporters,

I write from Great Camp Sagamore on day two of the Museum Institute. It is sunny and cold by the lake. By the end of the week, most of the green leaves on the trees will turn red and gold. The remarkable presenters are challenging us to believe in our power to create positive change in partnership with our fellow arts, history, and cultural organizations and with our community.

The extraordinary historic structures, the fabulous food, and the collaborative nature of the Museum Institute makes coming here to learn together a unique experience. Twice a day we hear the shuffle of feet on the road and a Sagamore staff person talking about the Vanderbilt family, the architect Durant, and how this National Historic Site was created and maintained. The tours reminded me that Great Camp Sagamore is more than a site for learning and gathering. It is a tourist destination that helps fuel the Adirondack economy.

Many of our state’s museums are tourist destinations that continue to operate in the face of enormous challenges as we approach the end of the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Museums that before the pandemic created programs and spaces for interdisciplinary conversations, partnered with schools and libraries to promote civic education, and encouraged multi-generational learning through family programs were equally devastated, but are perhaps recovering a bit faster because of their deep roots in their communities.

Grants from federal and state agencies through the American Rescue Plan funds are helping museums on the road to recovery by funding programs and operations. I believe that the future financial sustainability of our organizations will go beyond tourism and destination marketing to capacity building programs that emphasize the ways in which museums engage with their community, steward their historic structures, and tell stories that reflect everyone who calls our state and our nation home. I also believe it is time to go beyond data, charts, and graphs and use images to show the ways that museums work with people who pass through our doors and interact with digital media.

Steve Seidel, the Director of the Arts in Education Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education once asked me to consider taking pictures as part of a program evaluation. He challenged me to photograph what learning looked like. With this letter I extend that challenge to you who work in and with museums. What does audience engagement look like in your museum?

Do you have images taken before March of 2020 of galleries filled with school students? University students? Do you have pictures that show docent training? Art making? Continuing education programs? A citizenship ceremony? A behind-the-scenes photograph that shows all the people it takes to produce an exhibition? An image of your cafe where visitors are finding respite? Volunteers helping at a festival? These are only suggestions - I know you know where to find the folder with your museum’s favorite images.

We will begin collecting these images on October 1 to share with the field, with funders, with stakeholders, and with municipal, state, and federal legislative representatives. We will share the images on MANY’s social media feeds that now reach more than 20,000 museum professionals. We want to remind everyone of the important role that museums played in our community before March of 2020 and how we can work together in the future to educate, to enrich lives, and to serve as places of healing.

Send your pictures to Megan Eves at meves@nysmuseums.org. Include a caption of 100 words or less with the name of your museum and text that describes the activity in the picture. We look forward to sharing the joy and the hope that these images will bring for the future of our state’s museums.

With thanks, e

RIT Providing Discoverability and Accessibility of Historical Documents to Museums and Libraries

Thu, 30 Sep 2021 13:30:57 GMT

The Rochester Institute of Technology’s Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science is developing an affordable imaging system to help museums and libraries preserve and expand access to their collections. Funded by the National Endowment of the Humanities, this project aims to create low-cost spectral imaging systems and software to recover obscured and illegible text on historical documents. This past summer, RIT’s Imaging Science Department partnered with RIT’s Museum Studies department to bring this system and software to three cultural organizations: the Rochester Public Library, Rochester Museum & Science Center, and Genesee Country Village & Museum. Students scanned 50 documents and artifacts and provided feedback to the Image Science Department.

Working with scientist Tania Kleynhans, Ph.D. (Imaging Science) system, Courtney Barber and Katie Keegan, class of 2021 museum studies graduates, are testing a multispectral imaging system created at RIT and intended to expand access to materials by revealing content that may not be immediately visible due to damage, deterioration, or erasure. This project has been made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Photo by Gabrielle Plucknette-DeVito, courtesy of RIT Museum Studies Program.

Spectral Imaging

Spectral imaging collects images of objects across the wavelengths of light and is an effective way to reveal fading text on historic documents undetectable to the human eye. “If you take a photo with your cell phone, the camera only captures three wavelengths of light–red, blue, and green. Any normal photograph has those three colors because that’s how our eyes work. It’s what we see,” said Tania Kleynhans, Associate Scientist at the RIT Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science. “But there are a lot of colors that also have what we would call information. So if it’s a red shirt, only the red light is reflected off of it. What we do with our system is capture the in-between red and green and in-between green and blue and then also further into the shoulder of wavelengths of colors from the ultraviolet to infrared,” explained Kleynhans. “It captures the colors that our eyes can’t see.” Kleynhans and her team developed the software for this system to be able to capture 16 different colors. “Normal software programs like Photoshop are not really geared towards working with pictures that aren’t in three colors.”

Using spectral imaging, the process of capturing images of objects in many colors or wavelengths of light, to reveal obscured or illegible text and drawings, museum studies students are imaging historical documents to reveal content that may not be immediately visible due to damage, deterioration, or erasure. The images are acquired by lighting the object with sixteen narrow-band LED sets that are used to illuminate the object, one set at a time. Photo by Gabrielle Plucknette-DeVito, courtesy of RIT Museum Studies Program.

Testing the System

Once the system and software were developed, RIT worked with its Museum Studies undergraduate program and travelled with the system to the Rochester Public Library, Rochester Museum & Science Center, and Genesee Country Village & Museum.

“I choose these three institutions specifically because I wanted to have three different types of institutions like an AAM accredited science museum, a library that may have massive documents, and then another collecting museum that has a lot of assorted materials,” said Dr. Juilee Decker, Professor and Director of the RIT Museum Studies program. “Part of what the students were doing was not just testing the software to help the system become more efficient and user friendly, but also tasked with instruction writing for building and breaking down the system.”

The imaging science team was able to build something that was relatively low cost. These systems normally cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, this new system costs between $5,000 and $20,000.

Large institutions, like the National Gallery in the UK have conservation labs with systems like this for use on-site. They are usually framed within the construct of conservation and conservation science. “For me I see this as preventative conservation because discoverability was our goal with the grant, but you can also use the system to see if there are initial stages of wear or deterioration,” said Dr. Decker.

“A big part of what helped by having this system travel to different sites was to show the curators that it’s not something to be afraid of and that it is something easy to do,” said Kleynhans. “It is possible if you need to use it, use it.”

Kleynhans noted that while the system has had some great success, it’s also not magic. “Sometimes the [faded or illegible text] is just not there but we can enhance certain areas of a document or can make changes to the color of the document that can make it easier to visualize which does help a lot.”

“Our goal for this project primarily was discoverability and accessibility. I think that RIT was well-positioned with having both the image science program as well as the undergraduate museum studies program that is predicated around collections, hands-on-experiences, and the intersection of technology. I think this was the perfect match for us.”

Partner Experience and Discoveries

For Brandon Fess, Librarian at the Rochester Public Library participating in this project was a “no brainer.” “I’d known Juilee [Dr. Decker] for a number of years and she put me in touch with Tania Kleynhans and the rest of the team from the image science department,” said Fess. The library has a fairly modern collection but Fess identified a number of historical documents about which they had questions.

One of these historical documents is an 1816 pamphlet about a proposed canal project. “There’s seemingly a blank page and we’ve been trying to figure out if this page was intentionally left blank, missed by the printer, or since it’s iron gall ink, did that page fade?” said Fess. He hasn’t seen the final images yet, but imaging thus far did reveal text on the page but it is still to be determined if it was faded text or reverse text burn from the page underneath.

Another document was a 1792 manuscript map that shows the modern town of Irondequoit in the northeastern part of the city of Rochester. “The map interested us because it was rediscovered in our collection three years ago. It’s a manuscript piece on valium and it's been hard for me to tell if the map had been an actual draft or if it was a manuscript copy,” said Fess. “Because of the work of the students and Tania [Kleynhans] it is now clear that it is a manuscript copy which helps us contextualize it because we know it is not the only map showing this exact area of that time period. It appears that several of these maps were drawn by the same draftsman for the partners involved with the division of land in that township.”

The Rochester Public Library also has a large Sanborn map collection. “With Sanborn maps there’s always the issue of having paste-ins. I have yet to see an unpasted Sanborn map. So I kind of tossed it out there to the team to see if we could read what was underneath the paste downs,” said Fess. “The team said sure we’ll give it a try–not thinking that it’ll work . But when I saw the preliminary results, the team and I were surprised because you could actually see through the paste downs and in fact you could see them quite well.” For Fess and the Rochester Public Library it was an unexpected but appreciated opportunity. “We definitely want to follow up on the 1816 canal pamphlet and would almost certainly want to do a digital reconstruction of the whole pamphlet to make it available.”

Genesee Country Village & Museum provided a few objects, maps, and journals to the team. “There wasn’t anything that was quite shocking or revealing. I think one coolest things was we were able to see one of the diaries that had a lot of cross outs. It was difficult to read and the imaging allowed us to read what was underneath those cross outs,” said Amanda Wilck, Collections Manager at GCV&M. “We were able to find out that this woman who owned this diary had actually reconstructed her entire list about spinning and the different types of spinning so instead of having ten points there are nine because she crossed one out. It was really interesting to see that in real time and to just read out loud together with the researchers what was being said and learn new information.”

The RIT team also experimented with scanning a 3D object at GCV&M, a medicine bottle from the mid-1800s. “It is a black medicine bottle that is maybe the size of a liquor bottle today,” said Dr. Decker. “It was really dirty and the label was barely visible but when we imaged it you could really see the imagery on the label pop out and reveal a lot of the details.” Wilck and her colleagues found a reference image online to confirm the label on the bottle. “It was also a case to say that we can actually image 3D items,” said Decker.

“It was really amazing to see these students get out in the field and do the work,” said Wilck. “They put the whole machine together by themselves. It’s really encouraging to see RIT and its museum studies program move towards that technological route and give their students the agency to get a project like this done.”

Students examine a medieval document from the Cary Graphic Arts Collection. Photo by Gabrielle Plucknette-DeVito, courtesy of RIT Museum Studies Program.

What’s Next

RIT hopes that in the next year and a half of the NEH grant to have as many different universities, museums, and libraries using the system and software. “We want to show people what’s available and how it works,” said Kleynhans. At the end of the grant, the documentation for the system and software will be open source and available online for other institutions to use. “A museum or library likely won’t build it themselves, but there are many universities that have engineering departments and their students are often looking for projects for their senior capstones and with information that we supply can be built in-house.”

RIT wants more museums to come to their imaging science team with their historical documents and use the system and software. “We’re trying to find objects to see what the limitations are with the system,” said Kleynhans.

“The capacity and the ability that we have as an education system to share this tool and to make it more accessible to institutions across the state is really important to me because part of what we do at RIT and our programs is to provide opportunities for our students who are emerging professionals to work in this space and learn how to use this technology,” said Dr. Decker. “So I feel like we have a real commitment to try to share the knowledge and the capacity that we have here. I don’t want anyone to feel that this is beyond their reach because part of what we’re trying to do is to make this accessible.”

Learn more: https://www.rit.edu/science/spotlights/rit-students-discover-hidden-15th-century-text-medieval-manuscripts

Humanities NY Awards 67 NYS Museums ARP Funding

Thu, 30 Sep 2021 13:20:54 GMT

Humanities NY awarded a total of $1.2M in American Rescue Plan (ARP) funding to 120 NYS cultural nonprofits affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. These SHARP (Sustaining the Humanities Through the American Rescue Plan) Operating Grants focus on organizations with a core humanities mission and range from $1,000 to $20,000. Grants can be used to cover day-to-day activities or ongoing expenses such as staff salaries, utilities, and rent, as well as for humanities programming and professional development. HNY awarded $710,000 to 67 NYS museums located in every REDC region. Other organizations funded include the Greater Hudson Heritage Network who received a $10,000 grant, New York Folklore who received $20,000 and the Museum Association of New York who were also awarded $20,000.

List of NYS Museums Awarded HNY SHARP Funding

Albany County Historical Society, Capital Region, $17,000.00

Chapman Historical Museum, Capital Region, $15,000.00

Children's Museum of Saratoga, Capital Region, $5,000.00

Columbia County Historical Society, Capital Region, $10,000.00

Historic Cherry Hill, Capital Region, $20,000.00

Irish American Heritage Museum, Capital Region, $5,000.00

Rensselaer County Historical Society, Capital Region, $15,000.00

Thomas Cole National Historic Site, Capital Region, $15,000.00

Underground Railroad Education Center, Capital Region, $10,000.00

Cayuga Museum of History and Art, Central NY, $15,000.00

Chittenango Landing Canal Boat Museum, Central NY, $5,000.00

Erie Canal Museum, Central NY, $10,000.00

Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation, Central NY, $8,500.00

Oneida Community Mansion House, Central NY, $5,000.00

Onondaga Historical Association, Central NY, $10,000.00

Seward House Museum, Central NY, $20,000.00

Friends of Ganondagan, Finger Lakes, $20,000.00

Genesee Country Village and Museum, Finger Lakes, $20,000.00

Geneva Historical Society, Finger Lakes, $10,000.00

National Women's Hall of Fame, Finger Lakes, $15,000.00

Sonnenberg Gardens & Mansion, Finger Lakes, $5,000.00

Preservation Long Island, Long Island, $20,000.00

Three Village Historical Society, Long Island, $5,000.00

Walt Whitman Birthplace Association, Long Island, $10,000.00

The Whaling Museum and Education Center, Long Island, $20,000.00

Committee to Save the Bird Homestead, Mid-Hudson, $5,000.00

D&H Canal Historical Society, Mid-Hudson, $5,000.00

FASNY Museum of Firefighting, Mid-Hudson, $10,000.00

Gomez Mill House, Mid-Hudson, $5,000.00

Historical Society of the New York Courts, Mid-Hudson, $15,000.00

Hudson River Maritime Museum, Mid-Hudson, $15,000.00

Huguenot Historical Society, Mid-Hudson, $15,000.00

Mid-Hudson Heritage Center, Mid-Hudson, $5,000.00

Mount Gulian Society, Mid-Hudson, $10,000.00

Putnam History Museum, Mid-Hudson, $15,000.00

Reher Center for Immigrant Culture and History, Mid-Hudson, $15,000.00

Sing Sing Prison Museum, Mid-Hudson, $15,000.00

Historical Society of Woodstock, Mid-Hudson, $3,000.00

Iroquois Indian Museum, Mohawk Valley, $10,000.00

Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum, NYC, $5,000.00

Coney Island History Project, NYC, $5,000.00

Dyckman Farmhouse Museum, NYC, $11,000.00

Alice Austen House Museum, NYC, $10,000.00

Historic House Trust of NYC, NYC, $5,000.00

King Manor Museum, NYC, $5,000.00

Morris-Jumel Mansion, NYC, $15,000.00

Mount Vernon Hotel Museum and Garden, NYC, $15,000.00

Museum at Eldridge Street, NYC, $20,000.00

Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts, NYC, $5,000.00

Museum of Music & Entertainment in NYC, NYC, $2,000.00

Old Merchant's House of NY, NYC, $5,000.00

Queens Historical Society, NYC, $13,500.00

Snug Harbor Cultural Center & Botanical Garden, NYC, $10,000.00

Society for the Preservation of Weeksville and Bedford Stuyvesant History, NYC, $10,000.00

Waterfront Museum, NYC, $5,000.00

Fulton County Historical Society, North Country, $5,000.00

Historic Saranac Lake, North Country, $20,000.00

Fort Ticonderoga Association, North Country, $15,000.00

Chemung County Historical Society, Southern Tier, $5,000.00

Chenango County Historical Society, Southern Tier, $5,000.00

Corning Painted Post Historical Society, Southern Tier, $10,000.00

The History Center in Tompkins County, Southern Tier, $20,000.00

The Buffalo History Museum, Western NY, $10,000.00

Fenton Historical Society of Jamestown, Western NY, $5,000.00

Niagara County Historical Society, Western NY, $5,000.00

Old Fort Niagara Association, Western NY, $5,000.00

Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site, Western NY, $10,000.00

“To ensure that recovery funding reaches diverse institutions, HNY provides its resources to smaller organizations,” stated Sara Ogger, HNY Executive Director. “These partners are creative, nimble, and responsive to the needs of their audiences because their leadership reflects the demographics they serve. SHARP funds will help sustain them as they chart a way forward.”

“Historic Cherry Hill has launched so many game-changing projects over the past couple of years, from the interpretive planning to digital initiatives to a new teen guide program and collaborative educational initiatives,” said Deborah Emmons-Andarawis, Executive Director of History Cherry Hill. “Our HNY SHARP grant will provide general support as we continue this important mission work. We are so honored to have received the highest level of funding.”

“This HNY SHARP award will support our organization’s ability to present humanities programs, which are in response to our community’s evolving needs and interests,” said Jamie Smith, Executive Director at FASNY Museum of Firefighting. “As the only Museum in Hudson and the only humanities entity open year round, this community and beyond rely on us to bring them programming such as this, and to be a safe space for the community discourse.”

“This grant is a tremendous help as we build back our organizational capacity during this time of ongoing pandemic-related disruptions,” said Amy Catania, Director of Historic Saranac Lake. “The grant also supports stipends for Humanities Scholars to host public programs in the coming year associated with our next exhibit, ‘Pandemic Perspectives.’”

“Thanks to the financial support we received, the future of our organization looks to be very promising,” said Jessica Moquin, Executive Director at Chenango County Historical Society & Museum. “As the premier cultural organization in Chenango County whose primary purpose is to offer inclusive and relevant humanities programs, receiving this grant has ensured sustainability for our museum, while allowing us to respond to the needs of our communities.”

“The HNY SHARP grant will provide “bridge funding” to help us weather the uncertainty of this post-pandemic transition. It will help us maintain staff; this staff will enable us to build upon our hard-earned virtual program success and resume on-site humanities programs when COVID is behind us,” said Eva Brune, Vice President for Institutional Advancement at the Museum at Eldridge Street.

The objective of the 120 awards is to help organizations mitigate the negative impacts of the pandemic by providing budgetary relief while visitation and school trip numbers remain below normal. Operating Grants also aided partners seeking to implement “hybrid” programming that is simultaneously offered in-person and virtually.

See the full list of grants awarded here: https://humanitiesny.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/HNY-SHARP-Operating-Grant-Awards-List.pdf

Learn more about HNY: https://humanitiesny.org/

IMLS Inspire! Grants for Small Museums

Thu, 30 Sep 2021 13:15:25 GMT

The Institute of Museum and Library Services’ Inspire! Grants for Small Museums is a special initiative of the Museums for America program. It is designed to support small museums of all disciplines in project-based efforts to serve the public through exhibitions, educational/interpretive programs, digital learning resources, professional development, community debate and dialogue, audience-focuses studies, and/or collections management, curation, care, and conservation.

Projects are expected to focus on a key goal identified in the institution’s strategic plan, reflect a thorough understanding of current practice and knowledge about the subject matter, and generate measurable results.

Inspire! Grants has three program categories and goals. Prospective applicants should align their proposed project with one of these three goals and one or more of the associated objectives.

Inspire! Project Categories

Lifelong Learning supports projects that position museums as unique teaching organizations. The goal is to empower people of all ages and backgrounds through experiential and cross-disciplinary learning and discovery.

Objectives:

Support public programs, adult programs family programs, and early childhood programs
Support exhibitions, interpretation, and digital media
Support in-school and out-of-school programs

The Reher Center for Immigrant Culture and History was awarded $40,512 to create, pilot, and evaluate field trips and in-class lessons for over 500 2nd and 8th grade students. The Reher Center’s programming will connect students to immigrant experiences form local Mid-Hudson Valley communities, past and present as well as work with educators, teachers, and an evaluator to generate age-appropriate tours and digital lesson plans on the topic of present day and historic immigration in the Hudson River Valley. This will inform the Center’s development of future education programming.

Institutional Capacity builds the capacity of small museums to serve their communities by supporting institutional planning and policy development, supporting recruitment, training, and development of museum staff, and supporting technology enhancements.

Objectives

Support institutional planning and policy development
Support recruitment, training, and development of museum staff
Support technology enhancements

The Old Stone House and Washington Park was awarded $20,000 to help expand its permanent exhibition to include a digital component that acknowledges the museum’s presence on Lenape land. The museum will develop, implement, and assess the impact of the digital exhibition and corresponding exhibition programs.

Collections Stewardship and Public Access supports the role of museums as trusted stewards of museum collections. This program category focuses on the desire to improve long term collection care. It funds conservation treatments, rehousing projects, cataloging, and increasing collection access via digitization.

Objectives

Support cataloging, inventorying, and registration; collections information management; and collections planning.
Support conservation and environmental improvement and/or rehousing; conservation surveys; and conservation treatment.
Support database management, digital asset management, and digitization.

The Cayuga Museum of Art was awarded $50,000 in 2020 to implement “Processing the Past: Digitizing Cayuga County’s Photographic History” which is a comprehensive inventory and digitization project that will complete an unfinished inventory of the museum’s photographic collection of approximately 7,000 still images. The project team will catalog photographs and match them with existing records. The Museum will scan and digitize this collection to maximize the long-term preservation as well as creating a database that allows for increased online access to the collection by researchers and the public.

Grant amounts are between $5,000 to $50,000 for up to two years and there is no cost share requirement.

Inspire! Grants for Small Museums uses four performance measures as a basis for understanding how well the grant program is meeting its goals and how individual projects are being managed.

Deep Dive–The Whaling Museum & Education Center of Cold Spring Harbor

Project Category: Lifelong Learning

The Whaling Museum & Education Center received Inspire! Funding for their Reach! Initiative project that helped the museum expand educational programs to youth in underserved communities on Long Island. IMLS funding helped the museum reach a new audience and increased community impact.

This was the first IMLS grant The Whaling Museum has received since 2000. Executive Director Nomi Dayan said that the museum was waiting for the right type of funder for this project.

“I felt like this worked because when we looked at their priorities it just seemed to align, even though their [IMLS] priorities are broad...they put a spotlight on reaching underserved communities. When I looked at past funded grants to see are they funding exhibits or are they doing more programming and I felt that this project dovetailed with a lot of previous programs that they had funded. I think the biggest change was judging small museums on their own and it makes such a difference,” said The Whaling Museum Executive Director Nomi Dayan.

Museums for America v. Inspire! Grants for Small Museums

“For many years we heard anecdotally that IMLS doesn’t support small museums, which isn’t true, but we understand that a lot of museums find it difficult to go through the process of applying for a federal grant,” said Reagan Moore, IMLS Museum Program Officer. “Small museums have been successful with Museums for America but we changed certain aspects of the process to make it simpler...like the narrative isn’t as long and the cost-share requirements isn’t required like it is in Museums for America.”

“The cost share difference is a big think,” said Mark Feitly, IMLS Museum Program Officer. “I think places not only had the correct perception that they were too small to receive federal funding but they could not come up with the cost share and that it was too much of a challenge for them. We removed that barrier for them to request IMLS funds. [These institutions] can include staff salaries or whatever for cost share and that’s fine, but it is not required and will not affect their [grant] review in any way.”

IMLS expected between 100 - 115 applications for the first round of Inspire! grants, but received over 200. They funded 30 totaling more than $1.1 million. This strong response confirmed the need for grant funding opportunities specific to small museums.

Operating through a national lens, it is difficult for IMLS to define “small.” A small zoo differs from a historical society -- or a museum in Kansas may differ not only in collection size but in metropolitan area population and demographics from a museum in New York State with the same physical plant footprint. “We’re asking museums to make the case for why they are small,” said Reagan.

Museums can use the following attributes:

staff size (paid and volunteers)
operating budget
collection size
building/property size
audience served
size relative to other organizations of similar discipline
geographical region

Small Museum

“We identify as a small museum...our tagline is Small Museum—Big Story and we’re the smallest whaling museum in the country,” said Executive Director Dayan. The museum also specified their budget size, staff, and collection size. “Our collection is the smallest. We have 6,000 objects and the largest whaling museum has 3 million.” The Whaling Museum also incorporated public perception into their small museum identity. “A lot of our visitors who leave online reviews will write ‘small museum but…’ or ‘this place is small but with a huge knowledge of whaling.’ In half of the online reviews, people mention our size because our physical building is small and people are surprised by how small we are when they come, but there is a lot packed in here...so not only do we think we’re small but that’s the public perception too,” said Dayan.

Funding Allocations

IMLS funding can support salaries for those working on the project. This can include existing staff or hiring new staff. A majority of applicants request funds to hire temporary staff for the project. For example, a museum could hire a curator for a two year contract position to help them execute the project.

Peer reviews will comment on the sustainability for salary costs.

"Reviewers will ask questions about the hire rate and what will happen to that person when the project is over. Successful applications discuss sustainability to keep that person on staff for as long as necessary," said Moore.

Other examples of this include travel expenses for key project staff and consultants, equipment to improve collections storage and exhibit environments, staff and volunteer training, publication design and printing, program evaluation, adaptive and/or assistive technologies and other resources and services to improve accessibility for persons with disabilities, and indirect or overhead costs. All proposed expenses must be explained in the budget justification.

IMLS does not fund construction costs, general operating expenses, contributions to endowments, the acquisition of collections, general advertising or public relations costs, social activities, ceremonies, receptions, or entertainment, and research projects.

Advice from IMLS for First Time Applicants

“Successful applicants are the ones who have reached out to us...it’s not always the case but those who take the time on the front end to set up conference calls or email us to get feedback are more successful,” Feitly said.

“We’re happy to help. We can’t read full narratives...but we’re happy to answer as many questions as possible,” said Moore.

Moore also suggests having someone from outside the museum read through your application. “Often the application will use insider language, museum jargon, and if it gets to the panel stage in review, those reviewers from different disciplines might not understand.”

IMLS recommends looking at their website, joining a webinar, and reading project descriptions. Reading through other successful applications is also helpful. “If you read a description and there is something that you want to know more about, you can submit a FOIA request, the Freedom of Information Act, using a form on our website to access that information,” Feilty added.

He commented that the IMLS website is dense but it has a lot of resources. “We’re sharing exactly what we’re asking our reviewers to do in their assessment. You can see at what we’re asking our reviewers to evaluate and incorporate that into your narrative as well.”

Successful Applicant

The Whaling Museum focused on a well-rounded project and looked at the needs of the community. Director Dayan was also a peer reviewer for IMLS for three years.

“I would encourage anyone to do that because it helps you get an insider’s view into the application process. When you read proposals side by side you start to see how applicants write a compelling case whether it’s the language they use or the content and approaches that they are taking," said Dayan.

Director Dayan added that judging applications improves your writing and grant planning. Dayan also recommends looking at examples. “Under the Freedom of Information Act you’re allowed to request copies of any funded grant...Don’t go at it alone. Look at what other museums have done successfully and try to use that as inspiration in formatting your own grant.”

Other advice to a prospective applicant? “Communicating why the project matters and what community need it meets. A stranger will be reading this who has not been to your museum. For me it’s not enough to say kids will learn about whaling history but why it’s important for kids to learn about whaling history,” said Dayan.

The Whaling Museum connected its strategic plan to the project and cited data. Supporting your narrative with research also strengthens an application.

“The first thing we do when we have a grant idea is we call and pitch it to the funding organization… ‘is this something that you would fund? How can we strengthen this?’ Reaching out is so important to help you do the best job you can,” said Dayan.

Other helpful tips?

Make sure your application components are consistent
Place the narrative questions into your word document when answering
Incorporate project impact throughout the narrative
Use your supporting documents and help drive the reviewers to your supporting documents

Further Reading/Resources

Inspire! Grants for Small Museums

https://www.imls.gov/grants/available/inspire-grants-small-museums

FY 2021 Notice of Funding Opportunity

https://www.imls.gov/sites/default/files/2021-08/fy22-oms-igsm-nofo.pdf

IMLS Apply for a Grant

https://www.imls.gov/grants/apply-grant/available-grants

Eligibility Criteria

https://www.imls.gov/grants/apply-grant/eligibility-criteria

Sample Applications

https://www.imls.gov/grants/apply-grant/sample-applications

NYS IMLS Funding Report

https://www.imls.gov/sites/default/files/imls_funding_report_new_york.pdf

IMLS Webinars

https://www.imls.gov/webinars

Seeking Candidates for the MANY Board of Directors

Wed, 01 Sep 2021 13:16:18 GMT

The Museum Association of New York (MANY) is seeking museum professionals interested in serving on the Board of Directors for the April 2022 - 2025 term from the Capital, Central, Long Island, Mohawk, New York City, Southern Tier, and Western New York Regions.

We are committed to diversifying the Board by geographic region, museum discipline and budget size, differing abilities, skills, race, gender, sexual identity, ethnicity, and age. We welcome applications from people who bring a range of skills and expertise.

Applicants must be passionate about our mission, comfortable in leadership positions, known for innovation and creativity, constructive problem solvers, happy to share expertise with peers, and familiar with MANY programs.

To nominate a colleague or yourself, send an application to the Chair of the Nominating Committee, Dr. Georgette Grier-Key via hdesmeules@nysmuseums.org by October 15, 2021. To access the nomination form click here.

Applications will be reviewed by the Nominating Committee and selected candidates should expect to participate in an informational discussion with the committee as part of the application review. The committee will bring nominations for a full board vote at the December 8, 2021 meeting of the Board of Trustees. Applicants will be notified soon after.

With hope you that you can help us create a Board that reflects all of our state’s museums,

Erika Sanger

Executive Director

Letter from Erika: Arrival is Unpredictable

Wed, 25 Aug 2021 19:15:28 GMT

IMLS Building Capacity workshop for NYC museum participants at Fraunces Tavern Museum on August 11. Photo by Alex Cassetti

Dear Members, Friends and Supporters,

I was recently in a city that had their bus schedules on scrolling LED boards in their bus shelters. As I waited for my route to be posted, the LED board began flashing on and off with the words “ARRIVAL IS UNPREDICTABLE.” The other folks in the bus shelter gave me side glances as I burst out loud laughing. It seemed a metaphor for my state of mind as I once again masked up to meet the world safely.

If there is anything that I hope we can take away from the past 18 months of fighting this world health crisis is that we can’t predict what will happen. We can only be as prepared as possible for change and adapt. One of my favorite quotes from the poet Maya Angelou is “You can’t really know where you are going until you know where you have been.”

We know where we have been this last year and a half, and I was heartbroken when I had to tie a mask on again. I know I am not alone feeling stuck in a time machine. We continue our plans to gather safely in small groups this fall. We will be wearing masks and will be following protocols set by the museums in which we will be meeting. In NYC, that will require proof of vaccination.

We look forward to seeing you in person and gathering safely, with masks, until this pandemic becomes endemic and our lives become a little more predictable.

With best wishes for the last days for summer,

Erika Sanger

Executive Director

Historic Preservation Funding from the Preservation League of NYS

Wed, 25 Aug 2021 18:36:04 GMT

Founded in the 1970s by preservationists from across New York State, the primary goal for the Preservation League of NYS was to ensure that preservation had a centralized voice for the entire state. Today, Preserve NYS works with individuals, organizations, and municipalities to support historic preservation projects and strategically invests in rehabilitation projects through two signature grant programs Preserve New York (PNY) and Technical Assistance Grants (TAG).

Preserve NYS

“A big part of our mission is helping to influence policy that ensures that historic preservation always has a seat at the table, especially when it comes to economic development,” said Janna Rudler, Grants and Technical Services Manager. “The League’s mission goes beyond advocacy though… we champion projects that show the essential role of preservation and community revitalization, sustainable economic growth, protection of our historic buildings, and historic landmarks.

Preserve NYS supports its mission through a number of programs including technical services, educational programs, outreach, webinars, and working with colleague organizations like municipalities or local preservation groups such as Preservation Association of the Southern Tier (PAST), Preservation Association of Central New York (PACNY), Preservation Buffalo Niagara, and Preservation Long Island. “We work with our colleagues across the state to make sure that they are empowering people in their communities to help save their historic buildings,” said Rudler.

The Seward House Museum in Auburn, NY received a $10,000 PNY grant in 2019. Photo courtesy of Preservation League of NYS

There is also an Excellence in Historic Preservation Awards program that highlights projects, organizations, publications, and individuals that exemplify best practices in historic preservation. Awards are considered based on level of statewide significance, impact on underrepresented communities or overlooked history, effective solutions to current preservation issues, degree of difficulty faced, level of impact on the community, region or state, display of collaborative efforts, and design sensitivity to the historic character and fabric of the property. Previous award winners include the Graycliff-Isabelle Martin House, NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project, the New York Botanical Garden, and the Albany Housing Authority’s rehabilitation of houses in Albany’s South End and Arbor Hill neighborhoods, including providing administrative space for the Albany County Historical Association.

Grant Opportunities

Preserve New York (PNY)

Preserve New York provides grant funding for historic structure reports, building condition reports, cultural landscape reports, and cultural resource surveys. Applicants must be a unit of local government or a non-profit organization with tax-exempt status.

Grants made provide support for up to 80% of the total project cost; usually between $3,000 and $10,000.

Technical Assistance Grants (TAG)

Technical Assistance Grants provide support for consulting projects that will preserve cultural and historic resources. TAG supports professional services including architects, engineers, and other preservation specialists working with non-profit organizations and municipalities to preserve their buildings, structures, and other resources that serve an arts and/or cultural function.

Grants are up to $4,000 with a required 20% project cost match.

“Both grant programs focus on preservation planning,” said Rudler. “These are grants that help provide technical assistance and guidance on saving buildings. Both grants are intended to pay consultant costs to produce studies that help an organization see its way forward with their building if they’re not sure where to begin.” Rudler also said that these grant programs are helpful to organizations that know that something needs to be restored or preserved but are not sure who to contact. “Preserve NY can provide an architect or engineer that has a preservation background who can ensure any work done will preserve the historic integrity of the building.”

The Cayuga Museum of History and Art was awarded $3,920 in TAG funding in 2021 for its Willard-Case Mansion and Carriage House roof investigation. Photo courtesy of Preservation League of NYS

TAG was launched in 2012 to support specific projects that preserve NYS cultural and historic structures. “Our Technical Assistance Grants are a little smaller in terms of awards and they cover discrete projects relating to buildings and looking at specific issues,” said Rudler. “For instance, building condition surveys that look at a particular condition that a building is facing like windows or roofs.”

Buildings do not have to be listed on the State or National Register of Historic Places to qualify for either grant program but the review panel does consider the architectural and/or historical significance of the building as part of the application evaluation process.

Both grants are partnership grants. “Our primary funder for these grants is the New York State Council on the Arts,” said Rudler. “NYSCA partners with us because they want to provide money for historic preservation but they like having the professional, vetting, and oversight that the Preservation League provides.”

The Preservation League of NYS also received funding from the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation to support non-profit organizations on Long Island. “The Gardiner Foundation has supported PNY grants since 2017 but in 2020 they began providing funding for TAG for Long Island.” In addition, TAG also receives support from the Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area (Hudson River Greenway).

“These preservation planning grants can help leverage larger capital grants down the road,” said Rudler. “For example, if you’re applying to the Environmental Protection Fund or through the NYS Consolidated Funding Application, having a Preservation League grant funded preservation study done first can give you a leg up because the state will see that you have done the preparation. So our grants have helped a lot of organizations. They start with a Preservation League grant and the resulting document and guidance helps them fundraise, apply for other grants, and lends credibility to their project.”

2021 PNY Grant Recipient–The Science Museum of Long Island’s Norwood House & Carriage House, Photo courtesy of Preservation League of NYS

In 2021, 32 applicants in 25 counties received a total of $297,996 in Preserve New York grants. Grant funded projects include a historic landscape report at Quarry Farm on the outskirts of Elmira, a building condition report for the Charlotte-Genesee Lighthouse Historical Society–built in 1882 and the oldest surviving lighthouse on Lake Ontario, and the Science Museum of Long Island’s Norwood House & Carriage House, and Leeds Pond Preserve. The building condition report helped inform and reorganize building space use, catalyzed preservation and restoration capital projects, and supported their plans to integrate the Leeds Pond Preserve into a museum campus.

Advice for Prospective Applicants

“The first thing that I like to tell people is that our grants are fairly easy to apply to,” said Rudler. “We’re guided by the NYSCA application process but our process is a little more streamlined because these grants are so specific.” Preserve NYS also offers webinars to learn more about what the grants fund, what kind of eligibility is required, and general application tips. There are also a series of help sessions offered over Zoom that provide one on one help.

“We really like to provide a lot of support along the way. These grants are often the first grants that an organization applies for because they are the basis for larger grants later on.” Preserve NYS also provides a list of consultants that successfully completed grant-funded projects. “Applicants can access this list and that can help them choose the right consultant, especially if they don’t know where to start.”

Pre-applications are now open for the 2021 Technical Assistance grants.

Pre-application is required to determine eligibility. Please review the TAG grant guidelines before completing the pre-application.

Pre-application deadline: Monday, October 11, 2021

Grant application deadline: Friday, October 15, 2021

Learn more about the Preservation League of NYS grant opportunities: https://www.preservenys.org/grants

Learn more about previously funded projects: https://www.preservenys.org/pny-recipients

The Seneca Lake Archaeological and Bathymetric Survey Project

Wed, 25 Aug 2021 18:33:00 GMT

At Watkins Glen, Tim Caza (L) and Dennis Gerber (R) deploy one of the RV Voyager's two side-scan-sonar survey units in preparation for examining the lake bottom in that area.

Through underwater exploration, The Seneca Lake Archaeological and Bathymetric* Survey Project aims to preserve the history of New York’s Canals. The project uses state of the art equipment to capture never before seen images of intact Canal shipwrecks from the early 19th century discovered in the deepest parts of the lake.

This research project is a collaboration between the New York Power Authority, NYS Canal Corporation, NYS Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historical Preservation, NYS Department of Environmental Conservation, NYS Museum, the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, Middlebury College, the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor, and the Finger Lakes Boating Museum where it will inform future interpretive plans.

The Seneca Lake Archaeological and Bathymetric Survey Project is occurring under permit through the NYS Museum and all remains and artifacts of the vessels discovered are the property of the State of New York.

*Bathymetry is the measurement of the depth of water in oceans, rivers, or lakes. Bathymetric maps look a lot like topographic maps, which use lines to show the shape and elevation of land features. On topographic maps, the lines connect points of equal elevation. On bathymetric maps, they connect points of equal depth. –National Geographic

The Project

Art Cohn is the project’s principal investigator and scholar. He began conducting underwater archaeological surveys on Lake Champlain where he partnered with the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum. His focus turned to the Erie Canal and the Finger Lakes after working with NYS Canal Corporation and the Corning Museum of Glass’ 2018 GlassBarge project that commemorated the 150th anniversary of the Brooklyn Flint Glass Company relocating to Corning via New York’s waterways in 2018. Cohn and the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum invited people aboard the Lois McClure that towed the GlassBarge to learn about what life was like on board a 19th century canal barge. Cohn also created an educational booklet for the project. This experience ignited his ideas about the Seneca Lake shipwrecks.

Survey specialist Tim Caza prepares the Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) to be sent to record a shipwreck in the deep waters of Seneca Lake.

“In the booklet that I put together at the request of the Corning Museum of Glass, I teased the shipwreck story… by looking at Seneca Lake and what lies beneath,” said Cohn. “In doing this research we’ve gotten a little glimpse at the amount of activity on the lake.t is hard to appreciate that kind of work today with all the beautiful vineyards, but this was a hardworking canal-related waterway with many canal boats doing the work of today's interstate highways and tractor trailers.” Through his research and experience underwater mapping Lake Champlain, Cohn knew that there were cultural resources submerged in Seneca Lake. “I was convinced that Seneca Lake had the potential to produce a number of early canal shipwrecks and if we hit the grand slam we might even find a packet boat, the missing link in canal boat types archaeologically speaking. The wonderful incentive is that we are in the bicentennial period and the Buffalo Maritime Center is building one using what we know about construction 200 years ago with artwork and descriptions of packet boats for reference. Before now, we had never located an archaeological example.” The discoveries from the project come at the same time as an ongoing State-supported replica construction of the Seneca Chief, Governor DeWitt Clinton’s 1825 Canal packet boat, at Buffalo’s Canalside Longshed Building. On October 26, 1825 Governor Clinton journeyed from Buffalo to New York City on the Seneca Chief carrying two wooden barrels of Lake Erie water. Eight days later, he arrived at New York City and emptied the water into the Atlantic Ocean to marry the waters as a symbol of the importance of this canal.

The Erie Canal at Salina Street in Syracuse NY c. 1900. Library of Congress

Packet boats traveled east and west along the Erie Canal from the Hudson River to the Great Lakes. Even before the Erie Canal was completed in 1825, these passenger carrying packet boats began operating on the newly completed sections of the canal. Packet boats provided a smooth and speedy alternative to the stagecoaches operating on the often rough road systems until railroads began offering passenger service. Most packet boats fell out of use before the invention of photography and most of what is known of their design comes from paintings and illustrations.

Expeditions since 2018 have uncovered 17 vessels in their studies of Seneca Lake including what is believed to be the first-ever identified intact remains of a canal packet boat dating back to the early 1800s. “It doesn’t often happen quite that well,” said Cohn. “It’s a great reaffirmation that New York waters contain submerged cultural resources. We as a society need to know that, inventory them, protect them, learn from them, and preserve them for the next generation.”

Finger Lakes Boating Museum

The project originally included the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, but as the dynamics of the project shifted towards Seneca Lake and the Finger Lakes region, Cohn began thinking about where he wanted to center this phase “Where do we want to interpret what we find, where would you want to build the education programs, where would you want to start the exhibition design and it’s a Finger Lakes project,” said Cohn. Cohn searched for a Finger Lakes museum partner.

Outside the Finger Lakes Boating Museum in Hammondsport, NY

“Art Cohn came to the museum a couple of years ago to give a talk about his underwater studies and told me that he was planning on relocating to the Finger Lakes region to start mapping underwater wrecks,” said Finger Lakes Boating Museum Executive Director Andrew Tompkins. The Finger Lakes Boating Museum agreed to serve as the administrative hub and fiscal sponsor for the survey project.

The Finger Lakes Boating Museum has over 200 boats in their collection built in the region between the early 1900s to the 1960s. The museum moved into the historic former Taylor Wine Company just outside the village of Hammondsport in 2014, to a 14 acre campus with 18 buildings. Tompkins saw this partnership as an opportunity for the museum to expand its interpretation.

“Cohn brings a lot of expertise and this would be a completely different aspect to our museum,” said Tompkins. “It would help us expand from just pleasure crafts as well as bringing recognition to our museum. This research could bring in an entirely new thing about boating in the Finger Lakes for our museum to interpret in terms of these underwater wrecks and the underwater canal boats,” said Tompkins. “It’s something we’ve never really focused on before. The museum has a steam boat room where we interpret how steamboats pulled canal boats into the canal system but we’ve never really focused on canal boats.” Tompkins noted that there just aren’t a lot of canal boats left anymore. “What we have are small, hand built, scaled models. So to be part of this project is so important.” In addition to being the project’s administrative hub and fiscal sponsor, the Finger Lakes Boating Museum will also house the space to interpret the project.

Inside the Finger Lakes Boating Museum

“I was impressed with the level of enthusiasm at the Finger Lakes Boating Museum,” said Cohn. “They’re kind of an up and coming museum and are doing the hard work to make the museum sustainable and looking towards the future.” Tompkins is the only paid full time staff person at the museum, but is working with the museum’s board to develop a plan on what kind of staff will be needed to accomplish these goals. The museum is also looking at plans and ideas of how the museum campus will look in the future. Some buildings are already undergoing renovation including a new visitor’s center that is expected to open next spring. Tompkins envisions that at least one building will be devoted to the project.

“We’re on board to help Art and this project and are excited to bring more recognition to the museum and bring a whole new aspect to our interpretation.”

NYS Canal Corporation and the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor

One key goal of this project is to use the discoveries made during this exploration to enhance future curriculum and educational material for students learning about the Erie Canal and the State’s Canal system.

The NYS Canal Corporation in partnership with the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor hopes to develop a series of educational resources working with teachers from school districts throughout the Finger Lakes region for NYS teachers and students in grades 6-12.

“This is an exciting moment in the storied history of our State’s Canal system as we discover and further document these new artifacts,” said NYS Canal Corporation Director Brian U. Stratton. “The underwater research done in Seneca Lake will educate future generations and will also entice travelers to visit the Canal system to experience it for what it really is – a scenic waterway that tells the story of how New York emerged as the Empire State, and how our nation’s westward expansion was made possible.”

“This collaborative effort is another example of how our extraordinary Canal heritage continues to be part of understanding and solving today’s challenges,” said Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor Executive Director Bob Radliff. “We are excited to partner with the New York Power Authority, Canal Corporation, and Art Cohn and his research team, along with numerous Finger Lakes schools, to develop Next Generation learning opportunities.”

Future

Researchers will continue their work through this fall and in the years ahead on Cayuga and Keuka Lakes. Cohn’s findings will help teach the public about the Erie Canal’s past during its bicentennial celebration that runs through 2025. The discovered vessels, many covered in zebra mussels, are described by Cohn as time capsules and informers of the past. “If you don’t share it with the public then you’re not doing your job,” said Cohn. “A big part of my job is to figure out the many different ways I can make this information available.” Cohn’s findings are already being shared at free public lectures throughout the Finger Lakes this summer and at the Finger Lakes Boating Museum and the Institute of Nautical Archaeology.

For Cohn and this project, partnerships have been essential. “The more ways we can develop the information that can be utilized by organizations and institutions to help share a body of knowledge with the public then we’re going to do that as best we can.”

Learn more about this project: https://americancanalsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Seneca_Lake_Survey_2019_ONLINE_VERSION.pdf

Learn more about the Finger Lakes Boating Museum: https://www.flbm.org/

Hart Cluett Museum and Piloting a Smithsonian Traveling Exhibition

Wed, 25 Aug 2021 18:30:34 GMT

Hart Cluett Museum was one of ten museums selected from across the nation to participate in the Smithsonian Institute Traveling Exhibition Services’ (SITES) pilot program for “The Way We Worked” exhibition. The Museum collaborated with the Smithsonian Institution to develop a unique humanities-based exhibition about local work history. SITES had two goals for this pilot program, to exhibit more of their collections in the wider community and to lower the barrier for smaller museums interested in participating in SITES. Hart Cluett used this pilot program to change the way it developed exhibitions and center their social media around storytelling.

Opening exhibition panel for the Smithsonian Institute Traveling Exhibition Services’ “The Way We Worked.”

Background

Hart Cluett was the only museum in New York State selected for this collaborative pilot program. The museum applied in late July/early August in 2019, received notice of participation in September, and the exhibition opened to the public on February 28, 2020.

The museum raised $130,000 to support additional programs, pay for the cost of the panel production, repainting of the gallery spaces, for new cases, and to increase staff time.

“The Smithsonian had a basic script that had been used within their institution,” said Stacy Pomeroy Draper, Curator at the Hart Cluett Museum. “So they had a template, they had text, they had a concept but the concept for this pilot program was to allow the participating museums to tailor it to tell their story. The topic of “work” was easy to work with, especially since it has evolved rapidly in the last 18 months.”

The Smithsonian provided the museum with Adobe inDesign software for graphics in order to customize the panels in order to switch out text and images. “Everything had to be approved by the Smithsonian, which was not the way we usually work,” said Draper. “Here in a small institution, yes we sometimes do collaborative projects, but often it tends just to be me and I think that’s pretty typical of small museum staff.” For Draper and museum staff, this added time to the overall exhibition process and a logistical change. The museum provided feedback to the SITES throughout.

The Way We Worked

“The Way We Worked” was adapted from an exhibition originally developed by the National Archives that explored how work became such a central element in American culture. It traced the many changes that affected the workforce and work environments over the past 150 years.

The Smithsonian did not send any physical artifacts but provided between 80-85 digital panels to be used by Hart Cluett. “We made the decision early on not to use every panel from the Smithsonian but we used the majority of them,” said Draper. “We also didn’t change every panel but we did add text to most of them in order to focus the content around Rensselaer County.” Hart Cluett included historical images, art, artifacts, and oral histories from their collection.

The Hart Cluett Museum incorporated a number of artifacts from their collection into the exhibition.

The exhibition is divided into four sections: “Where We Work,” “How We Work,” “Who Works?” and “Why We Work.” It covers just over two centuries and showcases early technological advances in agriculture, trade, detachable collars, and iron and steel manufacturing.

“We included historic clothing to help tell individual stories of working whether it was a military or nurse uniform. The clothing stood in for people and topics,” said Draper. “I think the thing that we are still tackling is how work has changed.” Draper got approval from the Smithsonian to change one of the panels regarding home versus office work. “It was so ironic that work was the topic but it was the perfect example of how work evolves and why it evolves, not just because of the pandemic but because of the role of technology.” An advisory panel consisting of more than two dozen area professionals from widely different regional workplaces provided a contemporary perspective on the ever changing nature of work. The panel included experts with backgrounds in technology, construction, agriculture, education, and workforce development.

“I think this exhibition is special in comparison to a lot of our other exhibitions because it is really personal,” said Samantha Mahoski, Assistant Curator and Outreach Coordinator. “Everyone works in one way or another so to see the police uniform or the nurse uniform you can see people you know and that makes this exhibition personable in ways that other exhibitions haven’t.”

Going Digital

One of the challenges for Hart Cluett and this pilot program was that the museum shut down on March 12, 2021 in response to the pandemic, only two weeks after the exhibition opened to the public. “Even before COVID, we had a conversation about creating something digital that would be interactive and a new way to look at the exhibit that was beyond the physical space,” said Mahoski. “Once COVID started, it became evident that we needed something to keep people engaged because we had spent the last six months promoting it and we were excited to to share this with people.” With the permission of the Smithsonian, Mahoski created an Instagram account, @the_wayweworked, that was entirely dedicated to the exhibition. Mahoski needed to create a social media plan for the Smithsonian to review and approve where she outlined the account’s purpose, its goals, and an overview of what would be posted.

Images from @the_wayweworked Instagram feed

“It was fun to walk through the process of creating this Instagram account with the Smithsonian,” said Mahoski. “We wanted this to be fun and engaging because social media should be fun and engaging. We wanted to highlight things that you wouldn’t see at a surface level as another way to present the material and the process because people were interested in behind the scenes, documenting what we were doing.” Despite the challenges caused by the pandemic, the museum took it as an opportunity to review their own social media plan. “It forced me to think about what is the point [for the museum’s social media channels] and what are we trying to do,” said Mahoski.

Other Challenges

For this exhibition, the Smithsonian looked at a 150 year time frame. “One of the very first things that we requested was to increase the time frame to 225 years which corresponds to the founding of our county,” said Draper. “This also made it a challenge because it is such a broad swath of storytelling.”

Hart Cluett planned on tackling this challenge with more focused programming, but have not been able to implement the plans because of the pandemic. The @the_wayweworked Instagram account helps the museum go beyond the images and panel text and into more detail. “It takes the place of, in essence, a gallery guide which we would normally do,” said Draper.

Moving Forward

The museum hopes to resume its in-person programming for this fall. “We have a series of behind the scenes tours throughout the county showcasing different work environments as well as lectures, and more,” said Draper. The Smithsonian extended the exhibition through the end of 2021. Hart Cluett has the rights to their own version of the exhibition for 5 years. “Even though the exhibition isn’t going to be up for 5 years, we can take a component of it or move it to another venue.” Currently the museum is working on their schedule with the next exhibition focusing on agriculture.

“The direct connection to the present is really clear in ‘The Way We Work’ exhibition,” said Draper. “We’re trying to continue to do that because it helps people understand and gives them something to connect with.”

Learn more about Hart Cluett’s “The Way We Worked” exhibition: https://www.hartcluett.org/the-way-we-worked

Follow @the_wayweworked on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_wayweworked/

Learn more about SITES: https://www.sites.si.edu/s/

Building Capacity: Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts

Tue, 27 Jul 2021 23:52:37 GMT

Click here to watch the video

With no gallery space and its building closed to the public, the Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts at St. Bonaventure University created a virtual studio space and worked with teachers to connect students to art. Assistant Curator and Museum Educator Sean Conklin provided hybrid asynchronous days for teachers using digital tools and providing pickup and drop off art supplies. Using an artwork not normally accessible to the public, Faith Ringgold’s Sunflower: Quilting Bee at Arles, the Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts partnered with the African American Center for Cultural Development in Olean, NY in a virtual object based learning activity for sixth grade students to better understand the prominence of quilts in Black art and culture by making their own story quilt.

The Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts is one of 98 museums across NYS participating in MANY’s “Building “Building Capacity, Creating Sustainability, Growing Accessibility”, an IMLS CARES Act grant project designed to help museums impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic share their collections and reach audiences who cannot physically visit their museums.

This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Learn more about “Building Capacity”: https://nysmuseums.org/IMLS

Learn more about the Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts: https://www.sbu.edu/life-at-sbu/arts-events/regina-a.-quick-center-for-the-arts

Letter from Erika: Pathways

Tue, 27 Jul 2021 22:32:57 GMT

Glacial Erratic Trail, Settlement Quarry, Stonington, ME*

Dear Members, Friends and Supporters,

From March 22 to April 26, 2021, MANY gathered data on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on NY’s museums. The report that we will publish later this fall will paint a picture of a field grappling with tremendous change. Like the way glaciers deposited boulders from afar onto the granite ledges of the Maine coast 16,000 years ago, COVID-19 dropped into our society and caused us all to change direction.

More than 80% of respondents agreed that the pandemic will make a lasting impact on the way their museums operate and serve audiences. Respondents shared that their museums are looking for post-pandemic pathways to financial stability, routes to advance relationships with their communities, and steps to create healthier institutions.

As we emerge from the pandemic and people begin to feel safe to gather, I know museums are looking forward to welcoming visitors. Although we are seeing tremendous potential for growth and transformation on the horizon, the problem of how museums will achieve sustainability is keeping me awake long past moonrise.

With limited time and money, how do we create success and connect it to social value?
How do we create new spaces and structures that work for everybody, and not just part of the population?
How do we center the voices of people from historically underrepresented and marginalized communities?
How do we redefine our needs to our constituents, legislators, funders, and donors so that museums can be seen as truly essential partners?

I believe our long-term success will be connected to the ways in which we keep our learnings from 2020 relevant. I also believe that museums should not have to choose between financial stability and social engagement. Some answers will lie in the ways we build capacity and embrace change. Earlier this year, the Institute of Museum and Library Services published the report Market Analysis and Opportunity Assessment of Museum Capacity Building Programs. It has been my touchstone as we seek ways to leverage MANY’s strengths to support and sustain New York’s Museums. I wouldn’t call it summer beach reading, but in its pages you may find inspiration and the beginning of a new path forward.

With thanks for your support,

Erika Sanger

*Stonington, Maine was settled on the traditional lands of the people of the Penobscot Nation, members of the Wabanaki Confederacy, who have stewarded the land for generations. I respect the traditional values of these Tribes and affirm their inherent sovereignty in this territory. I support their efforts for land and water protection and restoration, and for cultural healing and recovery.

NYS Museums Receive $115 Million in SVOG Funding

Tue, 27 Jul 2021 22:30:22 GMT

Fifty three New York State museums and cultural institutions received federal COVID-19 relief through the Shuttered Venue Operating Grants (SVOG) program of the Small Business Administration, totaling just under $115 million.

Battle of Plattsburgh Association, North Country – $4,825
Cobblestone Society, Finger Lakes – $6,884
Iroquois Indian Museum, Mohawk Valley – $18,598
Council for the Vail-Leavitt Music Hall, Inc., Long Island – $19,990
Whitehall Skene Manor Preservation, Inc., North Country – $22,588
Casa Belvedere, The Italian Cultural Foundation, NYC – $23,578
Garibaldi-Meucci Museum, NYC – $46,413
Southern Tier Zoological Society, Inc, Southern Tier – $51,043
Children’s Museum of HIstory, Natural History & Science, Mohawk Valley – $50,050
Chinatown Soup, Inc., NYC – $53,249
Irish American Heritage Museum, Capital Region – $55,051
Boscobel Restoration, Inc., Mid-Hudson – $71,798
The Children’s Museum of Science and Technology, Capital Region – $73,639
Staten Island Zoological Society, NYC – $79,554
Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art and Storytelling, NYC – $80,412
George Eastman Museum, Finger Lakes – $94,467
The Hyde Collection Trust, Capital Region – $102,384
Brooklyn Children’s Museum, NYC – $103,860
Tesla Science Center at Wardencly, Long Island – $130,859
Roberson Museum and Science Center, Southern Tier – $155,575
Museum of the City of New York, NYC – $170,990
Staten Island Children’s Museum, NYC – $174,263
The Children’s Museum of Oswego,Central NY – $175,874
Ukrainian Institute of America, NYC – $203,809
Discovery Center of Science & Technology, Southern Tier– $217,842
Jewish Children’s Museum, NYC – $221,888
Utica Zoological Society, Mohawk Valley – $272,931
September 11th Widows and Victims Families Association, NYC – $370,181
Rochester Museum & Science Center, Southern Tier – $441,228
Schenectady Museum Association, Capital Region – $455,514
American Museum of the Moving Image, Long Island – $547,029
Natural History Museum of the Adirondacks (The Wild Center), North Country – $570,020
National Comedy Center, Inc., Western NY – $573,442
National Comedy Center Operator, Western NY – $598,237
Cradle of Aviation Museum, Long Island – $661,234
Long Island Children’s Museum, Long Island – $779,003
Niagara Aquarium Foundation, Western NY – $1,028,316
Museum of Arts and Design, NYC – $1,108,912
New-York Historical Society, NYC – 1,239,515
The Asia Society, NYC – $1,434,803
Margaret Woodbury Strong Museum (Strong National Museum of Play), Finger Lakes – $2,238,217
Lower East Side Tenement Museum, NYC – $2,245,142
National Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum, Mohawk Valley –$4,728,163
The Corning Museum of Glass, Southern Tier – $5,549,553
Intrepid Museum Foundation, NYC – $8,000,000
Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, NYC – $9,740,702
New York Botanical Garden, NYC – $10,000,000
Wildlife Conservation Society, NYC – $10,000,000
American Museum of Natural History, NYC – $10,000,000
Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC – $10,000,000
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, NYC – $10,000,000
Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC – $10,000,000

The SVOG program was created by the Economic Aid to Hard-Hit Small Business, Nonprofits, and Venues and was signed into law in late December, 2020. It appropriated $15 billion to the SVOG program, which received another $1.25 billion after the American Rescue Plan Act was signed into law on March 11, 2021. SVOG funds can be used for salary support, rent and utility payments, administrative costs, and other expenses including maintenance costs. Grants were based on organization size, budget, and past COVID-19 related Federal support.

The Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, NY received $5.5 million in SVOG funding

“The Corning Museum of Glass is grateful to receive relief funding from the federal Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) program,” said Karol Wight, President and Executive Director. “Like our peer institutions, the Museum was hard hit by the COVID-19 closure last spring, and our full recovery from significant financial loss will take time. We tell the story of a single, transformative material—glass—and inspire people to see the power and potential of glass in an entirely new light. Federal funding programs like the SVOG recognize that same power and potential in cultural institutions, allowing us to not only survive current circumstances, but thrive into the future. Special thanks to Senator Schumer who championed this relief funding, recognizing the important role museums, in particular, play in New York State and across the country in preserving the past and in enriching lives in the present.”

“We are grateful for the federal government’s key support of cultural institutions and museums through the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant program,” said Steve Dubnik, president and CEO of The Strong in Rochester. “With reduced attendance revenue due to the COVID-19 pandemic, these critical funds allow us to maintain our building and collections, pay fixed facility costs, support payroll for our talented staff, and continue to carry out our important mission of preserving the history of play.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (far left) with Michael Grasso, Executive Director of the Roberson Museum and Science Center (far right) at a press conference in Binghamton NY highlighting the success of vaccinations in New York along with the COVID relief package. The Roberson Museum and Science Center received just over $155,000 in funding.

The Roberson Museum and Science Center in the Southern Tier plans to use some of its SVOG funding to support staff salaries. “This relief from the federal government alleviates some of the stress and losses from having been closed or under reduced capacity for most of 2020,” said Michael Grasso, Executive Director of the Roberson Museum and Science Center. “This infusion of funds will be directed to paying staff salaries and health insurance so we can continue to delight and educate our community with exhibitions in art, history, and science. A special thank you to Majority Leader Schumer who fought for museum inclusion in this critical legislation."

“The Irish American Heritage Museum is delighted to receive funding from the SVOG,” said Dr. Elizabeth Stack, Executive Director of the Irish American Heritage Museum in Albany. “The Pandemic taught us that we need to be flexible and creative in how the museum presents its offerings, so we will use the money to invest in our digital presence and film some of our exhibits so that we can offer a virtual museum experience to followers...After almost a year of being closed, receiving the SVOG means that we are truly excited about the possibilities ahead of us, because we have the potential now to grow what we are instead of simply sustaining what we were. It really is an investment in the future of the museum and one for which we are extremely grateful.”

The Wild Center

In the North County, The Wild Center received just over half a million in SVOG funding. "The Wild Center is grateful and truly relieved to receive the SVOG COVID Relief funding from the federal government,” said Hillarie Logan-Dechene, Deputy Director of The Wild Center. “It will be well used to continue to employ our amazing staff, replace some of the lost earned revenue from the mandatory closure last year and our curtailed operations during COVID. It has been a tough 15 months and this funding helps The Wild Center continue to connect people and nature while keeping our staff and community safe, as well as help the regional economy recover."

The Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, which reopened to the public last September, received $10 million. “We are beyond thrilled to receive this funding and recognition of our value to the community. We, along with every cultural organization, have lost millions,’ said Susan Marenoff-Zausner, President of the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum. “To receive this grant is to secure a pathway to continued viability and sustainability to be open and welcoming to all New Yorkers and all those from around the world.”

The relief funding comes almost 16 months after Congress approved the SVOG program. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) led the effort to include museums in the SVOG and a bipartisan coalition of Senators led by the initial sponsors of the SVOG program (formerly known as the “Save Our Stages” Act)–Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and John Cornyn (R-TX). New York’s museums are especially grateful for Senator Schumer’s support of our sector. Erika Sanger, MANY’s Executive Director was honored to present Senate Schumer the well-earned 2020 Museum Advocacy Award on behalf of the American Alliance of Museums.

Cooper Hewitt: Activating Smithsonian Open Access

Tue, 27 Jul 2021 22:23:26 GMT

When the Smithsonian Institution launched Open Access in February 2020, copyright restrictions were removed from millions of digital collection images and nearly two centuries of data. Since then, creatives, researchers, and collaborators from around the world have downloaded, transformed, and re-shared this content for any purpose free, and without restriction. Supported by Verizon 5G Labs, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum’s Interaction Lab recently launched “Activating Smithsonian Open Access” (ASOA), an open call for designers to submit new digital interactions and innovative tools that enable play and discovery with the Smithsonian’s Open Access collections. Cooper Hewitt hopes to identify compelling projects that the Interaction Lab might explore for wider use across the Smithsonian in the future.

Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum located on Museum Mile, NYC

Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Cooper Hewitt’s design collection contains over 215,000 objects that span thirty centuries. Over 95% of that collection is digitized and available online through the Museum’s collection portal. On-site visitors can interact with the collection through dedicated exhibitions installed on the Museum’s second floor. This exhibition series called “Selects,” invites a guest curator to explore a theme or tell a story using works in the permanent collection. “Since the Museum reopened in 2014, Cooper Hewitt has offered the opportunity to play with digital collections on-site by using one of our multi-touch digital tables, and playing with wall coverings in the projection-based “Immersion Room,” said Rachel Ginsberg, Interaction Lab Director. “In addition to museum visits, students and educators may encounter the museum’s collection through the growing Smithsonian Learning Lab collection, which provides teaching tools for educators and caregivers, and free virtual Design Field Trips for K-12 students across the country, which explore the design process and build connections to Cooper Hewitt’s collection.”

Cooper Hewitt’s “The Pen” offers visitors “collect” and “save” objects from around the galleries and explore more of the online collections database

Interaction Lab

Launched in 2019, the Interaction Lab is a research and development program, or as Cooper Hewitt calls it, “a lab without walls.” It is focused on visitor experience that’s closely related to Cooper Hewitt’s mission as the Smithsonian Design Museum. “By convening, experimenting and co-creating with museum practitioners, the design community, and the public, we’re reimagining the Cooper Hewitt experience and exploring futures for museum experience broadl,” said Ginsberg. The Lab’s work falls roughly into four interconnected areas: visitor experience research, thought leadership, design commissions, partnerships (for research and prototyping), and public programming.

“In our research and thought leadership work, provocations originate from the Interaction Lab, but we conduct the work in collaboration with others,” said Ginsberg. Cooper Hewitt’s recent publication Tools and Approaches for Transforming Museum Experience was co-authored by a diverse group of museum practitioners working across visitor experience. “Sometimes a program will cross multiple areas, like Activating Smithsonian Open Access,” said Ginsberg. “That’s a partnership with Verizon 5G Labs that is also a commissioning program. Public programming for the Interaction Lab is connected to everything we do.”

Cooper Hewitt’s initial goal for the Interaction Lab was to explore the future of the Museum experience. Cooper Hewitt spent the first year of the Lab’s existence mapping opportunities in the museum to understand how best to invest in staff time and resources. “Early in the process, we established values that would drive our work–that it would be cross-disciplinary, collaborative, and as transparent as possible,” said Ginsberg. “We would build on our identity as a design museum by inviting people into our own design process to think and learn with us.”

Activating Smithsonian Open Access

Working with Verizon 5G Labs, Cooper Hewitt opened a call for designers, technology teams, creators, etc. to submit proposals to stimulate new ideas for digital interactions with the more than 3 million objects in the Smithsonian’s Open Access collections.

Each project must include an audience objective, offer wide access for both the technology platform and collections accessibility. Finalists present their prototypes to the Smithsonian and Verizon, and in virtual programs to the public.

“We believe that creative commissioning has a tremendous amount of potential for museums and other cultural sector institutions,” said Ginsberg. “Taking this kind of approach has been central to the Lab’s strategy since the start and we are thrilled to have been able to focus on such a compelling dataset as Smithsonian Open Access.”

Objectives

Cooper Hewitt’s Interaction Lab is specifically interested in tools that focus on 2D images from their Open Access collections. “We launched the open call with a very specific creative brief that specified the kinds of interactions we were interested in receiving from the teams,” said Ginsberg. “In particular, we wanted people to propose ways to engage with collections that moved beyond what we described as a ‘passive looking experience.” Smithsonian Open Access is an astonishing dataset that contains a tremendous range of materials. We felt strongly about wanting to present experiences that explore a diverse range of thought and an approach capable of reaching as wide a range of people as possible.”

As part of their creative brief, Cooper Hewitt highlighted seven focus areas for ASOA proposals:

Analytical

Analyze and synthesize data from collections to draw conclusions or offer insights about the objects contained therein

Visualization

Devise new modes of digital display for collections that offer compelling experiences in two- and three-dimensions, e.g. augmented reality, animation

Contextual

Create context around objects by placing them in new environments

Creative Alteration

Tools that let users remix/alter objects, and/or considers objects as raw materials to build other kinds of interactions

Enhances Storytelling Capability

Creates focused narratives around an individual object or series of objects.

Accessibility

Increase the accessibility of Open Access collections for people with various physical and cognitive abilities. For example, integrating audio and visual descriptions; building multimodal interactions; or creating teaching tools with collections to engage those who benefit from different modalities

Play with Smithsonian Web Components

Expand and improve upon the Smithsonian’s open-source collection of web components, called Voyager. Voyager Story is the Smithsonian’s Open Source 3D Storytelling platform. It enables curators and other experts to create educational experiences around 3D objects by adding text, images, and tours. Since its creation, its components have been expanded to support advanced features like AR and more.

Cooper Hewitt’s goals for the process of commissioning include introducing new ideas to the museum, supporting the creation of compelling interactions with digital collections, and sharing the design stories behind their creation. “We’ll be publishing those as a series of blog posts written by ASOA teams in the weeks following our launch,” said Ginsberg. “We’ve also been able to collaborate with a wide range of practitioners from across the Smithsonian through this program and are looking forward to exploring future opportunities for these seven projects in other areas of the Institution.”

The Finalists

Seven teams were commissioned by Cooper Hewitt’s Interaction Lab to develop new digital interactions and innovative tools. Teams received $10,000 each and will have ten weeks to create their project. The Smithsonian, Verizon, and industry experts will provide mentorship throughout and all teams will own their intellectual property that they create during the project.

“We’ve supported the creation of a truly diverse range of talented people and projects,” said Ginsberg. “It was our ambition to demonstrate a programmatic approach that could generate projects of real value to the creators and also to the Museum. We felt like we’ve accomplished that and are truly excited to see what comes next.”

Presenting the prototypes, the seven finalists for Activating Smithsonian Open Access

ART CLOCK

A data visualization tool that offers users a novel way to browse and learn about Smithsonian Open Access collections by analyzing visual characteristics of the dataset and compiling images into various configurations of clock interfaces.

TEAM: Zander Brimijoin, Daniel Scheibel, Greg Schomburg, Erin Stowell, Lisa Walters, Jiwon Ham

ARTECHO

A web based acoustic VR experience that reveals the acoustic attributes of 3D objects in the Smithsonian’s Open Access collections. Though created primarily for the blind and low vision community, the platform offers another way for all people to experience 3D objects.

TEAM: John Roach, Zhizhen (Jerry) Tan, Thomas Tajo

BUTTARFLY

This experience will render 2D images of butterflies from Smithsonian Open Access collections into 3D format that invites users to learn more, while offering a delightful augmented reality interaction.

TEAM: Jonathan Lee, Miriam Langer, Rianne Trujillo, Lauren Addario

DOORWAYS INTO OPEN ACCESS

Marrying physical and digital space, Doorways connects users to augmented reality experiences with Open Access collections out in the world featuring specific historical periods or events.

TEAM: Abigail Honor, Jean-Pierre Dufresne, Angelo Calilap, Gevorg Manukyan, Yan Vizinberg, Chris Cooper and Alex Robete

LOOT MERCH

Democratize access to art and inspire conversations about ownership and digital repatriation by transforming 2D images of Open Access African art objects into 3D assets to be used in social AR experiences and other open-source projects.

TEAM: Mayowa Tomori, Olu Gbadegbo, and Olivia Cueva

SCIENCEVR

A collaborative VR game where users search for objects selected from the Smithsonian’s Open Access dataset within an immersive environment and learn more about each object and its history.

TEAM: Jackie Lee, Ph.D, Yen-Ling Kuo, Caitlin Krause

WRITING WITH OPEN ACCESS

As users write in this web-based creative tool, it identifies keywords in the writing, and dynamically generates visual narratives from Smithsonian Open Access collections to accompany essays, research, poetry and more.

TEAM: Jono Brandel, Sunny Oh, Hiroaki Yamane

Surprises and Challenges

“This has been an incredible program to put on, but building and managing it was a complex task,” said Ginsberg. “This kind of open call approach isn’t common to the Smithsonian, so it took a lot of coordination among quite a large group of people to ensure that we were adhering to Smithsonian guidelines, and supporting our cohort in creating exciting work that would connect Cooper Hewitt and the Smithsonian to people all over the world. That said, I am tremendously thankful to have thoughtful, dedicated colleagues at Cooper Hewitt, throughout the Smithsonian, and supportive counterparts at Verizon 5G Labs. ASOA is the result of many people working behind the scenes to make sure the pieces fit together.”

Future Casting

After the first year devoted to discovery and a second year of adjustment due to the pandemic, Cooper Hewitt hopes that year three will be full of shared exploration, design opportunities, and exciting releases. “Our plans are focused on building on what we know is working–convening diverse groups of practitioners and the public for thoughtful discussion, co-creative research and prototyping, building dynamic partnerships with like-minded organizations and individuals, issuing provocations about the future of the museum sector, and collaborating with the design community on a reimagined Cooper Hewitt experience that considers how we work alongside what we make,” said Ginsberg.

On Tuesday, August 3 at 2 PM, Cooper Hewitt will present the prototypes from the seven finalists as part of a demo day in an hour-long webinar. The webinar is free and open to the public where finalists will share more details about their projects. Following the webinar, the prototypes will be available to the public for experimentation and exploration.

“Our creators are a dedicated and hardworking group of people, all bringing very different ways of thinking about digital experience powered by museum collections,” said Ginsberg. “Being able to demonstrate those ideas with working prototypes really changes the conversation about the future of projects like these at Cooper Hewitt and across the Smithsonian.”

Learn more about Cooper Hewitt’s Interaction Lab–Activating Smithsonian Open Access: https://www.cooperhewitt.org/activating-smithsonian-open-access/

Register for “Presenting the Prototypes: Demo Say with Activating Smithsonian Open Access” webinar on August 3: https://www.cooperhewitt.org/event/presenting-the-prototypes-demo-day-with-activating-smithsonian-open-access-08-03-2021/

Letter from Erika: Remember Going Places with People?

Tue, 29 Jun 2021 18:28:51 GMT

MANY Staff at Fort Ticonderoga, June 24, 2021

Dear Members, Friends, and Supporters,

On June 23^rd, MANY’s board of directors met at the Hart-Cluett Museum in Troy. During a break, we toured the Hart-Cluett’s exhibition galleries and the historic “Marble House” at 59 Second Street. The next day, MANY staff visited Fort Ticonderoga where we saw their new virtual program delivery studio and gained a deeper understanding of how the Fort, located between Lakes George and Champlain, played a pivotal role in history. Today, an image of the Everson Museum of Art from June 2019 popped up in my Facebook “memories.” We were in Syracuse to launch the New York tour of the Smithsonian’s Museum on Main Street Water/Ways exhibition at the Erie Canal Museum.

For most of the past 16 months, what I used to think of as simple – make plans, travel to see a museum with people you know, meet other people you know, meet new people, share a meal, talk about what you saw at the museum – was impossible. I honestly didn’t know how much I missed traveling and seeing museums until last week when the energy generated by gathering, sharing a laugh, and the sonic boom of a demonstration canon shot renewed my spirit in a way I had forgotten. The MANY travel life rhythm emerged and we celebrated.

Yes, it can still be complicated and perhaps risky to travel and many museum professionals remain anxious about welcoming visitors without occupancy restrictions and maintaining mask requirements to protect the unvaccinated. It is not quite time to let down all of our guard rails. We have years of work ahead of us to heal the racist harms woven into the fabric of our nation. But as you make summer plans, I urge you to visit a nearby museum - perhaps one you haven’t visited before, say hello to your colleagues, and experience the renewed energy of doing one of the things I know you love. Need some inspiration? Check out the Places to Go in New York State pages on the I Love NY website.

Starting in September, MANY will be offering workshops in museums in every region of New York State. Working with the presenters and selecting the locations got us excited, and then the travel plans! I swoon contemplating the views from I-90. Looking for new ways to engage with your community? The Museum and Folk Art Forum will be an exciting way to explore the possibilities of working with traditional artists. Only four spaces remain open to attend the 2021 Museum Institute “Leadership, Partnership, Mentorship” and many of the grant writing workshops are already at half capacity. The Partnership Forum in your region doesn’t fit your professional development needs? Travel to one in a nearby region! We can arrange for you to get a discount at a local hotel and you can hang out with MANY staff after the program. You can follow our travels on our Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn with the hashtags #manyonthemove and #nysmuseums. I so look forward to seeing you and hearing about all that you have been working on in your museums.

With thanks for your support,

Erika Sanger

Images from Fort Ticonderoga

Reimagined for the Future: American Museum of Natural History’s Allison and Roberto Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals

Tue, 29 Jun 2021 18:20:54 GMT

The Mineral Hall in the Allison and Roberto Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals at the American Museum of Natural History.

The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) opened its Allison and Roberto Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals to the public on June 12 after being closed for four years. Minerals and gems have been part of the AMNH collections since it was founded in 1869. The Halls underwent extensive renovation as part of the Museum's 150th anniversary. The 11,000 square-foot space features the Museum's permanent collection of minerals, gems, and meteorites totaling more than 120,000 specimens. The renovation not only showcases the Museum’s collection but provides an engaging guide to current scientific knowledge about the Earth. Multi-media presentations and interactives align with next generation science standards and can serve as a learning lab for science teacher education and professional development while being accessible to the general public.

History of the Halls

The Museum’s collection of gems and minerals is housed in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences. It comprises around 200,000 specimens of minerals, gems, rocks, and meteorites and is continuing to expand thanks to an active research and collecting program. Curators, research scientists, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students study topics that include the origin of rubies in Southeast Asia, volatile gases that lead to volcanic eruptions, past changes to ocean circulation and climate, the formation of rocks in subduction zones, the differentiation of planetary bodies, and the mineral and chemical origins of the solar system.

Reimagined Spaces

Before the renovation, the collection was displayed in a warren of galleries that made it a challenge to interpret. The new Halls were designed by Ralph Appelbaum Associates with David Brody Bond as architects who worked with AMNH’s exhibition department under the direction of Lauri Halderman, the Museum's Vice President for Exhibition. The Halls are divided into three sections: the Gem Hall, the Mineral Hall, and the Melissa and Keith Meister Gallery for temporary exhibitions.

The Gems Hall in the Allison and Roberto Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals at the American Museum of Natural History.

The Gem Hall includes nearly 2,500 items on display and includes precious stones, carvings, and jewelry from around the world. The Mineral Hall comprises four sections: Mineral Forming Environments, Mineral Fundamentals, Systematic Classification, and Minerals & Light.

“The goal was to present minerals and gems in terms of answering what they are and then lay out the Mineral hall to address their context on Earth, organized around the environments on Earth in which they form,” said AMNH Curator George E. Harlow of the Museum’s Division of Physical Sciences who organized the Halls. “We defined five basic environments: Igneous (once molten), Weathering (chemical alteration by air and water), Hydrothermal (formed from hot water), Metamorphic (changed by mountain building and shifts in Earth’s crust), and Pegmatitic (a post-igneous condition in which large crystals grow in large spaces).” Harlow describes that the new focus cases can deal with a mineral or place and include historical connections.

“We did much more than a renovation,” said Harlow. “These are totally new Halls in the location of the old.”

Systematic Classification Wall

Along the west wall of the Hall of Minerals is the Systematic Classification display, which contains 659 specimens that represent the chemical classification system scientists use to organize Earth’s more than 5,500 mineral species. Pictured in the foreground is an orbicular granite from the Yilgarn Craton in Western Australia.

“Mineral Forming Environments” is at the center of the Hall and is dedicated to the environments in which and process of how minerals are formed. “Mineral Fundamentals” explores overarching concepts of mineral sciences. “Systematic Classification” runs along the Halls west wall and contains 659 specimens that represent the chemical classification system that scientists use to organize the Earth’s more than 5,000 mineral species. It also has an interactive feature where visitors can explore forming minerals from the elements on the periodic table. The last section, “Minerals & Light,” is a room located off the east wall. It explores the optical properties of minerals and how they interact with light.

Sterling Hill Fluorescent Rock Panel

The centerpiece of the Minerals & Light room is a wall-sized panel of fluorescent rock that glows in shades of orange and green, sourced from Sterling Hill in New Jersey.

The “Minerals & Light” space uses a state of the art lighting system that incorporates cool and warm full-spectrum LEDs and sophisticated lighting controls to highlight the texture, color, and reflectivity of the minerals and gems on display. The space also uses short and long-wave ultraviolet sources that reveal colors in fluorescent minerals. The goal was to provide visitors the opportunity to experience the depth and character of the minerals and gems on display.

Beautiful Creatures, an exhibition of some of the world’s most spectacular jewelry inspired by animals, is on view through September 19, 2021, in the Melissa and Keith Meister Gallery. The exhibition features imaginative jewels from the world’s great jewelry houses and designers—including Cartier’s iconic panthers, Bulgari's snakes, Suzanne Belperron’s butterflies, and more.

The Meister Gallery houses the temporary exhibition, “Beautiful Creatures” that features designs by some of the world’s great jewelry houses and artisans. The pieces on view range from the mid-19th century to the present and are displayed into categories of animals on land, air, and water.

Educational Resource

The Hall’s exhibits, including media and interactive content, were developed to align with Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), illustrate Crosscutting Concepts, serve as a lab for science teacher education and professional development, and make connections to other museum halls.

The Halls were designed as an educational resource for teachers and students to explore current scientific knowledge about the Earth. They Halls support current educational standards by acknowledging the interdisciplinary nature of evidence-based science. This includes: Earth science (how minerals form), chemistry (an interactive periodic table), physics (Minerals & Light gallery space–how light interacts with minerals), and biology (the role of life in the evolution of Earth’s minerals).

“When I started at the Museum, there were probably around 2,500 minerals described and now there are more than 5,000,” said Harlow. “The enhanced Halls present up-to-date science, which has progressed significantly.”

The Mineral Hall in the Allison and Roberto Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals at the American Museum of Natural History.

The Halls play a key role in the Museum’s Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) Program which prepares Earth science teachers for grades 7 to 12 in high-needs schools in New York City and throughout New York State. Teachers that participate in the MAT program will use the Halls as a tangible teaching tool for their own classes once they graduate.

Periodic Table Interactive

This interactive display illustrates the periodic table of chemical elements and allows visitors to “make minerals.”

Into the Future

The renovation of the Halls is just one part of the physical and programmatic initiatives undertaken by AMNH for the 150th anniversary celebration. This project culminates in the opening of the Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation, a new 230,000 square foot facility that adds galleries, classrooms, an immersive theatre, and a redesigned library. With this new space, the Museum’s research, collections, and library spaces will be revitalized and expanded to include behind the scenes functions that will be visible and accessible to the public. The Gilder Center hopes to enhance the Museum’s capacity to partner with schools, teacher professional development programs, and out-of-state programs for students, introduce digital tools of science, and explore college and career opportunities. The Center will provide new, flexible learning spaces that are integrated with exhibitions, collections, and science labs in order to create immersive learning experiences. The Museum anticipates that the space will add 745,000 visitors annually.

Halls Installation

Exhibition staff members install specimens in the all-new Allison and Roberto Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals at the American Museum of Natural History.

Harlow hopes that visitors to the Halls will be greeted with a feast for the eyes with many interesting stories that are told by the minerals, including large sized specimens consistent with the geological environment. “My hope is that a visitor’s curiosity about a specimen or case will lead to the discover ‘I didn’t know that’ or ‘that is very interesting.’”

Learn more about the Halls of Gems and Minerals at the American Museum of Natural History: https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/permanent/gems-minerals

Community as Contributors: Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute

Tue, 29 Jun 2021 18:18:12 GMT

For decades, Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute has engaged with its local community through exhibitions and programming. Its latest exhibition Call & Response: Collecting African American Art pulls back the curtain on how the museum has acquired work by Black artists over the past 30 years. The exhibition is about making connections between works of art and the artists who created them. To offer visitors new perspectives, the museum invited eight community contributors who shared their interpretations of the exhibited work using music, personal history, and comparative works of art.

Inside Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute in the Philip Johnson Building. The Museum has close to 12,000 items in its collection, predominantly American art.

Long-standing Community Relationship

Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute is a multifaceted arts organization located in Utica, New York, a city with a large refugee population. There are more than 40 languages spoken in the school district. “It’s really a dynamic, diverse city and we have one of the largest per capita refugee communities,” said Anna D’Ambrosio, President and CEO of Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. The Museum has a long-standing relationship with dozens of organizations throughout the community including a program to help refugees to the area transition and settle through programs and activities using art. Munson-Williams-Proctor began working with the refugee and immigrant community in the late 1990s and gathered momentum in the mid-2000’s. “It’s included running special tours and programs with the refugee community and running National Endowment for the Arts funded programs that use the collections and exhibitions for English language learners from recent adult refugees,” said D’Ambrosio.

In 2019, Munson-Williams-Proctor unveiled its long-range initiative, “MWP 2025” –its strategic plan to lead its programming into the future. As the plan was developed, the museum held a series of focus groups to help gather valuable community input.

African American Community Partners

Formed in September 2019, the African American Community Partners (AACP) advisory panel is made up of 12 members of the Black community from Utica who meet monthly. “The panel was originally created in conjunction with an Allan Rohan Crite exhibition scheduled to open in February 2022,” said D’Ambrosio. “From that, they’ve grown to help the museum in so many respects from marketing to program ideas. They’re great meetings and it’s become a model of what we can do with other types of focus groups going forward with how they can help with other aspects of the institute.”

Among the advisory panel participants are Freddie Hamilton, a 5th Ward Councilwoman in Utica and the area’s first Black woman to hold public office, and Patrick Johnson, a Utica native who has taught hundreds of Mohawk Valley residents at racism awareness seminars.

“Working with the AACP has been a great experience,” said D’Ambrosio. “Part of their formation came out of the groundwork that we did for our strategic plan when we did community focus groups and really listened to what people said about their feelings about the organization as a whole or their experiences at the museum. It reinforced something that we kind of thought but had no hard data on. The AACP is one of the outgrowth of our community engagement efforts.”

Munson-Williams-Proctor approached the panel for guidance for Call and Response to help select community contributors as part of its interpretation.

Community Contributors

“Part of this program that we’re doing is called ‘Coming Into View’ and it offers visitors new ways to explore works of art and the artists who created them. For Call and Response, eight African American members of the community contributed their responses to artwork in the exhibition through a variety of media including video, other related artwork, photos they’ve submitted, text, and audio conversations we’ve had with them,” said Education Director April Oswald. Two college students, a health professor, a professor of sociology, a minister, a professor of art, a medical professional, and a Utica City administrator each recorded their comments on three different works of art. “It’s an opportunity to bring in different perspectives on our collections and exhibitions. It’s something that we’ve been working on doing for a while but this is new in that it’s really a chance for us to get away from how museum people see things and to get how other people see it. It’s an opportunity for more informed culturally shared experiences and insights that we don’t have.”

One community contributor Tracy Latty interpreted Counting by Lorna Simpson (left)–a photogravure with screen print on paper. The art is quite large, almost 6 feet in height and is composed of three images; the neckline of a woman, a circular brick building often found in the South for curing meats, and an overhead photo of a woman's braids. “This work suggests associations with the history of African hair braiding traditions in addition to aesthetics and social status,” said Latty. “Some cite the lore that seeds were woven into braids, others say that braids may have been designed as maps for those fleeing enslavement. This South Carolina smokehouse is the product of the work of the slaves who produced the bricks.”

Munson-Williams-Proctor provided some comments around the artwork but just enough to provide some context. “For each community contributor we went through the objects with them and had a VTS (visual thinking strategies) conversation with them, a learner centered, inquiry-based way of looking at works of art,” said Oswald.

“‘Coming Into View’ interests me because of the demographics the Museum is engaging. On walks around Munson-Williams admiring the beauty of the grounds, I consider this a wonderful opportunity to join such a platform that’s transitioning to a new way for the community to interact with the Museum,” said Latty. “This is a way to engage in dialogue with people in our own community, as well as a change for Africans living in America to expand their awareness of each other.”

Another community contributor Marques Phillips, Codes Commissioner and Director of Utica City Initiatives, interpreted Bob Thompson’s Stagedoom, (1962) and compared it to Francisco Goya’s Los Caprichos, no. 2. Phillips uses Thompson’s fascination with Goya’s Los Caprichos series after Thompson’s year in Ibiza, Spain in 1961. “At the time Bob Thompson was painting, as today, there was debate about Black culture and what that should mean,” said Phillips. “Should Blacks merely imitate European culture, play classical music, write in European prose or paint the way it was done in the Renaissance?”

Bob Thompson (American, 1937-66) Stagedoom, 1962 gouache and charcoal on paper

Continuing Community Engagement

D’Ambrosio hopes to continue to engage the community. “For me the challenge remains getting people to make it a habit to come all the time, not just the special exhibitions. The community needs to be welcomed and feel part of the organization so that they come back to the next exhibition to learn more about a topic that they might be far removed from.” Oswald says that the museum plans to continue the “Coming Into View” initiative with future exhibitions and include more community contributors. “I hope that the outcome of what we’re doing is to keep people coming back to have the opportunity to see what's happening in other communities.”

Future Plans

Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute exterior on Genesee Street in Downtown Utica

In 2021, Governor Cuomo announced 16 transformational projects for Utica as part of the $10 million Downtown Revitalization Initiative award, including Munson-Williams-Proctor. The Museum is expected to receive $819,500 to create a large public-access park on underutilized institute land in the Oneida Square neighborhood with arts and cultural programming.

“We want to really activate that part of our campus because it is so central to the neighborhood and make it a real community hub for concerts and festivals, things we already do at Munson-Williams-Proctor,” said D’Ambrosio. “We want to have more partnerships and make sure that everyone feels comfortable and participates at the museum. For Munson-Williams-Proctor, the real strength of the institution is that it can bring all aspects together around a topic to create huge community impact.”

Learn more about Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute: https://www.mwpai.org/

Explore more community contributors for Call & Response on Munson-Williams-Proctor's app: https://mobile.mwpai.yourcultureconnect.com/

Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute is part of the Museum Association of New York's Building Capacity Project funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) designed to help museums impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic share their collections and reach audiences who cannot physically visit their museums.

The Universal Hip Hop Museum at Bronx Point

Tue, 29 Jun 2021 18:15:54 GMT

The Universal Hip Hop Museum is set to open in 2024 and will be the first museum dedicated to the preservation of Hip Hop. The museum is part of a $349 million mixed-use project to transform Bronx Point along the Harlem River waterfront. The museum broke ground this past May after ten years of work on the part of Hip Hop legend and historian Paradise Gray, a team of Hip Hop icons and enthusiasts, and the museum’s Executive Director Rocky Bucano.

Rendering of the Universal Hip Hop Museum

The Beginning

The journey to create the Universal Hip Hop Museum started nearly ten years ago when Rocky Bucano was approached by a developer Young Woo who was working on a project proposal to redevelop the Kingsbridge Armory and was thinking about including a Hip Hop museum. “And Rocky has a long history of being in the Hip Hop culture,” said Adam Silverstein, Director of Museum Collections and Archives. “He was a DJ early on in the Bronx and said yes and recruited some people including Kurtis Blow, Shawn LG Thomas, Grand Wizzard Theodore (inventor of the scratch), Grandmaster Melle Mel, and others who said they would support this.” That project would eventually fall through, but the group kept the dream alive of one day opening a Hip Hop museum.

The founding members discussed the idea of creating a virtual museum or renovating the old Bronx Courthouse. Then L + M Development Partners and Type A Projects approached the group. “They were responding to an RFP from the City to create affordable housing, retail, and a park space. They asked Rocky if the Hip Hop museum would be the cultural anchor of this project,” said Silverstein. The museum gained its 501(c)(3) register non-profit status in 2015 and moved forward with L + M to include the museum in this multi-million dollar project at Bronx Point.

Bronx, the Birthplace of Hip Hop

For Bucano and the founding members, the museum was always going to be in the Bronx. “We were always looking at the Bronx. It was never really an option to go anywhere else.” Silverstein said that it was like Hip Hop was finally taking control of its own narrative and recognized the importance of building the museum in the Bronx. “It’s the community that spawned a global culture and now it’s time to come back to the community. We talk about it like a phoenix, Hip Hop rising from the Bronx and then spreading across the world and now it’s returned. It’s time for the institution of Hip Hop to make itself in its birthplace.”

The Universal Hip Hop Museum is south of 1520 Sedgwick Ave, a 102-unit apartment building in the Morris Heights neighborhood of the Bronx, widely regarded as the birthplace of Hip Hop. The museum’s collection tracks the history of Hip Hop starting at Sedgwick Avenue where at a party in 1973, DJ Kool Herc was the first person to use two turntables to extend a song’s drum beat, the “beatback” where you switch from one record to another. The museum aims to tell the story of Hip Hop’s rapid growth and cultural impact from graffiti, sneaker culture, dance, urban fashion, and other movements that can trace their history back to Hip Hop.

Keeping it “Fresh”

The museum will occupy 52,000 square feet over two-floors in a 22-story building that includes 542 affordable housing units, 2.8 acres of public open green space, and retail space. “It's not a tremendous amount of space so one of the things that we want to do is to keep the museum fresh,” said Silverstein. “Not only by retaining the exhibitions, but we want to make this a technology advanced museum. It’s been part of our goal since the start.” The museum has three areas of interest: physical space, traveling exhibitions, and virtual. “These plans have gained traction at different times and obviously when L + M came along we went forward with the physical plan for the museum but we still have plans for a virtual museum and plans for traveling exhibitions. It’s part of why we are called the Universal Hip Hop Museum because this is a universal culture,” said Silverstein.

The museum will have an immersive 1970s experience including space where visitors can create and spin their own records in an imitation DJ Booth and visit a recording studio. There will also be a virtual reality theatre where visitors can interact with some of Hip Hop’s biggest icons.

“When we get into the permanent space, the goal will to be to exhibit our artifacts but we really want to focus on technology and being able to give people multiple experiences in our space that will change frequently,” said Silverstein. “An element of Hip Hop is to be fresh and if you're not fresh, you’re wack and we don’t want to be that. We want to be cutting edge just like Hip Hop is cutting edge.”

Funding

The museum received funding from the New York City’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, Housing Development Corporation, and Empire State Development. The total funding for the entire building is $323.5 million with an additional $27 million for waterfront construction. During the groundbreaking ceremony on May 20, 2021, Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. announced that he would contribute $4.2 million from his office’s capital budget to support the museum’s capital campaign. It's one of the largest single funding allocations made by Diaz.

“The groundbreaking for the first phase of Bronx Point is a tremendous step forward for our borough,” said Diaz at the groundbreaking ceremony. “Not only will this project create much-needed affordable housing units, but it will also activate underutilized space, open up more waterfront for public access, create new public spaces and retail amenities for community use. This development will combine two of my favorite things, history and Hip Hop, bringing the Universal Hip Hop Museum to its rightful location in the birthplace of Hip Hop, The Bronx.”

The reimagined Harlem River waterfront space

The groundbreaking ceremony served as the official launch of the museum’s $100 million capital campaign. Mayor Bill de Blasio and Hip Hop legends including Nas, LL Cool J, Fat Joe, and NYS Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie joined the event.

Empire State Development awarded the Universal Hip Hop Museum $3.5 million in Round IX of funding, citing its community programming and an in-house museum job training program as central components of the project in addition to attracting worldwide visitors and furthering the development of the Bronx/Harlem waterfront.

The museum plans on continuing to reach out to individual donors and to the Hip Hop community. “We want everyone to feel included in this,” said Silverstein. In addition to reaching out to local Bronx businesses, the museum is approaching large companies like Adidas, Nike, Sprite, and Gucci. “We’re reaching out to larger companies that are now supporting underserved communities but also because a lot of these companies have profited off of Hip Hop for years and this is an opportunity for them to give back,” said Silverstein.

Silverstein said that the museum’s approach to these larger companies is to not only have them donate, but that they also have a Hip Hop story that needs to be told.

Staying Engaged: AI and Temporary Exhibition Space

The Bronx Terminal Market located directly across the street from the museum’s soon to be permanent home offered the museum space for the public to preview the collection and created temporary exhibitions The first, [R]evolution Exhibition uses a fabricated subway car as display space and focuses on Hip Hop’s emergence from park jams and the projects to nightclubs, national concert tours, TV, and film from 1980 to 1985. This temporary exhibition space will change every six months. It began with Hip Hop’s origins in the 1970s and will continue with new exhibitions, each focusing on a 5 year period until the museum opens.

Universal Hip Hop Museum’s temporary exhibition at the Bronx Terminal Market

This space also features the museum’s first AI project, “Breakbeat Narratives” which is a collaboration with the MIT Center for Advance Virtuality and Microsoft, the museum’s official technology partner. It uses AI to help categorize the complex evolution of Hip Hop to create a personalized experience for every visitor. It’s goal is to help visitors explore various narratives in Hip Hop using their personal taste in music as an entry point. Visitors can take away a personalised playlist. “We’re not using technology just for the sake of technology, but to really empower people so that they get information in a very unique way that they weren’t expecting,” said Bucano. Microsoft has committed both technological resources and $5 million to expand the museum’s cultural heritage program. “Documenting, preserving, and presenting the history of the culture for generations of Hip Hop lovers globally via exciting new tech innovations from Microsoft is thrilling,” said Bucano. “This partnership is truly a milestone for Hip Hop culture.”

Once the museum opens in its permanent home, it will continue to utilize technology and AI. “Technology changes and so we want to be flexible within the museum,” said Silverstein.

The museum hoped to open in 2023, Hip Hop’s 50th anniversary but because of the pandemic, the museum is now set to open in 2024. “The heartbeat of Hip Hop culture will live at Bronx Point, the future home of the Universal Hip Hop Museum,” said Bucano.

Learn more about the Universal Hip Hop Museum: https://uhhm.org/

Museum Association of New York Opens Registration for 2021 Fall Programming

Tue, 15 Jun 2021 15:23:10 GMT

The Museum Association of New York [MANY] is excited to announce the 2021 in-person fall programming schedule for Partnership Forums, Grant Writing Workshops, Museum and Folk Art Forum, and the Museum Institute at Great Camp Sagamore.

Partnership Forums

MANY will host ten, day-long Partnership forums carrying the theme of The Power of Partnership around the state. In these multi-presentation forums, museum professionals will have the opportunity to learn from leaders in the field and spend valuable time with colleagues in small group settings.

Each Partnership Forum will be from 10 AM - 4 PM. Registration is $30 for MANY members and $25 for Non-members; includes museum admission and lunch.

To learn more about these Partnership Forums and to register, visit https://nysmuseums.org/Partnership-Forums.

Partnership Forums are sponsored by the New York State Council on the Arts, Humanities New York, Aria Strategies, Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor, NYS Canal Corporation, and the New York Council of Nonprofits.

Tell Your Story and Make Your Case: A Workshop to Build Grant Writing Skills

These workshops are being produced as a program of the Pomeroy Fund for NYS History with support from the New York State Council on the Arts. In these participatory workshops, MANY Executive Director Erika Sanger will guide attendees through the grant writing process to build skills and develop insights, including analyzing guidelines, outlining narratives, writing statements of need, and developing budgets. Sanger will share examples of successfully funded grant narratives, hints for streamlining work processes, and designing visually appealing attachments.

Each workshop will be limited to 20 people with priority given to employees and volunteers of 501 (c)(3) designated museums and history organizations in New York State with operating budgets of $150,000 or less. There is no charge for the workshop but participants must apply and meet the requirements.

To learn more about these grant writing workshops and to apply, visit https://nysmuseums.org/grant-writing-workshops.

Museum and Folk Art Forum

On Sunday, November 14 from 10 AM - 5 PM, the Museum Association of New York is hosting the Museum and Folk Art Forum at the Everson Museum of Art. This forum will feature live demonstrations, performances, and discussions to explore and strengthen the ways museums, folklorists, and traditional artists can work together to build community around the interpretation and preservation of traditional arts and shared informal learning practices.

Registration is $30 for MANY members and New York Folklore members and $25 for cultural professionals; includes museum admission, lunch, and reception.

To learn more about the Museum and Folk Art Forum and to register, visit https://nysmuseums.org/Museum-and-Folk-Art-Forum.

The Museum and Folk Art Forum is supported by New York Folklore and by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

The Museum Institute at Great Camp Sagamore

The Museum Institute is a retreat for museum professionals held at Great Camp Sagamore in the heart of the Adirondacks. This years’ theme is “Leadership, Partnership, and Mentorship.” Participants will have the opportunity to learn from other leaders in the museum field who will share their expertise to help create solutions, build audiences, and develop institutional management skills. Presenters include Franklin Vagnone (Twisted Preservation and Old Salem Museums & Gardens), John Yeagley (Twisted Preservation), Dr. Georgette Grier-Key (Eastville Community Historical Society), Rob Cassetti (Corning Museum of Glass), and Chloe Hayward (The Studio Museum in Harlem).

Registration is $725 for MANY Members and $775 for Non-members and includes tuition, housing, all meals, and activities including a boat tour on Raquette Lake. Space is extremely limited and early registration is recommended.

Learn more about The Museum Institute and to register, visit nysmuseums.org/museum-institute.

The Museum Institute at Great Camp Sagamore is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Letter from Erika: Creating New Collective Memories

Wed, 26 May 2021 20:54:07 GMT

The Water Hole, Hall of African Mammals, American Museum of Natural History

Dear Members, Friends and Supporters,

Many of my childhood memories were formed in New York City’s museums, zoos, and gardens. In those places I came to know the world outside of my constructed environment - about things that grow in fertile soil, not between cracks in concrete; places where fish swim in rivers unbounded by sea walls; creativity beyond paint on canvas; and how people live close to earth, not in boxes twenty stories above the ground.

Some of you know that I have a taxidermy fixation. I consider and reconsider why people choose to live with dead animals and how museums use taxidermy as interpretive vehicles. I admire the skills and imagination of great taxidermists and the juxtapositions created in museum installations. This pursuit has led me to museums I may never have visited aside from their taxidermy collections. I carry a map in my mind of The American Museum of Natural History whose dioramas can still ignite my sense of wonder about the variety of life on earth.

As a museum educator, I spent incalculable hours thinking about how people learn in museums, cultivating wonder, sharing knowledge, and helping visitors appreciate different perspectives. Last week The New York Times published Museums: A Special Report that included articles focused on how museums are moving beyond hardships exacerbated by the pandemic through work with their communities. The journalists offered excellent examples and touched on important issues facing our field, but referenced art museums almost exclusively and peppered their text with phrases that generalize museum practice. I don’t believe museum professionals were the intended readers as the articles outlined what many of us already know.

It may be tempting to put our memories of the past year behind us, but there is too much at stake to close the door on our multiple national crises. The question before us now is: How can we learn from our history and create professional practices in which centering community engagement is too routine to be the topic of a New York Times special report? The answers will most likely will be found by museum professionals listening, learning, and working in community while sharing their knowledge and experience with each other. We look forward to gathering together in the Fall in Partnership Forums to learn together and inspire the future of museums.

Registration will open on June 15 for grant writing workshops, Partnership Forums, a Museum and Folk Art Forum, and the Museum Institute at Great Camp Sagamore where we will explore “Partnership, Leadership, and Mentorship.” You can get a sneak peek of the exciting opportunities in the links above. Attendance will be limited, and all safety protocols established by the museums in which we will meet will be honored. We can’t wait to see you, learn together, and create new collective memories.

With thanks for your support,

Erika Sanger

2021 NYS Regional Economic Development Council Opens Round XI Funding

Wed, 26 May 2021 20:50:53 GMT

Round 11 applications for New York State Regional Economic Development Council opened on May 11 with a total of $750 million in economic development funding available across New York’s ten REDC regions. The program focuses on projects that advance a region’s long-term economic development strategies, including job retention and recovery in industries disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

This year, the state has changed the process for how the money will be distributed. Rather than one large funding announcement in December, $150 million from Empire State Development (ESD) will be available to fund certain projects on a rolling, competitive basis. To be considered for the first-round of grants, applications must be submitted by July 30.

Funding Opportunities for New York State Museums

Market New York

Market New York (Market NY) is a grant program established to strengthen tourism and attract visitors to NYS by promoting destinations, attractions, and special events. In 2021, Market NY has up to $15 million available in funding across the state. Funding will be awarded to projects that will create economic impact by increasing tourism in the state. Funding is available for tourism marketing initiatives, capital and construction projects, and for development of special events (like meetings, conferences, festivals). The REDC identifies two significant tourism initiatives. The first is COVID impacted tourism projects, events, and businesses, and the other are projects that market or promote “New York’s unique, world-class destination and special events, broad array of available activities, and strength in creating family memories through activities, like outdoor recreation, historic sites, and museums.” There are two categories of funding available.

Up to $7 million is available for regional tourism marketing. This fund supports projects that market NYS regional tourism destinations or attractions. Applicants must demonstrate how their project will promote the tourism goals for the REDC’s overall strategic plan as well as demonstrating increased visitation or increased spending per visitor. It is also noted that successful tourism marketing projects will also complement the goals and strategies of I LOVE NY.

Applications must request a minimum of $50,000 to be considered for funding. There is a 25% match of the total project cost. No other state funding can be used and the ESD will pay grantees on a reimbursement basis. It’s advised that the grantee should be prepared to subsidize the project for up to 6 months or more before reimbursement.

Explore & More Children’s Museum in Buffalo received $150,000 in Regional Tourism Marketing in Round 9 of REDC funding from Market NY. The grant was used to increase marketing outreach through a campaign that used play to tell the unique story of Western NY through the museum’s exhibits that celebrate waterways, cultures, traditions, architecture, agriculture, and more.

The Center for Brooklyn History received $169,950 to launch a marketing, advertising, and PR campaign in Round 9 aimed at increasing Brooklyn tourism by expanding its visibility. This campaign will promote two of the Brooklyn Historical Society’s unique sites, a landmark 1881 building in Brooklyn Heights and a 3200 square feet gallery in the Empire Stores building in DUMBO. The Center for Brooklyn History notes that this project is the most comprehensive campaign of its kind in its 155 year history.

In Round 8, the Genesee Country Village & Museum used Market NY funds to increase targeted tourism marketing efforts throughout the Northeast United States, Canada, and other selected countries to further promote and expand visitor engagement opportunities through their three core agritourism programs. In their successful application, GCV&M demonstrated that their efforts would grow the number of non-local visitors to their museum and the greater Finger Lakes region, arguing a broad economic impact.

Up to $8 million is available for regional tourism capital projects with a minimum grant request of $150,000. Applications will be accepted for projects that include plans to expand, construct, restore or renovate NYS tourism destinations or attractions. Like with regional tourism marketing, applicants for regional tourism capital must also demonstrate how the tourism capital project will work to promote and forward REDC’s tourism goals as well as I LOVE NY’s tourism goals and strategies.

Among eligible expenses for this category include pre-development costs, improving accessibility services, acquisition of land or buildings, remediation costs, and administrative costs up to 10% of the total project cost. An 80% match is required in addition to a $250 application fee. Similar to the regional tourism marketing grants, grantees will be paid on a reimbursement basis.

In Round 9, Storm King Art Center was awarded $460,000 to support the construction of its 221 Sarah Sze commissioned work, Fallen Sky, and the accompanying exhibition to increase tourism in Orange County and the Mid-Hudson Region.

The New-York Historical Society received $500,000 in Round 9 to construct an annex to house the new Academy for American Democracy, public galleries with exhibitions for family audiences to increase visitation.

In Round 8, the Rochester Museum & Science Center used $200,000 to purchase a new star projector for the Strasenburgh Planetarium renovation.

Non-profit organizations must be qualified in the New York State Grants Gateway (https://grantsmanagement.ny.gov/), be registered and up to date with filings with the NYS Office of the Attorney General’s Charities Bureau and be registered and up to date with the NYS Office of the State Comptroller's VendRep System. It is also strongly advised that all non-profit organizations register with Grants Gateway during the application process.

Applications that will be highly considered for funding should demonstrate that their project will increase tourism to and within NYS and will have an overall positive impact on their region. I LOVE NY will give additional consideration to applications that identify and demonstrate project partnerships, like collaborating with regional partners on the project, especially tourism promotion agencies (TPAs).

Market New York Guidelines and additional resources can be found at www.iloveny.com/MarketNY or email the Division of Tourism at RegionalTourism@esd.ny.gov

Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation

Up to $19.5 million is available from the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation via the Environmental Protection Grants Program for Parks, Preservation and Heritage. Grants can cover up to 50% of the total eligible project cost. Grant awards are capped at $500,000, however if the total project cost exceeds $1 million, up to $750,000 may be requested.

Under the Historic Preservation Program, funds can be used to acquire, improve, protect, preserve, rehabilitate or restore properties listed on the State or National Register of Historic Places and for structural assessments and/or planning for such projects.

This grant program is administered on a reimbursement basis and successful applicants are expected to fund project expenditures upfront and then submit for reimbursement.

In Round 9, the George Eastman Museum was awarded $600,000 to restore and repair three original, historic garden structures that are integral to the National Historic Landmark. The Museum also added accessibility features to increase visitation.

In Central NY, the Oneida Community Mansion House was awarded $600,000 to complete Phase 1 of its exterior rehabilitation project for the museum, education center, residence and inn buildings. The work includes roof repairs, drainage, masonry, painting, and window restoration.

In Round 8, Sonnenberg Gardens and Mansion State Historic Park received $500,000 used to secure an additional property once part of the original estate to create a new entrance and visitor center for offices and collections storage.

New York State Canal Corporation

Up to $1 million in funding is available for the Canalway Grants Program. Non-profit organizations that are along the NYS Canal System (Erie, Champlain, Oswego, and Cayuga-Seneca) are eligible to apply for special canal related projects.

Projects applying for NYS Canal Corporation funding should achieve at least one of the following for the NYS canal system–including the Canalway trail: expand public access, increase visitation and recreational use, stimulate private investment, improvise services and amenities for Canalway land and water trail users, and enhance connections between the canal and the corresponding region consistent with the REDC strategic plans.

The minimum grant request is $25,000 and the maximum grant request is $150,000. These funds must be used for capital improvement projects, requires a 50% match, and grant funds will be provided on a reimbursement basis.

In Round 9, the Buffalo Maritime Center was awarded $120,000 to construct an historically accurate replica of DeWitt Clinton’s 1825 Erie Canalpacket boat. After construction, the Maritime Center will partner with cultural organizations in villages, towns, and cities where the packet boat can play an inspiring role in helping other communities to identify their unique Erie Canal culture and history and will be central to a grand reenactment of Governor DeWitt Clinton’s opening voyage from Buffalo to New York City in 1825.

For more information, visit https://www.canals.ny.gov/community/grant.html or email procurement@canals.ny.gov

Helpful Next Steps

To be considered for the first-round of early grants, you must get your application in by July 30. Be sure to read the CFA Resource guide, watch the program webinars that are relevant to your project, and attend public meetings held by your Regional Economic Development Council.

Click here to learn more about REDC Funding including the 2021 REDC Guidebook, 2021 Resource Guide (including more details regarding the funding opportunities listed above) and for upcoming webinars.

Repatriation and Reconciliation: The Seneca Nation, The Buffalo History Museum and the Repatriation of the Red Jacket Peace Medal

Wed, 26 May 2021 20:48:57 GMT

In May 2021, nearly eight months after the Seneca Nation made a formal request, the Buffalo History Museum returned the 200-year old Red Jacket Peace Medal to the Seneca Nation in a ceremony at the Onohsagwe:de’ Cultural Center. The medal is an object of cultural patrimony and a symbol of peace, friendship, and enduring relationships among the United States and the Six Nations. The petition for return was made by the Seneca Nation under the aegis of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). NAGPRA was passed in 1990 to provide a process for museums and federal agencies to return items such as human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, etc. to lineal descendants and culturally affiliated Native Americans.

Buffalo History Museum Executive Director Melissa Brown with Seneca Nation President Matthew Pagels with the Red Jacket Peace Medal in a ceremony at the Onohsagwe:de’ Cultural Center

The Red Jacket Peace Medal

The Medal was awarded to Chief Red Jacket, the Seneca statesman, by President George Washington in 1792 as a symbol of peace between the Six Nations and the newly formed United States. It commemorated the discussions that eventually led to the 1794 Treaty of Canandaigua, one of the earliest treaties between a Native Nation and the United States.

The medal passed through Chief Red Jacket’s family and descendents including Colonel Ely S. Parker, secretary to General Ulyses S. Grant during the United States Civil War. President Abraham Lincoln was said to have held the medal the day before his assassination. Although the medal was the cultural patrimony of the Seneca Nation, it was acquired by the Buffalo History Museum in 1895.

The Buffalo History Museum

The Buffalo History Museum has been a collecting institution since 1862 and is one of the largest history museums in New York State with nearly half a million objects. “During the Civil War, Buffalo History Museum curators wanted to make sure that global history was being documented for the museum to serve as a wider educational function, ” said Melissa Brown, Executive Director of the Buffalo History Museum. It wasn’t until the 1920s and 30s that collecting shifted to focus more on local history.

Repatriation and Reconciliation

Dr. Joe Stahlman is the Director of the Seneca-Iroquois National Museum. In January 2020, then Seneca Nation President Rickey Armstrong reached out to Stahlman with the idea of repatriating the Red Jacket Medal. Stahlman reached out to the Seneca community for feedback. “I discussed the idea of the Seneca Nation doing this and no one had objections.” The Buffalo History Museum quickly responded to this request and immediately participated in the detailed procedure prescribed in NAGPRA to determine that the rights to the medal were not held by any other Native Nations. “We wanted to follow the federal process and we wanted to be sure that we were doing our due diligence,” said Brown. The COVID-19 pandemic delayed the overall process, but the medal was formally returned to the Seneca Nation in early May.

The 200-year old Red Jacket Peace Medal

“For us, we don’t want to diminish anyone’s stewardship or their contemporary roles in our communities,” said Stahlman. “We simply want to reclaim what is rightfully Seneca.” Stahlman commended the Buffalo History Museum for their stewardship. “Museums do offer a service to all of humanity and I really do believe that, whether a native museum or a non native museum. That’s the role of museums and I appreciate it.” Stahlman described that these discussions between nations and museums are difficult because there are a lot of emotions and sensitivities on both sides. “But there has to be some kind of reconciliation,” said Stahlman. “One of the things we do in our culture is called polishing the chain.” An idea where two parties enter an engagement that ends in an agreement that is supposed to hold up over time. Stahlman explains that you have to “polish the chain” so not to forget. “We can’t let the chain get rusty from disuse. For millions of Native Peoples living within the boundaries of the United States, history is something that we are trying to keep alive and remind everyone else who has forgotten these commitments.”

The Treaty of Canandaigua established peace and friendship between the US and the Six Nations. It specifically acknowledged the lands of the Seneca, Oneida, Onondaga, and Cayuga. In the treaty, the United States agreed never to claim nor to disturb any of the Six Nations living on the lands described in the treaties. Although relations between the United States government and the Six Nations have been strained and there have been violations of the treaty, the treaty has never been broken and is still actively recognized by the Six Nations and the United States governments.

Stahlman hopes that as museums continue to review their collections through the lens of NAGPRA, they will look closely at objects and work with Native Nations to determine if they are sacred or items of cultural patrimony. Stahlman explained that some items like the Red Jacket Peace Medal, fall into the realm of both spiritual and patrimony. “So it gets a little fuzzy on what is what.” Some institutions like the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) have taken the guidelines from NAGPRA and have adapted them to their own repatriation policy. NMAI lists five categories eligible for repatriation: human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, objects of cultural patrimony, and illegally acquired items. Moving forward, Stahlman would like to see more museums come forward with lists of potential items in their collection for repatriation. His advice to museums is to reach out to local Native Americans to establish a relationship and help identify what these objects are and what should be returned. NMAI works closely with Native peoples and communities on repatriation cases and proactively conducts casework to address items of cultural patrimony under its stewardship.

Despite identifying other objects at the Buffalo History Museum, the Seneca Nation does not want everything to leave the museum. “We don’t want everything, not because we don’t care, but some of it has to be out in the world. I mean that’s what a museum is,” said Stahlman. “The Buffalo History Museum should educate and inform everyone about the Western Region across time and across the landscape. Native peoples fall into that space and there should be objects that represent us within those collections so that people can be inquisitive and learn more about the places they live and visit and who lived there before them.”

Strengthening Relationships for the Future

“We have always struggled with maintaining, what I would describe as a relationship, with the Seneca-Iroquois National Museum,” said Brown. “I think we had a lot of transactional engagements that had nothing to do with repatriation, but if we were working on a Native American exhibit we might reach out for consultation, but I wouldn’t say it was necessarily a relationship.”

Brown’s goal moving forward is to establish a more meaningful relationship with the Seneca-Iroquois National Museum through partnerships and collaborations. “Whether it’s with the Native American community and repatriation or it’s just with the Native American community, we really need to engage both perspectives and how we share this history,” said Brown. “There’s a big difference from when I started working at the museum in how we always talked about how we told history. Now we’re definitely sharing the story through different experiences and perspectives. So I think this was a really solidifying and good first action.”

Stahlman wants to be sure that when sharing Native histories, those stories should not just be within the Euro-American viewpoint. “The conversation has to change and if we're talking about equity, then let’s talk about the subjects that we want to talk about.”

Moving Forward

The Buffalo History Museum will continue to reassess its collection in order to ensure that any objects of cultural patrimony are rightfully returned. “I do expect there to be more...I wish if anything that I had prompted the conversation first.” Prior to the return of the Red Jacket Peace Medal, there were no conversations about it being an item of cultural patrimony. “That conversation had never happened, but then again no real conversations were happening. So I think that being proactive and making that time is important.” Brown hopes to ensure that the museum has a relationship with the Seneca Nation. “To do that work that we need to do right now –both with DEAI and sharing stories from multiple perspectives— we need to meet people where they’re at, which is really important.”

Brown stated that the repatriation of the Red Jacket Peace Medal represents a sign of friendship and connection between the museum and the Seneca Nation. “We plan to collaborate with the Seneca Nation for future exhibitions, programs, and events in order to ensure the legacy of Red Jacket.”

Stahlman wants to see more museums have these conversations. “When museums begin to think about protocols and policies, their next exhibits, and future steps, especially when thinking about how the pandemic has changed how they operate, this is the space where they have the opportunity to think about how to be more inclusive and not just with native folks.”

The Tang Teaching Museum’s All Together Now

Wed, 26 May 2021 20:45:54 GMT

The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum is celebrating its 20th anniversary by sharing its art collection with six other institutions in Saratoga and Warren Counties. All Together Now, organized by Dayton Director Ian Berry and Independent Curator Lisa Kolosek, is a regional collections sharing project created to strengthen and form new collaborations between neighbor arts organizations while showcasing rarely seen objects from the Tang Museum. Each partner organization will exhibit a selection of work from the Tang Collection and partner organizations will offer special public viewing hours during the course of the exhibitions.

All Together Now wordmark designed by Jean Tschanz-Egger, Head of Design, Tang Teaching Museum

Sharing Collections and Strengthening Community

In March 2020, The Tang Museum received a $275,000 grant from the Henry Luce Foundation. “Thinking about collaborations, there has been a lot of emphasis among grant funding organizations - that they want to see collaborations across organizations,” said Michael Janario, Head of Communications at The Tang. Prior to All Together Now, The Tang had stronger relationships with some museums more than others in part because missions for these organizations were so different. “Part of this project was thinking about how can we strengthen our sense of community with our neighbors,” said Janario. “Is there a new way for us to share our collection with the public?”

The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College photograph by Tom Jenkins

The Tang does not have a permanent collection exhibition space and Janairo explained that in the seven and a half years since he has been with the museum, the collection has grown from 6,000 to more than 17,000 objects. “We are constantly rotating our exhibitions and like so many museums, we can only show a fraction of our collections,” said Janario.

All Together Now partner institutions include The Hyde Collection, Ellsworth Kelly Studio, the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame, Saratoga Arts, Saratoga County History Center, Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC), Shaker Museum of Mount Lebanon, and Yaddo. It was important for the Tang Museum to share its collection in both traditional and non-traditional spaces, like the SPAC, a large amphitheatre dedicated to music and performative arts. From June to October, the Tang Museum’s exhibition “Chromatic Scales: Psychedelic Design from the Tang Teaching Museum” will feature more than 30 recently acquired 1960s San Francisco psychedelic rock concert posters. The exhibition will be located in SPAC’s new “The Pines” facility lobby. Another partner institution, Yaddo, a retreat for artists that offers residences to professional creative artists, will open public access to its space. The exhibition, “Carl Van Vechten On Dance: Photographs from the Tang Teaching Museum Collection” will feature more than 80 photographs from the 1930s to the 1960s of dancers and choreographers by American photographer Carl Van Vechten.

Each exhibition coincides with the host location’s mission or identity of each institution. For example, the “Chromatic Scales” exhibition that features posters of major bands such as The Doors, Jefferson Airplane and Van Morrison at SPAC, a well-known summer performance venue for musicians. “The Social Lives of Hats” at the Saratoga County History Center (SCHC) pairs more than 25 hats in a variety of styles from the SCHC with several of Alfred Z. Solomon’s wood hat forms from the Tang collection.

Partner organizations can charge admission to see their exhibition but, in an agreement with the Tang, there must be times for free admission to the public.

Victor Moscoso, The Chambers Bros Concert Poster, 1967, screenprint, 21 3/8 x 15 /4 x 5/8 inches, Tang Teaching Museum collection. Gift of Jack Shear. 2018.36.3

Growing Audiences

A large part of All Together Now was thinking about audience sharing and marketing. “If we were able to show photographs from the Tang collection at the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame, maybe some of that audience would visit the Tang,” said Janario. The National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fames’ exhibition “Muybridge and Motion” is on view from July 2021 through January 2022 and features a series of animal locomotion photographic studies from the late 19th century that changed the way people thought of the way horses moved. Curator of the National Museum of Racing, Victoria Reisman organized this exhibition utilizing the Tang collection of English photographer Eadweard Muybridge as well as the National Museum of Racing’s collection of equestrian paintings by American artist Henry Stull.

“This project welcomes visitors back to our institutions and develops new audiences for all of us,” said Ian Berry, the Dayton Director for The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum in a statement. “It is thrilling to see new research, conservation and photography already emerging and especially to see the connections between arts presenters in our region strengthen and flourish.” The Tang hopes that these exhibitions will also encourage locals to reconnect with their local museums and cultural organizations.

Challenges and Adaptations

The pandemic definitely changed some of the structure of All Together Now. The Tang was able to push All Together Now forward a year with permission from the Luce Foundation. Other casualties include a map and marketing brochure and the concept that someone visiting Saratoga could visit multiple exhibitions at once, but the pandemic changed the schedule with not all of the exhibitions happening at the same time. Some partners dropped out, but the core idea of the project remained the same–collaborating and working with other curators to produce an exhibition to be shown at different institutions.

Another change was a special event where The Tang commissioned ten poets from the Academy of American Poets to write in response to the exhibition Energy in All Directions that will be on view at the Shaker Museum of Mount Lebanon. SPAC commissioned composer Ken Frazelle to incorporate the poets’ words into a new composition for percussion and voice. Originally this was part of an in-person celebratory event. The Tang plans on recording this in the coming weeks and will release the recording to the public later this year.

At the beginning of this project, the focus was mainly about The Tang sharing its collections but All Together Now has developed into sharing conversations and resources. The Tang hosts weekly check-ins with partner organizations to discuss events, promotions, and provide an update about what is happening. “It’s great to hear the different ways that this project excites people,” said Janairo. “Hearing those kinds of attitudes shows a little bit of the difference of where people are coming from.”

Future Casting

Through All Together Now, The Tang has strengthened its sense of community among its regional museums and cultural institutions. In a statement to the Daily Gazette, Berry hopes that through this project, it “will be the start of a tighter, much more connected arts ecosystem in Saratoga.”

Learn more about All Together Now: https://tang.skidmore.edu/exhibitions/356-all-together-now

Letter from Erika: The Big Picture

Wed, 28 Apr 2021 16:38:42 GMT

Map of 2021 State of NYS Museums respondents

Dear Members, Colleagues, and Friends,

When I looked out my window this morning, I saw maple leaves unfurling, sunlight on the river, and men fishing from small boats floating south on the falling tide. After living with uncertainty for so long, I have stopped trying to see beyond what is in front me while keeping the pursuit of a more inclusive, sustainable museum sector tied to my optimism for our future.

We await word from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Humanities New York, and the New York State Council on the Arts about the dispersal of funds from the American Rescue Plan Act and the New York State Legislative Appropriations. Applications to the National Endowment for Humanities are due May 14. When we know more, we will share it with you.

With data from 207 museums in NY, we are working to create a picture of the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on our state’s museums. The top line data from the survey shows us that half of the respondents received PPP loans and a third lost full time staff in 2020. In 2018, 32% of the museums that responded to our survey reported closing their fiscal years in a deficit position. We are pleased to report that despite the financial impact of the pandemic, that number remains relatively stable with 37% reporting a deficit position in 2019 and 34% in 2020. Once we are done with the analysis, I believe that the data will show us a picture of a sector that is creative, resilient, and committed to preserving and sharing our state’s history, art, and culture.

The two speakers for our May virtual programs– Rob Fields Former President & Executive Director, Weeksville Heritage Center and Hannah Fox Director of Projects and Programmes for Derby Museums, UK– prevailed and succeeded in the face of tremendous adversity by connecting deeply with their communities. On May 7, Rob will share how in 2019, he spearheaded a crowdsourcing campaign that raised over $700,000 to help save the Weeksville Heritage Center in Brooklyn. On May 14, Hannah will join us from the new Museum of Making at Derby Silk Mill, which will open to the public on Friday, May 21. Hannah will share the journey they’ve been on to embed co-production and human-centered design methodologies into a major museum development.

We hope you can join us on May 7 and 14 to listen and learn from these deeply passionate museum professionals who have much to share about how community partnership can secure and fuel a museum into the future.

With thanks, e

Erika Sanger

Building a Community Exhibition and Archive: The Fenton History Center

Wed, 28 Apr 2021 16:29:44 GMT

Upon receiving a request for historical LGBTQ+ artifacts from a local Pride group, the Fenton History Center discovered that they did not have much in their collection. The Center then committed to build a community archive by crowdsourcing materials for the exhibition Protest and Pride: The LGBTQ+ Community in Chautauqua County. The exhibition, which opened on March 31, 2021, features stories and artifacts that document the lives of the LGBTQ+ community in Chautauqua County.

The Fenton History Center, photo courtesy of Chautauqua County Visitors Bureau

Initiative to Document the LGBTQ+ Community in Chautauqua County

In 2019, Fenton History Center Executive Director Noah Goodling was approached by Jamestown Pride who were looking to include a historical connection for their June Pride Celebration in 2020. “So I said sure, of course and went to the Fenton History Center to see what I could find on the LGBTQ+ community and found nothing,” said Goodling. “It was shocking. It was more than a simple gap, it was a complete absence.” Goodling decided that the Fenton History Center would build a community archive and exhibition dedicated to the LGBTQ+ community in Chautauqua County.

Goodling began by attending Pride meetings. “I had to tell them that we [Fenton History Center] didn’t have anything in our archives but we wanted to start by documenting the planning and implementation of Pride 2020.”

He wrote two grants to support the project, a Humanities New York Action Grant and a Greater Hudson Heritage Network Creativity Incubator Grant (a grant partnership with the New York State Council on the Arts). “I wanted to have an exhibit that would help promote that we were seeking donations to our archives for LGBTQ+ stories and artifacts,” said Goodling.

Community Support

The Fenton History Center received in-kind support and volunteer help from a number of local organizations including Jamestown Pride, the local PFLAG chapter, the Mental Health Association, Preservation Works/HOPE Chautauqua, the Jamestown public Market, the Robert H. Jackson Center, Jamestown City Historian, local news stations, individual professors from SUNY Jamestown Community College and SUNY Fredonia, and more. “Many of these organizations came to us to ask how they could help before we even thought to get them involved. It was one of the things that made this project special, and helped me feel that we were on the right track in serving our community.” Fenton History Center’s Curator Victoria Parker also played a key role in executing the creative and technical aspects of the exhibition.

Crowdsourcing the Exhibition

“In the beginning, we were focusing on documenting the planning process for Pride 2020 but because of the pandemic, we had to shift,” said Goodling. After Pride 2020 was canceled, the exhibition shifted to focus on all of the interviews Goodling conducted throughout 2020 and into 2021.

“Our goal was that we wanted to be sure that we represented as many people as possible from the LGBTQ+ community and allies,” said Goodling. “We wanted to have a mosaic of different voices and by talking to a number of different people, we‘ve put together a chronology of experiences from the early 20th century to present day about what it has been like to experience being part of the LGBTQ+ community in Jamestown.”

The Fenton History Center continues to receive donations for the collections and the exhibition. Goodling hopes that with the opening of the exhibition, more people will donate and share their stories. “We’re starting to get some more supplemental things and we’re hoping that it’ll continue to grow,” said Goodling. Donations include written stories, audio recordings, videos, photos of places and events, and physical items. One person donated their wedding dress. Another Jamestown resident wrote a poem based on her experiences in the LGBTQ+ community. A professor at SUNY Fredonia offered to create an interpretive dance to reflect on his own experiences.

“Part of what I wanted to do with this project was to open it up, maybe further than we usually would, with what we were collecting. There’s all sorts of ways that people connect with being LGBTQ+, so we wanted people to contribute something that is representative of how they have connected with their identity.”

Reaching and Engaging New Audiences

Since the start of this initiative, the Center has reached new audiences. “We have stronger partnerships with LGBTQ+ groups and we have new school groups visiting us to see the exhibition,” said Goodling. The other week a class from Jamestown Community College that is studying the intersection of identity and gender identity visited the exhibition. “There is a whole new group of people that we are reaching; before, they just didn’t have a reason to associate with the museum.”

Goodling wants this exhibition and archive to educate people and help strike down prejudice. “I want to get a community dialogue going and get people thinking in new ways by introducing them to different aspects of their community that they might not have thought about before or even encountered.”

Protest and Pride exhibition entryway

Identifying Priorities

“We’re a small museum with a small staff and limited resources,” said Goodling. “Some people might be intimidated by a project like this or choose not to do a project like this because they think that it’s going to take up too much time or that it might not give them a return on investment.” In terms of taking up a significant amount of time, Goodling says yes, but this project became a priority for the Center. “It’s something that we chose to focus on and I would encourage other museum professionals like us to ask themselves; are we doing work that is just supporting a narrative that is already in place and reaching the same people? Or are we doing work that is pushing our organization forward by asking our community to consider new perspectives?”

Learn more about the Fenton History Center: https://fentonhistorycenter.org/

The History Alliance of Kingston

Wed, 28 Apr 2021 15:08:01 GMT

Shortly after New York’s cultural organizations closed to the public due to the pandemic, Dr. Sarah Litvin, the Director of the Reher Center for Immigrant Culture and History, reached out to Sarah Wassberg Johnson at the Hudson River Maritime Museum to discuss how local museums might help each other promote digital programs and resources or even create a new digital projects. Several history museums and historic sites in the Kingston area came together to form the History Alliance of Kingston, a collaborative group that shares local history through events and activities that reflect and promote a deeper understanding of the diverse social and cultural history of the Hudson Valley.

The Beginning

In May 2020, Litvin contacted Kingston area organizational leaders Troy Ellen Dixon at the African Roots Center and Jane Keller at Friends of Historic Kingston. “I was interested to see if they wanted to do something together,” said Litvin. “I reached out to a couple of folks because I was so new and I was lucky enough to get the support of people like Jane Keller who is so well connected and respected. She reached out to her network and I thought okay, this was really going to happen.”

A core group of seven to nine people representing the same number of organizations meets every week over Zoom: The Reher Center, D&H Canal Historical Society, Century House Historical Society, AJ Williams-Myers African Roots Center, Ulster County Archives, Senate House State Historic Site, Hudson River Maritime Museum, and an independent contractor. “It’s pretty remarkable to have this many come every week.”

Map of participating organizations on the History Alliance of Kingston’s website

Joining the Alliance is fairly organic. “You show up, share your skills or resources, and contribute,” said Litvin. Not all museums or historic sites participate every week and some only join for one meeting. “We want to connect organizations together to form new partnerships and share resources so we try to be as flexible as possible. We all have a piece of it [the Alliance]...whether it's history knowledge or specific skill sets. We can all contribute.”

A key goal for the group is to include the public in local history activities. Group members assist each other in the promotion of events, shared or separate. “We really like working together,” said Litvin. “We came up with community agreements and we’ve been meeting with each other once a week for almost a year.”

In early meetings, the group discussed three potential ideas for collaboration: combining forces by merging Zoom lectures into one local history series, creating a mobile app for a Kingston history walking tour or creating a local history digital scavenger hunt. “The last one really stuck,” said Litivin. In order to accommodate as many people as possible who might be interested in the scavenger hunt, the Alliance launched an in person and a virtual hunt.

Hudson Valley History Hunt

The concept for the Hudson Valley History Hunt was to promote local history to the public in a new way and help participants discover online collections where they could learn more. The first hunt focused on historical figures in local Kingston cemeteries, Montrepose Cemetery, and the Old Dutch Church Cemetery. A series of clues guides participants to find specific gravesites on the History Alliance of Kingston’s website. Some clues are linked to further information about the person. The D&H Canal Historical Society’s YouTube Series: Virtual Museum Episode 8 includes information on the gravesite of Louis Hoysradt, a paymaster for the canal. Once a grave is located, participants can take a photo and share it to social media tagging #hvhistoryhunts.

“There was no literature about Montrepose Cemetery and no signage despite the fact that some very important people are buried there,” said Litvin. “We included key people that can help the public understand the history and diversity of Kingston. We brought together the story of a famous planter with a Jewish immigrant baker and an African American chauffeur. Each of these people and their stories could not be told by any one organization and this became the model for future programming.”

Promotion for the Hudson Valley History Hunt

The History Alliance of Kingston also created a Map Hunt to promote Kingston’s historical buildings and a Q&A Hunt in which participants had to answer a series of questions using online resources to help find the answers.

The Black History Project of the Hudson Valley Collaborative Research Project

The History Alliance of Kingston’s next (and ongoing) project is their Hudson Valley Black History Research Project. The Alliance is designing a digital guide to compile existing Black History of the Hudson Valley resources and collect new ones for researchers and the public. This effort builds upon ongoing work done by the region's Black community including Dr. AJ Williams-Myer’s research, the creation of the African Roots Center, the Conference on Black History in the Hudson Valley, and other community projects. “Too little has been written about the Black history of our region, and our institutions did not consciously collect or catalogue items focused on these stories,” says a written statement on the Alliance’s website. “Now, as our member institutions independently undertake Black history research projects and respond to requests from researchers who are eager to learn more, we decided to pool our resources in an effort to share the source materials that can help tell a more complete story.” The History Alliance of Kingston wants to make these resources available and more accessible for researchers and the public.

The Alliance announced this project to the public via a Zoom presentation as part of Black History Month in February where they shared an early draft and the start of their resource collection.

“Part of the February presentation was us also sharing work in progress about Black History that we’ve been researching. That was something that the public was most interested in hearing more about,” said Litvin. “We were so focused on creating this resource and it was great to hear that the public wants to also know more about the history itself.” About 60 people attended the presentation. “Our goal was to share the idea, share why we’re doing it, and ask the community for their support and participation.”

Ultimately, the Alliance hopes to create a resource guide where the community also contributes. “It’s an ongoing project,” said Litvin. “We’ve identified what we need to do next, but it’s going to be a long term project.”

Strength in Partnership

The History Alliance of Kingston created an ecosystem to provide support and share skills. “We (the Reher Center) received funding from the Hudson River Greenway to create outdoor signage that tells a people’s history of Kingston’s Rondout neighborhood and I probably had five members of the Alliance review the signage text,” said Litvin. “The D&H Canal Historical Society loaned me images to use as well. I have learned so much from my colleagues.”

Zoom screenshot with a few History Alliance of Kingston Members discussing their Hudson Valley Black History Collaborative Research Project in February.

Upcoming plans and Goals for the Future

Since January, the group has been offering a biweekly column about local history in the online news service KingstonWire. Starting this month, the group plans to add more clues several times each month to the Hudson Valley History Hunt via their Facebook page. They are also working together to cross-promote each others’ sites and events through rack cards and a digital calendar.

“My hope for the History Alliance of Kingston is that it is a mechanism to tell a more holistic story,” said Litvin. “I can’t speak to the structure and future of this specific organization but the legacy I hope will be to put together small pieces into a tapestry that really tells a rich socially, culturally, and diverse narrative of what happened here. The D&H Canal Historical Society knows everything about the canal, but the canal workers lived in the Rondout so I can share that piece of history. The Friends of Historic Kingston know so much about architecture and can tell the story of why the canal workers lived in these types of housing in the Rondout and the significance. That type of filling in the gaps requires humility and curiosity. I think that’s what organizations need, curiosity and humility, in order to work together.”

Learn more about the History Alliance of Kingston: https://www.historyallianceofkingston.com/

Pomeroy Fund Awards $50,000 to 14 NYS History Organizations to Support Capital Needs

Thu, 08 Apr 2021 13:28:37 GMT

The Pomeroy Fund for NYS History, a partnership between the William G. Pomeroy Foundation and Museum Association of New York (MANY), awarded an additional $50,000 to 14 history-related organizations to assist with urgent capital needs projects.

In this highly competitive fourth round of urgent funding, 167 museums and historical societies submitted applications to support projects such as window replacements, new HVAC systems, technology upgrades, roof repairs, and accessibility for people who use wheelchairs.

”This was an overwhelming response from history organizations, which underscores the incredible need that remains across New York State,” said Deryn Pomeroy, Director for Strategic Initiatives at the Pomeroy Foundation. “Capital improvements are essential to help these important organizations reopen and stay open.”

“This round helped us see the vast challenges New York’s museums face in the wake of deferred maintenance, limited municipal investment in cultural properties, and the deep financial setbacks incurred through pandemic related revenue reductions,” said Erika Sanger, MANY Executive Director.

Pomeroy Fund for NYS History round four grantees (listed alphabetically):

Association for a Buffalo Presidential Center will create an educational space within the museum and will use funding to purchase media technology, chairs, tables, a speakers’ podium, and presentation easels to equip the museum for programming for adult and youth audiences.

Candor Historical Society will expand accessibility to its research center with the purchase of a computer to send monthly newsletters and a document scanner to digitize the collection.

Charlotte-Genesee Lighthouse Historical Society, Inc. will extend its collection digitization project with a new scanner and computer to offer greater numbers of archival materials on their website.

Franklin County Historical and Museum Society will upgrade access to archives and collections that will allow staff and volunteers to provide virtual programs to the community.

Friends of the Three Bears, Inc. will upgrade their technology to better record visitor statistics, capture and store images, allow for on-site donations, and improve outdoor programming with pop-up tents, chairs, and an outdoor A/V system.

Heritage Foundation of Oswego County, Inc. will complete a rehabilitation project of their structure with a roof replacement that will allow for the installation of new digitization equipment and reopen the space to the public for educational programs and services.

Historical Society of Saratoga Springs (DBA Saratoga Springs History Museum) will improve their popular virtual programming with the purchase of a new camera, iPad, and computer.

International Percy Grainger Society/Percy Grainger Society will complete the restoration of the first floor of the Percy Grainger House with the renovation of the dining room to allow the museum to strengthen interpretive tours and programming space.

Madison County Historical Society’s side porch roof was heavily damaged in an ice build-up from 2020 winter storms. The Historical Society will use funding to repair interior and exterior water damage and install a sealant to prevent future damage.

Roosevelt Island Historical Society will purchase a printer, scanner, and computer to continue to reach and engage its audience with a daily publication, From the Archives, and virtual programs.

Saugerties Lighthouse Conservancy Inc will improve public access to the historic Saugerties Lighthouse by constructing a boardwalk extension. The lighthouse is located in the tidal estuary of the Hudson River and the boardwalk is prone to tidal flooding, making access to the lighthouse impossible during high tide.

Spencerport Depot and Canal Museum is updating and expanding its museum exhibitions and will purchase new frames for exhibitions, a microcomputer and TV mount to create engaging visual presentations for museum visitors, and a computer and kiosk stand for an interactive kiosk.

The Westhampton Beach Historical Society will complete access to the front entrance of its circa 1735 Foster-Meeker House, the oldest remaining structure in the community. Funding will allow the Historical Society to create a walkway and handrail for public accessibility that will make the structure a usable public space.

Wilmington Historical Society will purchase new technology including a laptop computer to help volunteer staff to digitize the collection and increase efficiency for entering data as well as creating digital copies of documents and photographs off-site with a portable wand scanner.

The Museum Association of New York and the William G. Pomeroy Foundation are proud to partner in creating the Pomeroy Fund for NYS History, which has rapidly distributed $197,808 to 83 history-related organizations across New York State.

# # #

About the Pomeroy Foundation

The William G. Pomeroy Foundation is committed to supporting the celebration and preservation of community history; and to raising awareness, supporting research and improving the quality of care for patients and their families who are facing a blood cancer diagnosis. One of their initiatives is helping people to celebrate their community’s history. They meet this by providing grants to obtain signage in the form of roadside markers and plaques. Since 2006, they have funded over 1,300 signs across the United States, all the way to Alaska. Visit: https://www.wgpfoundation.org/

Twitter: @wgpfoundation

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WGPFoundation

YouTube: William G. Pomeroy Foundation

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/william-g-pomeroy-foundation

About MANY

Twitter: @nysmuseums

Instagram: @nysmuseums

Facebook: www.facebook.com/nysmuseums

Letter from Erika: Our Incomparable Museums

Wed, 31 Mar 2021 13:05:31 GMT

Student Installation, Teacher's College, Columbia University, April 8, 2017

Dear Members, Colleagues, and Friends,

At an exhibition opening almost twenty years ago, I was chatting with a group of people when a woman I didn’t know asked me what I did all day while my husband was at work. When I replied that I was the director of education at the museum; her face broke into a big smile and she said that it sounded like I had the best job because I got to spend my days making art with children. I smiled back and agreed that was part of the job, unsure of how to make the real answer comprehensible. Her comment was a familiar disconnect between what many people think museum professionals do and what our jobs actually encompass.

Around the time of the abovementioned exhibition opening, the Oxford American magazine was in crisis. They were losing readers, sponsors, advertisers, and donors and eventually they were forced to stop publishing. When the magazine found a new home, its rebirth embraced all of Southern culture, no longer relegating the contributions of people of color and native nations to the last paragraphs of articles about musicians, chefs, writers, artists, and preservationists. They gained new sponsors, supporters, and a much bigger following.

A legislative aide recently told me that museums don’t have a lot of friends in Congress. His comment launched a cycle of thoughts about how we might take a page from the lessons learned by the Oxford American to help us recover from the multiple crises we face and make more friends. I believe that we need to find a better way to make museums and the work of museum professionals comparable and comprehensible so that when a legislator questions federal funding for museums, we can clearly articulate how museums are essential components of our communities and valuable contributors to our economy.

Part of the solution will be found in the ways we choose to move forward. Last week someone asked how a museum was supposed to fight racism, sexism, gender bias, and discrimination when their deficit was growing and their access to earned revenue was cut off by pandemic restrictions. I responded that I thought the fight for inclusion, equity, access, and social justice offers a path toward sustainability, that we have the opportunity to take action to create the future we want to see.

In the past five years I have read innumerable mission statements, vision statements, statements of need, and statements of solidarity. I remain unsure that these successfully communicate why our museums are important to our audiences and funders. Today I would be able to say to the guest at the opening that I work with teachers, artists, families, and community leaders to make the museum a significant part of their lives. I could have offered insight into my work without going into the details of planning meetings, grant applications, and budgets.

With the data shared by colleagues in our 2019 State of NYS Museums and Covid-19 Impact surveys, I am learning how to tell the story of NY’s museums in compelling ways by comparing our museums to other non-profit sectors and sharing the ways in which we make a difference in our communities. If you haven’t contributed to the 2020 State of NYS Museums survey yet, click here to participate and help us tell the stories of NY’s museums more inclusively.

With thanks for your support,

Erika Sanger

Crowdsourcing an Exhibition: Museum of the City of New York’s New York Responds

Tue, 30 Mar 2021 18:25:46 GMT

There is a saucepan that is slightly dented from the nightly 7 o’clock clapping sessions to thank the health care workers in New York City during the COVID-19 pandemic. The pan was one of the first objects included in the Museum of the City of NY’s New York Responds exhibition. More than 20,000 objects, photographs, artworks, and stories were submitted through the Museum’s open call for items that help to reflect on the changes and challenges of life in New York City from March through August 2020. These items document and interpret the COVID pandemic, the uprising for racial justice, and how New Yorkers fought to cope, survive, and build a better future.

Inside the main exhibition space. Photograph by Brad Farwell, courtesy of the Museum of the City of New York

Rapid Response

“We wanted to start quickly,” said Sarah Henry, Deputy Director and Chief Curator for the Museum of the City of NY. “It was important for us to document for the future and also play a role of service in the crisis itself.” The Museum has been collecting for almost 100 years and has done public and responsive collecting before, including open calls for exhibition objects around historical and contemporary events like Hurricane Sandy, Occupy Wall Street, and September 11.

On July 23, MCNY unveiled the first phase of New York Responds, an outdoor installation featuring 14 images that were submitted as part of ongoing collecting efforts. This outdoor exhibition captured the early days of the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests. “There was a powerful sense when we were creating the first phase of this exhibition,” said Henry. The Museum built upon the outdoor installation in the summer to open the full exhibition in December. “We included a phrase on the outside of the building, ‘history is happening now’ and it was palpable that this was living history and a moment like no other.”

Collecting and Exhibiting

There were two parallel processes: collecting for the Museum’s permanent collection and selecting items for the exhibition. Lindsay Turley, Vice President of Museum Collections, wrote the collecting plan and led the museum’s collecting efforts to review crowdsourced items and targeted outreach. “We were accepting submissions not only through the open call but also through email,” said Henry. “[Turley] contacted people and other institutions about offering items for the collection.”

As Chief Curator, Sarah Henry planned the exhibition with her curatorial team and reviewed the items that Turley was accessioning into the museum collection or considering. “Separately, my colleagues and I went through the submissions from the open call. At the end it was a combination of items that were solicited for the collection or in some cases had been promised gifts. We also borrowed and licensed materials that were not being considered for the collection, including my team approaching artists about lending for the exhibition.” Both processes intersected with one another but the selection for either the museum collection or for inclusion in the exhibition remained independent.

A pan used during the nightly 7 o’clock clapping for healthcare professionals. Meyer Corporation, c. 2015, Museum of the City of New york. Gift of Majorie Rothenberg, 2020.16.1. Courtesy of the Museum of the City of New York. Photography by Brad Farwell.

Open Call

In addition to objects that were nominated through the open call, more than 18,000 posts were submitted using the hashtag #COVIDStoriesNYC and more than 5,000 using #ActivisitNY on Instagram. “We had our marketing and communications team work with our photography curator and social activism curator to help monitor and review these hashtags throughout the year,” said Henry. Marketing and Communications and curatorial staff selected highlights to re-post on the Museum’s social media channel. Curatorial staff also monitored the hashtags to either include them into the collection or for consideration for the exhibition.

Among the photos that made it into the exhibition is of a window, full of toilet paper rolls titled “Toilet Paper Hoarder” submitted by photographer Ruben Natal-San Miguel. Another is a photograph of the question, ‘what is essential?’ graffitied onto the side of a wall captured by Russ Rowland. Included in the exhibition are the photographer’s reflection who recalled how strange it was to see how few people were outside despite it being a beautiful day. “It was a people-less vision of NYS I’ve only seen during snowstorms in the middle of the night. It was strange, and kind of a delight.”

Ruben Natal-San Miguel, Toilet Paper Hoarder, Manhattan, NYC 2020

Courtesy of the photographer

There were physical objects too that were submitted including a COVID pinata.“Early in the pandemic the New York Times posted instructions of how to make a pinata of the COVID virus to bash at home,” said Henry. Material items like these reflected on how New Yorkers endured and coped with the pandemic. “Coping became one of the themes of the exhibition.”

Masks were also submitted and included in the exhibition. “Masks became a big interest and so for the exhibition we were able to represent artistic uses of masks as pieces of self expression and personal protective equipment.” There is an N95 mask from the collection of the Mount Sinai Health System and a hot dog face mask. The hot dog face mask was a People’s Choice Award winner at Maskie Awards in Coney Island, and was donated to the Museum’s permanent collection by Suzie Sims-Fletcher.

Masks on display [far left] an “Enough Is Enough” face mask, –Sheila Stainback / CAMBA [bottom] a face mask used by counselors for the Greenwich House Methadone Maintenance Treatment Program, courtesy of Sally Young/Greenwich House [top] Suzie Sims-Fletcher, the HOT DOG! Mask- Gift of the artists; and [far right] N95 face mask from the Mount Sinai Health System Collection. Photograph by Brad Farwell, courtesy of the Museum of the City of New York

Three plywood artworks were loaned to the museum for the exhibition.These were part of a massive art project launched by Art 2 Heart and SoHo Social Impact, transforming the neighborhoods of SoHo and NoHo into an “open-air museum.”

Entrance to the exhibition. On the left hand side you can see the three plywood artworks on loan to the museum. Photograph by Brad Farwell, courtesy of the Museum of the City of New York

Items like hand sanitizer produced from a Brooklyn distillery illustrated the different ways that manufacturing pivoted to provide materials. “There’s an improvised ventilator made from a respirator by medical personnel at The Mount Sinai Health System that reflected things that medical personnel had to do in order to do their jobs and serve the people affected by the crisis,” said Henry. “Items like these were sometimes mundane in their physical appearance but powerful in the stories they captured.”

Above is the improvised ventilator made from a respirator by medical personnel at The Mount Sinai Health System. Photograph by Brad Farwell, courtesy of the Museum of the City of New York

Targeted Outreach

“We tried to be open minded about the criteria in order to see what themes were emerging,” said Henry. “As people were submitting, we began to create a rubric of what was being brought forward and began to see patterns. When we saw people nominating things in a certain genre, we wanted to make sure it was represented in the exhibition.” Some themes like “Art as Response” and “Masks” emerged organically, others like “Mutual Aid” that focuses on New Yorkers who launched initiatives to help their communities during the pandemic and “The New Normal” that illustrated empty streets and playgrounds, required more targeted outreach.

Sébastien Vergne[In the absence of city resources, volunteers from the community group Echoed Voices clean up their Greenpoint neighborhood] July 2020

Courtesy of the photographer

“We created a concept document of what were the stories that we wanted to make sure were represented so we could then do further outreach and make sure there were materials representing those stories even if it hadn’t come through the open call,” said Henry.

The Museum invited a jury of twelve people to make selections and recommendations for the exhibition. Jury members represented a range of backgrounds and perspectives of the city from across the five boroughs.

“We wanted to keep it [the jury] small so that they could really talk qualitatively with each other and just have a voting process with a majority rule,” said Henry. “We wanted jury members to have a substantive conversation.” The jury also looked for what was missing.

“We would use their comments to go out and look for other materials to tell stories that they felt should be represented but weren’t present from the crowdsourced items,” said Henry. During the first meeting, the jury discussed issues such as the demonstration at City Hall that felt very iconic. “So we went back into the social media streams to look for materials that captured that moment.”

Other things like portraits of essential workers did not emerge from the open call. “We did a targeted outreach to fill that gap. It was kind of like a dialectic process between following the crowd sourced materials and letting themes emerge organically versus identifying thematic gaps in what people were bringing forward but were still important to include. People definitely gravitate to certain kinds of images to share on social media but there were other things happening in the city that people weren’t thinking of to submit.”

Moving Forward

The Museum of the City of NY made the exhibition available online in its entirety. It is organized into 19 thematic sections including an interactive timeline. “The timeline originally covered the first six months and was only available to those who visited the exhibition,” said Henry. The timeline, curated by Azra Dawood, the Museum’s Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow, was expanded to capture the entire year and can be viewed on the museum’s website. “It weaves together the stories of COVID and the movement for Black lives in a powerful way.” More than a year after the pandemic began, the Museum continues to mark important anniversaries.

Francesca Magnani [Juneteenth protest crossing the Brooklyn Bridge] June 19, 2020

Courtesy of the photographer

The Museum continues to collect stories through an oral history project in partnership with StoryCorps that allows people to submit their experiences online. Stories are saved at StoryCorps archive at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.

“We know that this is a really important story for our city and the world where central characteristics of urbanism were brought into question,” said Henry. “The Museum of the City of NY is dedicated to the past, present and future of the five boroughs of NYC and urbanism. We know that we are going to be contending with the repercussions of these events for years to come.”

Explore New York Responds online: https://www.mcny.org/new-york-responds-online

Food and Community: Sonnenberg Gardens & Mansion State Historic Site

Tue, 30 Mar 2021 18:22:18 GMT

Sonnenberg Gardens & Mansion State Historic Park is a 50-acre site overlooking Canandaigua Lake that features gardens, a historic mansion, and a greenhouse complex. Sonnenberg’s Queen Anne-style mansion was built in 1887 and is the former summer home of Frederick Ferris and Mary Clark Thompson. Mary Clark Thompson’s utility garden produced food that was donated to the Ontario County Orphanage and Thompson Hospital for decades. In the past six seasons, Sonnenberg has donated over 6,000 pounds of fresh produce to the local community.

Lasting Legacy

The utility garden is formerly the kitchen garden and is in the area of the mansion grounds that was the working end of the farm where all of the food was grown. “Mrs. Thompson has a garden here that she used to feed people in need in Ontario County,” said Executive Director David Hutchings. “We’ve reinvented that starting back in 2010 or 2011 with replicating Former First Lady Michelle Obama’s White House kitchen garden.” By 2015, Sonnenberg then moved on with a revamping of Mrs. Thompson’s utility garden. “The garden today is 70 by 100 square feet with raised garden beds to help make the garden accessible for day camp participants from the ARC and YMCA.” Sonnenberg utilizes its historic greenhouse to display its horticultural collections and grow thousands of annual and perennial plants and vegetables each year. The 13,000 square foot greenhouse maintains its original frame and is climate controlled year-round.

Community of Volunteers

“The garden is planted each year with volunteers,” said Hutchings. Pat Hutchings, David’s wife, is the lead volunteer and designer of the garden. Other key volunteers include David DeMallis, Jun Lui, Kerry Mette, Laura Mauser, and several others including workforce development program personnel. In addition to being Sonnenberg’s Executive Director, Hutchings is also the Horticulturalist, overseeing all the gardens.

Before COVID, other volunteer groups included parishioners from the Church of Latter Day Saints. In the early days of COVID, student interns from Finger Lakes Community College helped plant the garden. During the pandemic, Nate Wendroff was awarded his Eagle Scout Merit Badge as he led his troop with many COVID-19 safety restrictions to help plant the garden for the 2020 season.

Feeding the Community

The seeds are donated by Seedway and All-American Seed Selection and the planting begins in March in the greenhouse and then in the ground each May. The food is harvested in the summer through Thanksgiving. “In the summer we harvest squash, eggplant, many varieties of tomatoes and peppers, herbs, beans, and corn,” said Hutchings. Flowers are also grown for visitors to enjoy and as a companion crop for natural pest control. “The herbs from the garden are grown and used at the specific request of Gleaners Kitchen to enhance the fresh flavoring of the meals made for the community they serve.”

In 2020, Sonnenberg donated nearly 1,000 pounds of produce to Gleaners Kitchen to meet the 90 meals per day as well as donating to the Zion Church which recently opened up a county-wide food bank. Gleaners Kitchen is a community kitchen that opened in Canandaigua in 1987. It takes the name “gleaning” from the act of collecting crops leftover from farmers’ fields after a commercial harvest. “One of the cool things is that any leftover produce at the end of the week is included in the other end of the week leftovers for people to come and take,” said Hutchings. “Now there are fresh vegetables to go with it so we’re rounding out people’s diets for those who need it.” Gleaners Kitchen partners with Wegmans and Tops grocery stores to receive food donations that would otherwise go to waste.

Funding

Sonnenberg received support from The Mary Clark Thompson Community Health Grant which previously funded the site’s wheelchair accessible greenhouse work area and multi-level handicap work benches. Other funding partners include the Canandaigua Rotary, the Sonnenberg Garden Club, and Walmart Community grants. “The Canandaigua Rotary donated $3,000 for an updated irrigation system. We’re grateful for the community’s support.”

Future Goals

Sonnenberg recently received funds for their restoration project for the West Display Greenhouse to make the space safe for visitors. The greenhouse, called Gardenia Greenhouse, will become an educational area greenhouse for students to work with their local schools to develop science programs at Sonnenberg. “We have six greenhouses and we’re trying to use all of them,” said Hutchings. This grant will help with the operational sustainability of the greenhouse that is currently not utilized because of physical deterioration.

Hutchings is also looking to partner with area colleges to further develop their Horticulture Program. “We are continuing to be the only institutions in the Finger Lakes introducing a Vocational Therapeutic Horticulture Program for continuing education,” said Hutchings. “Area colleges like Nazareth and FLCC are exploring how to develop this aspect of their horticulture field.”

Sonnenberg is one of just two public gardens in the New York State Parks system. “In 2021, we plan on donating another 1,000 pounds of fresh produce and continuing the legacy of the Thompson and their property to the local community,” said Hutchings. “We feel like we are fulfilling the lasting legacy of the garden’s original purpose.”

Learn more about Sonnenberg Gardens & Mansion State Historic Park: https://www.sonnenberg.org/

Advocacy Update

Tue, 30 Mar 2021 15:03:34 GMT

Federal Funding

MANY thanks Senate Majority Leader Schumer for including museums in the Shuttered Venue Operating Grants and non-profits in the March 2020 CARES Act, the December 2020 Consolidated Appropriations Act, and the March 2021 American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). The ARPA included additional funding for the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) which now totals over $16B in funds available. It also added $7.25B for the PPP program and extended the application deadline to May 31. The SBA will begin accepting SVOG Applications on April 8. Eligible museums may apply for the PPP prior to applying for an SVOG as they await the application. The SBA would then reduce any SVO grant award by the PPP amount received.

The ARPA also included $135M each for the NEA and the NEH; application portal will open in late April. Humanities NY and NYSCA will soon announce how they will distribute those funds allocated to them for regrants. $178M of the $200M allocated to the IMLS was directly distributed to State Libraries. The NY State Library received $6.2M; they also received $1.7M in CARES Act funding. We await guidelines on distribution of remaining funds and are monitoring the IMLS website.

Representative Paul Tonko (NY 20) is circulating a letter in the House of Representatives in support of robust funding in 2022 for the Office of Museum Services at the IMLS. The request is for $80 million in FY 2022, an increase of nearly $40 million, including $2.5 million to fund a pilot project to establish a museum Grants to States program that could parallel the long-established Library Grants to States program. The request also includes a waiver of required matching funds for grants in 2022 and to once again allow OMS grants to be used for general operating funds.

The deadline for Representatives to sign is Friday, April 16.

In 2020, sixteen of NY’s Representatives signed onto the OMS letter. The four representatives below are the only ones from NY to have signed on as of March 24.

Antonio Delgado (D-NY-19)

Joseph Morelle (D-NY-25)

Elise Stefanik (R-NY-21)

Paul Tonko (D-NY-20)

Please help us secure more signatures from NY’s Congressional Representatives. The easiest way is to use the AAM’s template to ask your Representative to sign on before the April 16 deadline.

New York State Funding and COVID-19 Restrictions

MANY commends members of the Assembly and the Senate for including significant funding to arts and cultural organizations, zoos, botanical gardens, and aquaria, in the 2021-2022 budget. But as I write, the negotiations between the Governor, the Assembly, and the Senate continue and final allocations will not be known until the budget is passed.

Budget proposals included in the Assembly and Senate one-house bills provided an additional $100M to NYSCA for grants to non-profit cultural organizations and $10M for the Arts and Cultural Facilities Improvement Program to provide facility enhancement grants to arts and cultural organizations, administered by NYSCA.

The Assembly budget also included $100 million for a new Arts Recovery and Revitalization Program. This public arts initiative will assist with reopening efforts of various arts organizations, employ artists and others in the creative economy, and provide financial support for the conversion of new outdoor venue spaces.

MANY has been working with legislators to update the COVID-19 capacity restrictions imposed upon NY’s museums which have not been substantially revised since June 26, 2020. The recent announcement that capacity restrictions on arts and cultural venues can increase to 33% on April 2 established a conflict within the guidelines that apply to museums. A theater or event space in a museum can accommodate 33% capacity, but the galleries in the same building remain limited to 25%. We have requested an increase in occupancy levels to 50%.

A 25% capacity restriction at museums is a capacity restriction on every community that depends on museum visitors to thrive and limits the community’s ability to move towards economic recovery. Be it Cooperstown, Corning, Rochester, the Adirondacks, or Jamestown, these communities cannot recover until the museums can welcome more visitors. The limit on museum capacity limits traffic to local retailers, eateries, hotels, craft beverage producers, and secondary activities like golf that depend on the draw of the bigger institutions to bring visitors into their communities.

Social distancing, mask wearing, adequate space, and thorough cleaning procedures have allowed museums to ensure a safe indoor environment. The air exchange systems in most museums are filtered with MERV 14 filters and the air is exchanged more than 6 times an hour.

With a loss of more than 75% of earned income and fewer than 10% of NY’s museums securing PPP, EIDL, and direct federal agency funding, one in four NY museums are in danger of permanent closure without an increase in capacity as soon as possible.

In 2020 New York’s museums continued to serve audiences virtually despite being closed to the public with educational resources, lectures, digital access to collections, and interpretive programs. Without an increase in capacity, 65% of museums envision further layoffs and cutbacks in public service.

NY’s largest museums are already turning people away on a daily basis. The majority of people surveyed by the American Alliance of Museums, Culture Track, and ArtNet intend to visit museums as soon as they are able. They believe that museums are safe and play an essential role in their communities.

As the number of people in NY who have received vaccinations increase, the number of people who feel safe to visit museums will increase. Continuing to suppress museum gallery capacity will increase financial losses beyond the point of sustainability.

Look for more to come as we try to effect positive change for our museum community.

Pomeroy Fund Opens New Grant Round to Support NYS History Organizations with Urgent Financial Relief Assistance

Wed, 24 Feb 2021 17:22:59 GMT

Museum Association of New York to Accept Online Applications Beginning February 24

Troy, N.Y. — The Pomeroy Fund for NYS History, a partnership between the William G. Pomeroy Foundation and the Museum Association of New York (MANY), will provide $50,000 in grants to assist 501(c)(3) history-related organizations with capital needs expenses in 2021. MANY will accept applications through a portal on their website starting on Wednesday, February 24.

In this fourth round of the Pomeroy Fund, a total of $50,000 will be distributed for capital needs in individual grants not to exceed $5,000. Grant requests will be considered for technology equipment, facility maintenance equipment, furnishings, major material purchases, renovations, refurbishments, remodeling and rehabilitation. If your organization received funding from the Pomeroy Fund for NYS History in 2020, you are eligible to apply, but preference will be given to those who have yet to receive funding.

Eligible organizations must be a history-related organization located in New York State and have an annual operating budget of $150,000 or less.

Pomeroy Fund applications will be accepted through Monday, March 22. Funding notifications and assistance grants will be issued in April 2021.

“The first three rounds of the Pomeroy Fund for NYS History granted over $147,000 to 69 history organizations across the state,” said Bill Pomeroy, Founder and Trustee of the Pomeroy Foundation. “However, an urgent need for further support remains during these difficult times. In response, we are opening a fourth round of funding to make additional financial support available to these irreplaceable assets in our communities.”

“In 2019, more than half of the history-related organizations with budget sizes under $150,000 indicated in their response to the State of NYS Museums survey that they were located in a historic structure,” said Erika Sanger, Executive Director for the Museum Association of New York. “These small organizations located in historic structures, as well as those in more recently built museums facilities, have unique capital needs that are not being met by other funders. We are grateful to the Pomeroy Foundation for their ongoing support to help meet the needs of these organizations.”

To begin an application starting February 24 or to learn more, visit the Pomeroy Fund for NYS History webpage at: https://nysmuseums.org/Pomeroy-Fund-for-NYS-History/

Grant applications will be reviewed by a panel that includes MANY Board members, MANY staff and Pomeroy Foundation staff. Grants are available to all qualified organizations; an organization does not have to be a member of MANY to receive funding, nor will preference be given to MANY members.

# # #

About the Pomeroy Foundation

Twitter: @wgpfoundation

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WGPFoundation

YouTube: William G. Pomeroy Foundation

About MANY

Twitter: @nysmuseums

Instagram: @nysmuseums

Facebook: www.facebook.com/nysmuseums

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/museum-association-of-new-york

Letter from Erika: Growing Toward the Future Stronger

Tue, 23 Feb 2021 17:37:05 GMT

Dear MANY Members, Supporters, and Colleagues,

I’ve had an awful case of cabin fever for a couple of weeks and I know I’m not alone. The past year has left those of us who have dedicated their work to the museum field tired, isolated, and grieving. 500,000 Americans have died, an estimated 30% of New York’s museum professionals lost their jobs, and our physical and mental health has deteriorated. The vaccine is the hope on the horizon, but I am concerned that in our haste to recover financially, we will lose the opportunity to make the changes necessary to reach our audiences with relevant content whether they are on site or in their living rooms, to deepen our role as essential community partners, and to develop a workforce that reflects all New Yorkers.

Lately, a friend is texting me things like “did you read that awful thing about that museum on Instagram?” And since I consume museum social media omnivorously, I can usually reply, “yes, I did.” In return, my friend texts something like, “do you remember when we had to leave work by the loading dock so the major donors at the party in the lobby wouldn’t see the staff?” and “when they threatened to fire me if I didn’t come to work when my child was in the hospital.” As young white women entering the museum field, we were taken advantage of by older colleagues in positions of authority, but were told our mis-treatment was the price we had to pay to work in museums. The dues we paid are small compared to the intolerance and racial bias people of color continue to face as they advance their museum careers.

As we prepare to launch the State of New York State Museums survey, we asked colleagues to contribute questions. The most frequently submitted question was “How are museums addressing diversity, equity, and inclusion in their workforce?” Over the next decades, the demographics of New York are going to change. We will become older and more racially and ethnically diverse; crossing the line to become “majority minority” by 2035. Although we are already one of the most diverse states in the nation, we are far from immune to disparities by race, ethnicity, and geography in access to resources of all kinds. Museums need to prepare today for tomorrow by bringing more voices to the planning table, and finding ways to sustainably diversify staff and audiences.

To help New York’s museums move from intent to action, I am proud to share the news that MANY’s board of directors has approved the launch of a New York Latinx Museum Professional Network later this spring. The light of earlier sunrises, later sunsets, initiatives like this, and your support for MANY’s work brings me hope for a better year ahead.

With thanks for your support,

Erika Sanger, MANY Executive Director

From Fort to Screen

Tue, 23 Feb 2021 16:29:24 GMT

By Miranda Peters, VP of Collections & Digital Production, Fort Ticonderoga

Like museums across the country, Fort Ticonderoga prioritized virtual engagement over the past year to remain connected with our stakeholders and audiences throughout the pandemic. Over this time, we launched and expanded the Center for Digital History, and tackled numerous practical, technical, and methodological challenges along the way. Recently, Fort Ticonderoga Museum staff discussed their practical tips and lessons learned creating programs for an online audience, developing a virtual studio, sharing videos on social media, and engaging with educators in a webinar. You can watch the full webinar here (and discover why tip #3 is so critical 6 minutes and 45 seconds in). This webinar is suited for museums who are new to virtual programming, or who want some real-world advice as they seek to expand their reach. Below are a few takeaways from the program.

1. Make a plan

You have to think through why you want to virtually engage with your audiences. Is this just a short-term solution? Something your institution has been planning for a while and will continue after the pandemic? Who are your audiences and what are their needs? Fort Ticonderoga’s strategic plan set forth goals to increase access and awareness and expand educational impact. This work began in earnest in 2019 when we invested significantly in a new website and made museum collections accessible on-line for the first time. This foundation made it feasible to launch the Center for Digital History in 2020. Thanks to Covid-19, staff were able to take the opportunity to pivot time and resources from the front-line on-site experience to invest heavily in developing on-line program content.

2. Who are your audiences? Invite them to participate!

Once you have a new program developed that you think is ready for launching, invite others to participate in a dress rehearsal. Fort Ticonderoga staff invited educators, volunteers, co-workers, and family members to watch their programs and solicit commentary. It can be hard to receive constructive criticism, but getting feedback results in a stronger program in the end. Really thinking through programming with educators led to staff delivering programs beyond the 9-5 workday so more teachers could attend after school.

3. Have a moderator!

All things in moderation—or in this case—all things moderator. Fort Ticonderoga staff discovered very quickly that it is essential to have a moderator for every live virtual program they do. The moderator is there to let guests in from the virtual waiting room, reply to any discussions in the chat box, oversee the tech-side of the program, lead tech-tests 30 minutes before a program begins to ensure good connectivity, lighting, staging, etc. Having a moderator ensures that the person who is delivering the program can focus on the content. Depending on how you set up a program, the moderator can also be the voice of the audience during moments where there is feedback from the chat box, or during a Q&A session.

4. Equipment

You don’t need to invest hundreds or thousands of dollars to deliver engaging live virtual programming. Tech gadgets don’t make the program—YOU do. The basics you need to have if you or your institution are new to virtual programming are:

A reliable internet source. This can be a strong WiFi signal, or ethernet connection.
A camera. The video for your program can come from multiple sources, including a cell phone, laptop, or desktop with webcam.
Good lighting. Good lighting directly correlates to better video quality during a program. A very clear overhead light or some lamps that you can find in your house or in your office to set up so that you have clear lighting
Good audio. Make sure that the microphone that your computer or phone has is close enough to the person delivering the program that the audience can hear them clearly.

5. A virtual sandbox for experimentation

Fort Ticonderoga uses both Facebook Live and pre recorded videos that we share on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, primarily. For Facebook Live, we created a private Facebook page for staff to be able to practice the process of going live, and for sharing feedback and tips. This was especially vital as we practiced going live while sharing PowerPoint presentations, or when testing out new locations where we weren’t sure of the internet quality. It takes the pressure off of making technical mistakes in front of a large audience. The team also develops a schedule every month for digital programming that is shared through the website and with media outlets. Each month the team revisits lessons learned from the previous month and can experiment with new ideas or refine existing ones.

6. Be kind to yourself

Expanding digital engagement can be hard. Fort Ticonderoga spent years prioritizing hands-on tactile experiences and shifting that to a screen was a difficult process. In-person programs don't necessarily directly translate to a virtual audience. There isn’t the same energy or real-time feedback from speaking to guests in a room with you. Take breaks, try to remain positive, and think about your end-user. Your virtual program can reach people who need museums now more than ever. You are doing a great job and you can do this!

Fort Ticonderoga’s approach isn’t simply digital or on-site – it’s an integration which will continue far into the future beyond the current constraints of the pandemic. In fact, a site visit is an extension of the digital engagement which has tremendously expanded this year. We see this moment in time as an opportunity to embrace new opportunities, learn new ways and methods to engage, and test concepts to better serve our audiences.

For any questions about the Center for Digital History or the webinar, Fort Ticonderoga’s staff are available to assist.

Miranda Peters, VP of Collections & Digital Production, mpeters@fort-ticonderoga.org

Stuart Lilie, VP of Public History, slilie@fort-ticonderoga.org

Matthew Keagle, Curator, mkeagle@fort-ticonderoga.org

Rich Strum, Director of Academic Programs, rstrum@fort-ticonderoga.org

Kaitlin Long, Museum Education Coordinator & Fife Major, klong@fort-ticonderoga.org

The “From Fort to Screen” webinar was made possible through the National Endowment for the Humanities CARES Act grant.

Restoration, Digitization, Re-interpretation at Historic Cherry Hill

Tue, 23 Feb 2021 14:52:48 GMT

Located on Albany’s South Pearl Street, Historic Cherry Hill is a 1787 wood-frame structure that was home to five generations of the Van Rensselaer family. Its last resident, Emily Rankin, bequeathed her house and its thousands of artifacts and documents that spanned three centuries to “the people of New York State.” The house opened as a museum in 1964, a year after her death. For more than ten years the site has undergone an extensive $2 million restoration to preserve the historical structure and is now undertaking a NEH CARES Act grant funded project to digitize and interpret more inclusive stories of underrepresented narratives and perspectives.

Historic Cherry Hill, photo courtesy of Discover Albany

Structural Issues

Staff began seeing evidence of facilities deterioration in the 1990s and brought in a structural engineer to help with the assessment. The engineer discovered that while the house was likely designed to hold about 30 pounds per square foot in the attic space, it was now holding an excess of 100 pounds per square foot. The weight was coming from the 70,000 collection items stored on-site that were threatening the museum’s largest artifact, the house itself. To save the house, the engineer recommended relocating the collection to another structure.

Historic Cherry Hill under restoration. Photo courtesy of Historic Cherry Hill

“We’re a tiny museum, so the idea on how to accomplish this was a bit mind blowing,” said Deboarah Emmons-Andarawis, Historic Cherry Hill Director. “But the staff and board were on board and were able to raise the fund needed to build a collections center that opened in 2003.”

The Edward Frisbee Center for Collections and Research is a 3,500 square foot state of the art facility with environmental controls. Historic Cherry Hill received IMLS funds to improve the management of and access to collections by upgrading the museums’ collections database. With the move of museums’ historical objects, manuscripts, textiles, books, and photographs into this new space, both physical and digitally accessibility for staff and researchers became a possibility. “Once the Center was opened and the work of moving collections over to that new space began, it opened up new opportunities to make our collection accessible to students and researchers that wasn’t possible. Once most of the collections were moved out of the attic, it was at that point that we were able to consider undertaking how we fix this [the house]. It’s been a decade in the making.”

Inside the Edward Frisbee Center for Collections and Research. Photo courtesy of WAMC.

In 2012, Historic Cherry Hill received $575,00 from the National Endowment for the Humanities “We the People” Challenge Grant as part of an initiative to strengthen public access to the humanities that not only included funds towards the restoration of the house, but also to an endowment for the curatorial and research department. “Gaining intellectual and physical control of the collection was such a big endeavor,” said Emmons-Andarwis.

The museum received funding from the New York State Council on the Arts to:

work with an architect and structural engineer to plan for the interior repairs and restoration based on the findings of an existing conditions survey

restore thirty three windows,
address the environmental issues within the structure, and
reinstall 1,863 objects and furnishings within the historic structure–including paintings, prints, photographs, wall-mounted cremains, carpets, and furnishings.

Collections Relocation and Accessibility

With the relocation of the collection and improvements to the museums’ collections database also came a discovery of collections items long stored away.

“One of my big moments of discovery when I was curator was when we were immersed in moving the textiles from the historic house to the collection center. We were dealing with infestation issues when we saw this 18th century textile, made in India that was a wow moment for me,” said Emmons-Andarawis. “It was this magnificent morton dyed piece and it was just hidden away in a trunk for many years. It was pristine because it was packed away for so long.”

The creation of the collection center supported the museum’s efforts to serve a broadening audience of users and its transformation into a center for the study of American social, political, and economic history.

“Because we’re a small staff, [this relocation project] consumed most of our resources,” said Emmons-Andarwis. Access to the collections was through in-person visits and now, during the pandemic, by appointment only. The massive project of digitizing the collection only happened recently. “It was a project that was, ironically, possible because we are in a pandemic. There was this extra funding source available and we were able to take advantage of that.”

Staff on-site reinstalling furniture. Photo courtesy of Historic Cherry Hill.

Opportunity in a Pandemic: Digitizing the Collection

In June 2020, the NEH announced $40 million in CARES Act Grants to support essential operations for cultural institutions across the country. Historic Cherry Hill was awarded $30,000 for the retention of two staff members to expand remote learning opportunities about African Americans at the historic site. The project, “Historical African American Experiences at Cherry Hill: Lessons for the Digital Age,” focuses on slavery and emancipation and 19th and 20th century African American siblings who were taken as orphans in the mid 1800s and occupied a “quasi-family” status as servants and wards of the Van Rensselaers.

“We were aware of some really wonderful collections that have and had been wanting to learn more about these stories for sometime but were looking for the opportunity for the right grant,” said Emmons-Andarwis. “When we originally conceived how we were going to tell these stories, it was not going to be digital. We were going to work on school programming and imaging on-site programs. When the NEH CARES opportunity came up, it seemed obvious that the right way of focusing on these stories during the pandemic and this historical period that we find ourselves in was exploring them digitally.”

Staff began photographing and digitizing historical objects and documents belonging to these siblings including toys, photographs, letters, and other ephemera all intended to expand on their neglected lives.

Training session with consulting digitization librarian Jennifer Fairall and interns working to digitize Historic Cherry Hill collections on Black life including scanning and transcribing letters, assigning metadata, and marking the connections between Cherry Hill and the broader world. Photo courtesy of Historic Cherry Hill

“It was a very fascinating relationship that we were aware of but it was an opportunity to explore more of the stories related to these siblings and there was a lot there,” said Emmons-Andarwis. A series of papers associated with one of the siblings emerged, William James “Jimmy” Knapp who resided at Cherry Hill over sixteen months over four years from 1880 to 1884. Knapp was a musician, a piano tuner, and worked in a music store. He also was a composer and some of his sheet music was published locally across today’s capital region including Troy and on State Street in Albany but most of his work was published in major cities like New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Boston. “We were able to piece together most of his life because he was the most documented of all of his siblings. We have his letters, which are a big part of this collection and about 150 pieces of his sheet music.” Emmons-Andarwis initially believed that staff would be digitizing 200 or so documents associated with Knapp and his siblings, but currently staff has digitized more than 600. “It’s exciting about where we can take this project next and going further to contextualise these stories. These are the stories that are not well documented elsewhere.”

Staff has uploaded hundreds of this digitized collection to NY Heritage for public access, created a 3D model of the house, and is currently developing teaching prompts. “A key part of this project is creating tools for teachers to use these digitized collections in their classroom.” In 2018, the museum evaluated its school programs. The museum partnered with Claudia Ocello of Museum Partners Consulting to conduct an evaluation of past and existing programs and launch an online survey of hundreds of kindergarten through Grade 12 teachers in the Capital Region and conducted focus groups with teachers from public and private schools. One of the main recommendations from the evaluation was the creation of inclusive, hands-on programming using primary source materials to make local connections to larger historic events, including the perspectives of African Americans and women. “Many of them articulated that they wanted local resources that they can use to talk about slavery and African American history. We’re thrilled to be able to answer that request.”

One short term goal that the museum has is to continue to build more digital and virtual programs. “We’re working on some school programs in addition to the NEH funded resources. We have worked to convert one of our outreach programs called the Cherry Hill Case to a virtual program,” said Emmons-Andarwis. In the Cherry Hill Case, students work in groups to investigate the lives of household members using educational props. The virtual program will use new research to better represent the makeup of the household and perspectives of its members using recently digitized collections.

Re-Interpretation and Vision for History Cherry Hills’ Future

Before the pandemic forced the Historic Cherry Hill to close its physical doors to the public, restoration work had already interrupted on-site tours. “I think that having to stop giving our core tour forced us to explore other things and other stories,” said Emmons-Andarwis.

Historic Cherry Hill was awarded $46,979 in federal funds from IMLS’s Inspire! Grants for Small Museums for museum staff to work with a consulting interpretive planner, designer, and evaluator to develop a new interpretation plan. “Our main goal is to present a story that is more inclusive of underrepresented narratives and perspectives,” said Emmons-Andarwis. Early on, the museum recognized the importance of immigration in Albany as a key theme of the house’s history as it related to Catherine Rankin’s story, but not all perspectives were presented in that theme. “It was all told from Catherine’s perspective and how she experienced the change in her community. We strive to create an emotional connection and critical distance, but what we are really keen on is making sure that our interpretation is told from many different angles.” The new plan will incorporate insights from a newly formed Community Advisory board, audience research, and a panel of interpretive specialists and scholars.

Emmons-Andarwis and Education Coordinator Shawna Reilly are both project participants in the Museum Association of New York’s IMLS Building Capacity Project who are utilizing the resources and training to develop more content and share more perspectives into the main narrative of Historic Cherry Hill. “That’s what we’re finally after all this research and digitization,” said Emmons-Andarwis. “To be able to really build out those perspectives that wasn’t possible before.”

Learn more about Historic Cherry Hill: https://www.historiccherryhill.org/

Explore their digitized collection on NY Heritage: https://nyheritage.org/contributors/historic-cherry-hill

Restore Funding to Zoos and Botanical Gardens

Tue, 23 Feb 2021 14:18:49 GMT

By Aaron Bouska, VP for Government & Community Relations at the New York Botanical Garden and Secretary for the Coalition of Living Museums

From the Buffalo Zoo to the Old Westbury Gardens and everywhere in between, the Zoos, Botanical Gardens, and Aquaria (ZBGA) line of New York State’s Environmental Protection Fund (EPF) directly supports essential staff caring for living collections of 95 zoos, botanical gardens, nature centers and aquaria in every corner of NY State. Now in its forty-third year, the ZBGA program is unique to the Empire State and thanks to the State Assembly and Senate, the program has thrived and the benefits to New York residents have multiplied.

An aerial view of the NY Botanical Garden Conservatory at dusk. Photo by Robert Benson Photography

Despite the program’s successes, living museums now face a State budget challenge. The SFY [State Fiscal Year] 21/22 Executive Budget proposes a $300M EPF, a dedicated source of funding for dozens of programs like ZBGA that are critical to protecting clean water and air, preserving open space, creating jobs and preserving the State’s environment. For reasons that are not clear, the Executive Budget also disproportionately cuts the ZBGA appropriation by 19%, reducing the statewide fund from $16M down to $13M.

A $3M cut to ZBGA may result in proportionate cuts to each grant recipient—a reduction too severe for any non-profit organization—even in the best of times. Like every cultural organization and non-profit, living museums face unprecedented challenges resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Safety of staff and visitors always comes first, but essential staff need to care every day for living animals and plants—one cannot just quarantine the palm trees in the basement until the pandemic passes.

Animal Encounter at The Wild Center, photo courtesy of The Wild Center

Living museums have proven they are safe experiences for the public and families by enforcing behavior that science has shown to be effective – social distancing, outdoor experiences, and mask wearing. Yet one year into this crisis, living museums remain subject to an outdoor 33% capacity restriction. This capacity mandate, while understandable in the early days, severely restricts earned income while keeping us from welcoming more families seeking safe activities in the outdoors.

Red panda cubs at the Utica Zoo, photo courtesy of the Utica Zoo

Here are just three reasons why restoration should be a priority:

1. Restoring ZBGA to $16M helps keep living museums accessible to the public at a time when families need outdoor experiences:

New Yorkers yearn for safe outdoor experiences as evidenced in the audiences welcomed since our collective re-openings in July. Local residents want a curated experience, with timed entries and capacity limits that keep their family safer than alternative outdoor experiences without such controls and safeguards. We receive appreciation every day for our enforcement of mask wearing, social distancing practices, and careful, daily monitoring of our employees’ health.

Access to safe green space, particularly in urban areas, is an issue of equity and fairness. Our visitors are often our neighbors, many of whom are not able to travel to one of our magnificent State Parks. In staying close to home, many also experience large crowds and the lack of safety enforcement in our municipal park systems. Even though living museums’ earned income has been curtailed by the 33% capacity restriction, all of us have created new programs for reduced or no-cost admissions. In short, botanical gardens and zoos help to meet demand for outdoor space at a time when New Yorkers’ mental and physical health need the extra boost resulting from time outdoors.

2. Restoring ZBGA to $16M maintains employment and fuels local economic development:

Living museums provide more than quality environmental education and uniquely beautiful tourist destinations; they are strong economic engines during difficult times. Leveraging ZBGA funding awarded through a competitive grants process, living museums employ more than 210 full-time and 2700 part-time New York State residents and generate hundreds of millions of dollars each year for the State in tourism dollars and economic development.

Institutions like the Wild Center in Tupper Lake, the Utica Zoo, and the Theodore Roosevelt Sanctuary and Audubon Center on Long Island are core to stabilizing local economies by providing good paying jobs and supporting local businesses. Wildlife Conservation Society and the New York Botanical Garden both have a major economic impact upon the Bronx and New York City – generating significant amounts of employment, purchasing goods and services, and drawing visitors and visitor spending to the city. This impact benefits not just the private sector, but also generates substantial tax revenues through sales and income tax receipts from employees.

3. Restoring ZBGA to $16M maintains quality environmental literacy programs statewide:

While living museums advance their missions by helping to breed and protect endangered species, addressing the impacts of global climate change, and fighting the spread of invasive species, we are most proud of educating and inspiring thousands of public school teachers and millions of school children, literally growing the next generation of conservation stewards. It is not a stretch to say that living museums are the state’s heartbeat of ecological literacy. Critical to the goals of the EPF, living museums educate the next generation of conservation stewards and create an informed electorate that values and understands the severe threat to our planet posed by climate change.

In the time of COVID, living museums have pivoted to providing rich, educational experiences online for classrooms and teachers. Education has not stopped, and audiences have expanded for our free online activities for children and families.

Living Museums are extremely grateful to the NY Assembly and NY Senate for growing and protecting this program over the last decade. Now is the time to maintain this historic investment, and we are very grateful to have leaders like Assemblyman Steven Englebright, Senator Todd Kaminsky, Senator Jose Serrano, Senator Diane Savino and Assemblyman Daniel O’Donnell leading restoration efforts in the Legislature.

If you are interested in helping to restore ZBGA, you may take direct action by visiting: https://secure.wcs.org/campaign/tell-albany-restore-nys-zbga-funding?ms=M_REF_ADV_13_F02_2102-NYS-ZBGA-CLM

Are You Still Watching? Corning Museum of Glass and Netflix’s Blown Away

Tue, 23 Feb 2021 14:07:37 GMT

The Corning Museum of Glass has been part of a globally popular Netflix series, Blown Away for two seasons. For former Senior Creative Director Rob Cassetti, the show’s popularity is not a surprise. Cassetti originally pitched a live glass blowing demonstration as part of the museum’s public programming thirty years ago and it quickly grew to be one of the museum's most popular experiences. Now the Corning Museum of Glass is part of a prominent glass blowing competition series that features expert glassmakers from the museum. The grand prize package includes a residency in the museum’s Amphitheater Hot Shop. For Cassetti, the show is a culmination of innovative public programming in his career and his efforts to connect people to the world of glass blowing at Corning.

On the set of Blown Away. Photo courtesy of David Leyes for marblemedia

Glass blowing as part of the museum experience

“I never imagined that I would join the museum staff,” said Cassetti. In the mid 1990s, he was working for Corning Incorporated and was recruited as Project Manager to develop exhibitions for a massive museum expansion project. “It was a major multi-million dollar project and in my mind I was going to work on this project and then go on to something else.” The project included new gallery space, a science center, and the development of a live narrated glass blowing demonstration– the Hot Glass Show. “Part of the product of the demonstration was the demonstration itself... the experience of seeing live glass blowing and understanding what’s happening,” said Cassetti. One of the assistant team members provides a live narration throughout the show. “There was an authenticity about it and just the natural drama of watching live glass blowing. It’s something you don’t normally get to see everyday.”

After the museum added its expansion in 1999, the Hot Glass Show captured everyone’s attention. Early on, the museum ran out of space for the audience and ended up expanding the theater and created an outdoor demonstration. “We didn’t know it at the time but that launched a whole sub operation of mobile glass blowing demonstrations that we would end up taking around the world.” Cassetti reflects that during museums’ reopening there was a remarkable freedom to do new, experimental things. “It was a huge burst of creative activity at the museum and I was completely hooked.” Cassetti left the for profit sector and joined the museum community.

“We learned that the museum’s audience is really engaged in learning. The first outline of talking points made for the demonstrations included all this esoteric stuff that we found interesting but then laughed because who did we think we were talking to?” said Cassetti. “This isn’t going to be an audience of melting engineers. But we were wrong.” People were fascinated by the details and wanted to learn intrinsic details about glass blowing. What kind of fuel was being used? Why don’t the pipes heat up? “All of this stuff that we had taken out of this demonstration narrative and then we were bombarded with twenty minutes of questions at the end of the demonstration that were all the things that we had taken out of the narration. It was a real lesson. The audience is hungry to learn.”

Glass blowing in progress on the set of Blown Away Season Two. Photo courtesy of David Leyes for marblemedia

Fast forward to Blown Away and in many ways the core proposition of the show is imparting levels of knowledge to the audience at a fairly high level. “You’re seeing the artist and the technical challenge of the makers working all under a time pressure, and they don’t hold back. All while telling you the technical details behind everything. So that wasn’t a surprise to me that it would be a winning formula.”

Blown Away

When Canadian Production Company Marblemedia were upfront about the concept of the series when they approached Corning Museum of Glass about being involved, sharing details like insights to who the director was going to be, previous programs produced, and shared what kind of camera equipment was going to be used.

“One of the things that i learned in my museum career is that the world is organized to say no, but that should never stop a good idea,” said Cassetti. “Anytime someone comes to you with a new project and proposition, the staff is already working flat out. We had to ask is it worth our while, worth the investment and we went through an analysis. Once we had all of those data points from the production company we asked ourselves, is this going to be good?” The fact that the show was going to be distributed by Netflix was a huge validation of the project for the museum, but there was still risk.

Corning Museum of Glass Involvement

Once the museum felt comfortable moving forward, the questions moved to how does the museum participate? “There was this incredible time pressure, which could have been its own TV show. We were talking with them in the summer, they were in the middle of building the studio space where the series was going to be filmed in, and filming was going to begin in the fall. It turned out that this idea of the prize package including a residency and the opportunity for our team of glass blowers to participate in the last episode sealed our participation in the show.

“They [Marblemedia] said the gold standard [of reality competition shows] is the Great British Baking Show and many of the things that work in Blown Away are in the Great British Baking Show including camaraderie and the respect that the contestants have for one another,” said Cassetti. The glass blowing world is a tight-knit community. Artists assist one another, take classes together, and know of each other by reputation. “There’s very much a family feel to it that we at the museum have understood for over twenty years by not only doing live glass blowing but by helping guest artists. Our objective is to help artists realize their work at a level that not only meets what they can do but hopefully exceeds that because of the skills of our team and the equipment we support them with.” It’s that sense of goodwill that viewers get in the last episode of each season when the museum’s Hot Glass Demo Team assists the finalists. “There is a huge amount of energy and sort of a cooperative let us help each other to succeed kind of feeling.”

Behind the Scenes

Rob Cassetti served as the Season Two finale guest judge, which was recorded just before the pandemic. As the guest judge, Cassetti had no idea who the finalists were, or knew their past performance on the show. “Which is a good way to judge something.” In the finale, the finalists were tasked to make an installation which involved making multiple pieces to fill a gallery space. Cassetti was on set to watch the Season One finale, but watching how the show came together behind the scenes was fascinating to see. “The thing that is so impressive is the director and his crew are so good at filming glass blowing...I think it’s the most impressive part of the show.”

Rob Cassetti joins judge Katherine Gray and host Nick Uhas in the Season Two finale. Photo courtesy of David Leyes for marblemedia

The Netflix Effect

After Season One, the museum saw an immediate interest and uptick in glass blowing classes. “So much so that the beginner classes sold out and we had to add additional classes. Amy [Schwartz, Director of The Studio] was checking in with her colleagues who run glass blowing programs around the world and they were all seeing the same thing happen,” said Cassetti. “Talk about a museum fulfilling its mission. We’re glass-evangelists and we want people to learn about it, including how to make it. So it was a very powerful partnership to be able to have that visibility with Netflix.

The museum saw more visitors including Season One winner Deb Czeresko fans who visited the museum during her residency to watch her work. Part of the decision making for getting involved with the series was to increase awareness of the museum and to motivate visitors. Following each season, the museum hosts a small exhibit that features work from each participant. “It’s so interesting to see visitors interact with these objects...they are immediately connecting to the person who made them,” said Cassetti. “They talk about the objects in a different way and talking themselves back to seeing that person make it. As a museum professional that just resonates on so many levels...their knowledge of the progress.”

Rob Cassetti on set of Blown Away. Photo courtesy of David Leyes for marblemedia

Full Circle

For Cassetti, the entire experience was immensely satisfying. “I proposed the idea of a live glass blowing demonstration to the museum in the mid 1990s, knowing the inherent drama that was built into the equation,’ said Cassetti. “To have that energy captured in this easy with Blown Away, distilling so many things I know and love about the process that you see when you visit Corning Museum of Glass but for a global audience to be able to see it just speaks to me so deeply.” Cassetti is passionate about this process, seeing both the artist potential and the challenge associated with it. For him, it never gets old. “Thinking about it as a museum professional where our core reason we exist to get people to see glass differently, it’s just a beautiful culmination.”

Learn more about the Corning Museum of Glass and Netflix’s Blown Away: https://www.cmog.org/press-release/corning-museum-glass-lends-its-expertise-glassblowing-competition-series-blown-away

Humanities NY 2021 Grant Opportunities

Wed, 27 Jan 2021 13:57:22 GMT

Humanities NY (HNY) is the state partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The mission of Humanities New York is to strengthen civil society and the bonds of community, using the humanities to foster engaged inquiry and dialogue around social and cultural concerns. HNY achieves their mission through grants, programs, signature events, and podcasts. To implement humanities projects across New York State, HNY offers three types of grant opportunities: Action, Quick, and Vision grants.

Action Grants

Action grants offer up to $5,000 to implement humanities projects that encourage public audiences to reflect on their values, explore new ideas, and engage with others in their community. Action Grants have two deadlines per year; October 1 for projects startings January 1 or later the following year, and April 1 for projects starting July 1 or later. Applicants are notified of the Grant Review Committee’s decision approximately 10 weeks after the submission deadline. These grants aim to connect audiences more deeply to their communities where they live and work, solidify community partnerships and diversify audiences, and creatively employ the tools of the humanities to respond to issues and ideas capturing the imagination and passion of New Yorkers today. In 2021, HNY will continue to prioritize women’s history projects.

Quick Grants

Accepted on a rolling basis, Quick Grants are $500 implementation grants for in-person public humanities projects that encourage audiences to reflect on their values, explore new ideas, and engage with others in their community. These grants are available to organizations whose annual operating expenses are $250,000 or less. Quick Grants aim to support smaller organizations in offering engaging public programming and promote equity in access to the humanities. They help ensure that New Yorkers of all backgrounds and from all regions may engage in cultural programming. Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, requests in 2021 related to the U.S. Women’s Suffrage Centennial in 2020 are welcome.

Vision Grants

Also accepted on a rolling basis, Vision Grants offer up to $1,500 in support of brainstorming, researching, and professional development for organizations working collaboratively to develop new ideas and strategies for public-facing humanities projects. These grants aim to support emerging and established partnerships between different organizations on a shared project that may develop into public-facing activities, infuse program design with humanities themes and methodologies from the start, encourage experimentation and build community input into program design.

“Applicants should submit their proposal at least two months before their project start date,” said Scarlett Rebman, HNY Director of Grants. The HNY Grant Review Committee meets once a month to evaluate applications. “Applicants can preview the application on our website,” said Rebman. “We don’t require a Letter of Intent, and a phone appointment is encouraged but not required.

Grant Support

HNY works closely with applicants throughout the application process. Applicants can request a phone appointment using the calendar on the HNY website to schedule an appointment to speak directly with a staff member. “Either I or one of my colleagues will call at the requested time, and we are happy to go over the opportunities and/or provide feedback on specific proposal ideas,” said Rebman. “We will also read draft materials. We strive to be transparent and supportive as possible. Don’t hesitate to reach out!”

Advice for Prospective Applicants?

“Have someone else read your project narrative for clarity and understanding,” said Rebman. “A proposal doesn’t have to be perfectly polished in order to get funded, but it does have to convey what your project will accomplish and why it is important.” Rebman also advises applicants to be sure to explain why the project’s topic or theme is significant to the audience you serve and why the humanities are central to the project.

Preservation Long Island’s Action Grant

Preservation Long Island with the NYS Museums hosted a Zoom conversation with “Indigenous History & Art at Good Little Water Place” curators Jeremy Dennis and Dr. Gwendolyn Saul

Last year, Preservation Long Island received an Action Grant for “Indigenous History & Art at Good Little Water Place.” The exhibition features artwork from nine contemporary Indigenous artists as well as collection objects from Preservation Long Island, the New York State Museum, and the Southold Indian Museum. The exhibit places contemporary Indigenous art alongside history objects “offering an inquisitive look at the history and on-going relations between Indigenous people and land, and reminding viewers of the responsibility that we all share to know our common histories with each other and their impact on our connections to place.” It’s a grant project that stands out for Rebman.

“The first thing that stood out is the importance of the topic,” said Rebman. “In the past Indigenous voices have often been absent from museums and exhibits that depict Indigenous history. There’s a lot of painful history there, and a lot of distrust. Preservation Long Island and other museums around the state are doing important work engaging communities in thoughtful conversations about the interpretation, and re-interpretation of Indigenous history and culture.” Rebman said that the key to the success of these initiatives is bringing in the right expertise and partnerships. This exhibit is curated by Jeremy Dennis, and Shinnecock Indian Nation artist and Dr. Gwendolyn Saul, Curator of Ethnography at the New York State Museum. “It was clear that they had assembled the right team to approach this topic with sensitivity and care.”

In September 2020, Preservation Long Island launched “Indigenous History & Art at Good Little Water Place” as a virtual exhibition.

Looking Forward

In 2021, HNY is committed to supporting humanities projects that are timely, relevant, and engaging. “We also recognize that cultural organizations are responding to rapidly changing public health recommendations, and we welcome projects whether they are designed to be virtual, in-person, or a combination of both,” said Rebman. “We will continue to offer our partners flexibility in adapting projects to meet the evolving needs and comfort levels of their audiences.”

Grants are just one way to stay involved with HNY. “I invite MANY members to get to know us better,” said Rebman. “We have a lot going on virtually right now, including an ongoing series of virtual community conversations and the Amended podcast, which you can stream on our website or download with a podcast app.”

On Tuesday, February 16 at 2 PM, HNY staff is hosting a Grants information Webinar to review 2021 funding opportunities, eligibility, and the application process. Staff will provide tips for preparing successful applications and include time to answer questions. Learn more and register for this free webinar here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/grants-information-webinar-tickets-137818182895

Learn more about Humanities New York at humanitiesny.org

Letter from Erika: Ask a Museum Professional

Wed, 27 Jan 2021 13:52:42 GMT

Economic Health of the Field graph from 2019 State of NYS Museums Report

Dear Colleagues, Members, and Supporters,

Like most of you, most of MANY’s plans for 2020 changed in ways we couldn’t imagine. One plan that didn’t change was the publication of our State of NYS Museums report that distributed data collected in 2019 from 206 museums of all disciplines, budget sizes, and geographic locations in New York.

The report presented new information about New York museums and

fiscal health
staff sizes and salaries
funding resources
facilities
governance
programs
outreach
school partnerships

We shared the report with legislators, funders, and members of the press to shine a new light on the ways in which museums were (or weren’t) well positioned to face the challenges of the pandemic and the awakening (for some) of the racial and gender biases in many of our museums.

We began work on the last survey with a call for questions. We are starting the process for our next survey by asking you to let us know what you want to know about the state of New York's museum field.

Some of the questions in the 2021 survey will duplicate those in 2019 so we can compare data. Others will reflect our past year’s shared experiences such as:

How are museums using digital technologies to reach audiences that can’t visit in person?
What strategies are museums using to stay financially viable?
How have staff structures changed with layoffs and work reassignments to accommodate drastically reduced revenues? and
How are museums creating room for the full range of human experience on their staff and in their galleries?

Click here to submit a question for our survey panelists to consider including in the 2021 State of NYS Museums survey. We will collect questions through February 5 and launch the 2021 State of NYS Museums survey on March 19 to coincide with the one-year anniversary of Governor Cuomo’s NY on Pause Executive Order.

With thanks,

Erika Sanger, Executive Director

MANY Profile: Dr. Annie Polland, President, Tenement Museum

Wed, 27 Jan 2021 13:50:29 GMT

In January 2021, Dr. Annie Polland returned to the Tenement Museum as the institution’s President after previously serving as Executive Vice President of Programs and Interpretation at the Museum from 2009 to 2018, before becoming Executive Director of the American Jewish Historical Society. Polland replaces Dr. Morris J. Vogel, who served as the Museum interim President since October 2019. As EVP, Polland launched the Tenement Museum’s “Shop Life” and “Under One Roof” exhibitions which “infused cutting edge interactive projection technology into historically recreated spaces for the first time” and won the Museum the 2013 Multimedia Installations Muse award from the American Alliance of Museums. We spoke with Polland about her return and her future plans for the Tenement Museum.

Museum Association of New York: Congratulations on your return to the Tenement Museum and your new role!

Dr. Annie Polland: Thank you! Yes, it has been nice. It’s been a challenging time but there is something really nice about being back.

What makes the Tenement Museum a New York Museum?

I think it’s right in the heart of New Yorkers. New Yorkers care about their city’s history. Despite constant change –tearing down buildings and building new ones –New Yorkers feel connected to what came before. New York is almost 40% immigrant, so the immigrant story is the New York story.

Previously, you were the Tenement Museums’ Executive Vice President of Programs. What made you take the position of EVP when you started?

In 1998 I was a graduate student at Columbia working for a company called Big Onion Walking Tours and my first gig was to lead a tour of the Lower East Side. At that point, Big Onion Walking Tours had contracted with the Tenement Museum, so I picked up my first Tenement Museum group in April 1998 and gave them a tour of the neighborhood. That’s how I kind of fell in love with the idea of public history. The Tenement Museum’s idea of bringing history to visitors through the stories of ordinary people really captivate me.

In 2009 I began working with the Museum at Eldridge Street which is a National Historic Landmark on the Lower East Side just a few blocks away from the Tenement Museum. If I recall correctly, I was giving a tour of Eldridge Street Synagogue and someone from the Tenement Museum who had participated in the tour offered me a job. So in many ways, my transition to the Tenement Museum was an organic and natural extension of the storytelling that I had been doing in the neighborhood.

There are two things that I find fascinating about the Tenement Museum. One is that unlike most historic houses which kind of root themselves in one moment in time; the Tenement Museum features recreated apartments and family stories for many different time periods. You’re able to experience what it’s like to travel through time just by going from one apartment to another. Because these spaces relate to different moments in time, you have the opportunity to talk about different waves of immigrants who have come to the neighborhood over time. In the 1860s, when the tenement at 97 Orchard Street opened, its primary residents were of Irish and German background. By the time the building’s residential floors were condemned in 1935, 7000 people had called it home and the background of those residents shifts. That’s why we are able to tell the stories of multiple waves of immigrants, migrants, and refugees. With the opening of our second historic tenement at 103 Orchard Street, which remained a residence through the 20^th century, we were able to extend that story closer to the present.

The Tenement Museum is as much about the thousands of people who lived at 97 and 103 Orchard Street as it is about the millions of visitors who’ve come since. That dual priority of having a responsibility to the past residents and having a responsibility to the people in front of you, catalyzes the importance of storytelling and really brings history to life.

Tenement Museum exterior in NYC’s Lower East Side

What would you consider your greatest achievement during your time as EVP?

While there were several exhibits and programs launched during my time as EVP of Programs, I think the core of it all is the educator training. It’s the way that we work with educators to tell stories and the way we bring in scholars to help flesh out the stories that we tell. This professional development that was happening behind the scenes –connecting scholars and our educators together and being able to work on that dynamic –was the most important to me and is what I think is driving the vision forward.

What motivated you or what were the factors that motivated your return to the Tenement Museum?

The idea was floated to me at the very end of summer. I got a call from Morris Vogel who was serving as President. He actually caught me as I was on my way to work on a project on the Lower East Side with the American Jewish Historical Society –connecting sources with the buildings in the neighborhood. Just being on the Lower East Side that day, seeing all of the historic buildings and the vibrant street life, even though we’re in a pandemic, I started thinking about the renaissance that might come to New York once this crisis is behind us and the role that the Tenement Museum should play. Even as we go forward and rebuild we need to be rooted. I think all of that coming together that just stirred my blood–it’s in me, the Tenement Museum.

What was your first Museum job?

Well, if you consider New York City as a museum in itself… which I do, then my first job was working for Big Onion Walking Tours from 1998 to 2004.

What skills have you learned from your prior experiences will be most helpful in your new role?

Listening. In the last year at the American Jewish Historical Society we were working on a big oral history project where I listened to people and paid attention to how they told stories. It’s about how you listen – to the voices of the historians who help us understand the past and the residents who lived in the Tenement Museum’s buildings. Being able to soak this history up is one side of it. The other side is forming that into stories that are accessible, which is something that I’ve done since the very first day giving a walking tour, using an academic book about the Lower East Side and then interpreting it to your audience. Really immersing oneself in historical context and then thinking of ways to share that through stories that are accessible and relatable and inspiring to audiences.

What are you looking forward to in this position? What are some of your initial goals?

I’ve been going into the office, but I can’t wait to walk through our historic tenement building at 97 Orchard Street. I’m looking forward to walking up the stairs and hearing the conversations that will pour out of each apartment when it is safe for visitors to return.

At the same time, we’re experimenting with ways to present our tours virtually. The museum has done a great job of transforming some of our programs into a virtual format. So far, one of the best things that the museum has done in this process is capture the conversations that happen between an educator and visitor. [During the virtual tour] there is an educator leading while a secondary educator reads and responds to the live chat. The secondary educator is keeping the conversation going and we’re finding that people are really active in these chats.

We’re also trying to bring the building back into the virtual programming by using 360 degree images that people will be able to navigate through. We want to make the virtual building tours more interactive to help visitors feel like they are in the building as much as possible.

The staircase at 97 Orchard Street

How do you see the Tenement Museum’s virtual programming growing in 2021?

Usually you’re on a tour with 15, 20, or 30 people. A group this size may obstruct your view. Now with virtual tours, visitors can really look at that hallway, look at that apartment, and see the scope of it. We’re trying to heighten the benefits of the virtual tour. Sometimes people just feel more comfortable in their homes, so they’re going to talk more, ask more questions. We’re designing these virtual tours with an eye towards continuing to offer them when we do reopen to onsite visitors. That way we can serve folks all over the world who might never have the chance to visit New York City. We’ve already had over one hundred students from Tennessee who went on a virtual tour program together. You could never fit one hundred school children in a 325 square foot apartment but you can through virtual. If there’s a silver lining to everything that’s happened in the past year, it’s been getting to rethink what we’re about, what’s our core mission, and what makes us unique and then how do we extend that beyond the walls of the museum.

What are some of your ideas to create a sustainable financial model for the Tenement Museum?

Yes, another silver lining from the last year is the uptick we have seen in philanthropic giving. One of the things that has made the Tenement Museum successful over the years was our ability fund 75% of our operating budget through earned income from ticket sales and our shop. What’s good about that is it shows that people want your experience. On the other hand, it also means that people see the number of our visitors and think we don’t need philanthropic support. So when the pandemic forced the museum to close, staff was furloughed and the survival of the museum was in question, we saw people really step up to support us. It’ll be our role going forward to grow and sustain that culture of giving, not just for the financial support, but to be able to connect with the community. Of course, we want to have as many tours as possible and have a large audience, but it’s interesting to think about what is that ideal balance between earned revenue and philanthropy?

I mentioned before that scholars like to come to the Tenement Museum and work with our educators. How can we build some kind of institute out of that so there’s a place for people learning public history to observe on site and foster conversations about what it means to be an American? Yes, we’re a museum of New York. Yes, we’re a museum of immigration. Yes, we’re a museum of the working class. But ultimately on a really good tour there are conversations where people are starting to appreciate the limitations and the opportunities of what it means to be an American in a different time, in a different context, and in a different moment.

Gumpertz Kitchen

Do you have any key mentors or someone who has deeply influenced you? Can you tell us about them?

My grandmother who was a teacher was a big influence. She really taught me about our family history and that made me feel grounded even when times were tough. Understanding the family history that I had through my grandmother and her storytelling made a real impact, especially in terms of the Tenement Museum.

Morris Vogel as well taught me so much. He had this ability to see things from 40,000 feet above and to really understand how an institution works. I’m very grateful to have had that opportunity to learn from him. Coming back now after being away and seeing how in a time of a pandemic he provided the scaffolding for many people in the museum to be leaders and to work together. That’s very inspiring.

Learn more about Dr. Annie Polland and the Tenement Museum.

Creating a Virtual Musical Exhibition Experience at The Arkell Museum

Wed, 27 Jan 2021 13:49:14 GMT

The Arkell Museum in Canajoharie was forced to cancel many in-person programs and events in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic–including the museum’s musical performance series. Curator of Education and Public Engagement Mary Alexander wanted to continue these successful events despite the pandemic. She created a virtual musical art exhibition in partnership with the Caroga Arts Collective who brought professional musicians together with museum staff to create a dynamic, virtual musical and art experience.

Public Programming Shift

The Arkell Museum’s extensive collection of American paintings from the mid 19th century to the early 20th century includes seven oil paintings by Winslow Homer. The museum’s exhibitions feature selections from its Mohawk Valley History collection. Prior to 2020, the museum’s on site programming included book talks, presentations, summer reading programs, storytelling sessions, family days, and musical performances. “We would try to do three or four musical performances a year and connect them to the collection,” said Alexander. In 2019, the museum created a musical program to coincide with the bicentennial anniversary of the Erie Canal and the museum’s “Mingling the Waters: 200 years on the Erie Canal” exhibition. The museum also capitalized on the success of Broadway’s “Hamilton” and presented “Eliza” (a musical narrative of the formative years of Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton) arranged and performed by the Musicians of Ma’alwyck.

In 2020, the museum moved most of its public programming online. “We increased our social media, shared images from our visiting exhibitions online, and our librarian did a weekly virtual storytelling session,” said Alexander. “In July I started hosting a ‘Let’s Talk Art’ biweekly Zoom chats about art in our collection.” As Alexander moved these programs online, she began to scroll through her social media feeds searching for program inspiration. “I was scrolling and wondering what else the museum could do and came across one of those viral videos of people playing music but in different locations. I thought that was cool.”

A Musical Partnership

In June, Alexander approached one of their musical partners, Caroga Arts Collective. “We had the program funding to use but we couldn’t host an in-person event. That was when the idea to do something with Caroga Arts came to me. Everyone is hurting right now because of the pandemic, but one of those sectors that is hurting the most is the performing arts. You can come to the museum and look at a painting and remain socially distant, but you really can’t attend a concert,” said Alexander. Alexander contacted Kyle Price, Founder and Artistic and Executive Director of Caroga Arts Collective about creating a virtual performance in collaboration with The Arkell Museum. “It helped that the museum already had a working relationship with Kyle and Caroga Arts,” said Alexander. “Kyle works with artists from across the country who normally spend their summers playing music around the area [Caroga Lake]. We’ve worked with them in the past, contracting them to come to the museum to perform a chamber music concert. In 2019, we had 90 people attend one of their concerts in the museum.” Alexander spoke with Kyle about the idea of a group of musicians playing music to artwork from the museum collection. Each musician would play separately, the artwork would appear on the screen, and then we’d edit all together and share across the internet. “Caroga Arts was already planning to do a similar virtual experience for the July 4th program. It was helpful to see a program similar to what we wanted to do in advance. I remember writing back to Kyle saying that it was something similar we wanted to do at the museum but with our paintings.”

“A Musical Art Exhibition: Landscapes”

Creating a Musical Art Exhibition

The Arkell Museum and Caroga Arts decided to do two virtual programs. The first focused on the museums’ collection of Winslow Homer paintings. “We worked together to collaborate on what music would work best for which painting. The vision was to imagine the viewer on a journey, walking though Homer’s paintings. It was some back and forth until we finalized which music worked best.” Alexander provided high resolution images of the paintings that were going to be used for the program and sent them to Caroga Arts who arranged accompanying music.

“Seeing the preview for the first musical art exhibition felt great. It was nice working with professionals who could share their expertise and skills,” said Alexander. Caroga Arts has a videographer and they were able to edit the video with the images to put it all together. “In the beginning it was hard to relinquish some control but I had to trust the process. Normally when selecting the images and pairing them to a certain song we would’ve liked to have been in the same room, but due to COVID we couldn’t. Having an established working relationship was important.”

“A Musical Art Exhibition: Winslow Homer”

The first musical art exhibition premiered on October 28. The Caroga Arts Ensemble performed the Grieg Holberg Suite to the Arkell’s Museum’s Winslow Homer Collection.

The second musical art exhibition premiered on December 4 with performances by Cavani String Quartet and pianists Mei-Hsuan Huang and Ester Park.

Both were live streamed on the Caroga Arts and Arkell Museum’s Facebook pages and YouTube Channels.

Moving Forward

“Our main goal for these virtual musical art exhibitions was just to see if it could work,” said Alexander. “We had never tried something like this before, so just seeing if this could work was important for us.” Alexander said that the museum would like to have two more musical art exhibitions in 2021. “We could do a better job about identifying our audience. With most of our programs now being held in a virtual space, we are still identifying how our audience is using the internet. We also want to experiment with streaming these programs on other social media platforms.” Both videos can be viewed on the museums and Caroga Arts YouTube Channels and have nearly 900 views already. For Alexander and The Arkell Museum, using their programming funding to employ other artists was important. “Our main goal is always to connect people to our collection and to share it. Having this collaboration during a difficult time to do this was incredibly valuable for both organizations and we found another way to share our collection.”

Watch The Arkell Museum and Caroga Arts’ Musical Art Exhibitions on The Arkell Museum’s YouTube Channel.

Letter from Erika: Democracy and Advocacy

Tue, 12 Jan 2021 17:41:01 GMT

March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, August 28, 1963 by Rowland Scherman, Courtesy of NARA

Dear Members, Friends, and Colleagues,

On January 6, as I watched the white supremacist, fascist mob breach and defile the halls of Congress, learned about the stabbings at the Capitol in Albany, and read about the Confederate flag tied to the door of the Museum of Jewish Heritage, I was stunned. After a couple of anxiety-filled days and mindless activity, I moved to a place of outrage and renewed my commitment to take action and speak out.

The violent, attempted overthrow of our democratic republic on January 6 has renewed my commitment to defend the Constitutional rights of all who call the United States home. The House of Representatives has drawn up Articles of Impeachment against the man who occupies our nation’s highest political office for inciting violence against the government of the United States. I hope you have contacted your legislators to express your outrage at this attempted insurrection and the preferential treatment of the white perpetrators.

I stand with those who believe statements without action are an insufficient response to tyranny. In 2019, we secured a twelve-venue tour of the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum on Main Street exhibition Voices and Votes: Democracy in America to help New York museums address the ways in which our nation has been wrenched through years of ineffective and racist leadership.

The exhibition will begin its New York tour in March of 2024 and conclude in January of 2026. MANY will help museums prepare companion exhibitions and programs to tell their community’s story and engage audiences in the democratic process. The project will culminate with a single exhibition distilled from the twelve companion exhibitions. It will open in time to commemorate the 250th Anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and help museums promote the role of New Yorkers in the growth of our republic.

History teaches us that this is not the first time our democratic republic has been under siege from within. Museums must use their resources to engage our communities in the process of democracy. You can read more about the exhibition here and look for information soon about how to participate in the New York tour of Voices and Votes: Democracy in America.

Join us for AAM’s virtual Museums Advocacy Day on February 22 and 23 to call attention to the essential role of museums in our democracy and the critical need for federal support. In the past, the cost of travel and registration has been a barrier to participation for many museum professionals. This year, MANY members are eligible for the $25 discounted registration for the virtual program.

Call the MANY office or send an email to info@nysmuseums.org and we will send you the registration discount code. AAM arranges the meetings so you can speak to your Legislators and make your case virtually. In advance of the legislative meetings, AAM provides a day of advocacy training. I will be on a panel about advocacy at the state level and hope that you will join us to show that New Yorkers can speak out in the face of the most adverse of circumstances.

On Friday, January 22 at noon, we will host a Virtual Meet-Up to reflect together on “Where We Are Now.” Marisa Wigglesworth, President and CEO, Buffalo Museum of Science and Tifft Nature Preserve; Billye Chabot, Executive Director, Seward House Museum; and Michael Galban, Curator, Seneca Art & Cultural Center at Ganondagan State Historic Site will lead the conversation.

Submit your questions for discussion when you register. I am really looking forward to when we can gather safely in person, but until then, see you January 22 on Zoom.

With thanks,

Erika Sanger

Executive Director

MANY Profile: Interview with Klaudio Rodriguez

Tue, 22 Dec 2020 13:45:53 GMT

MANY Profile

Klaudio Rodriguez, The Bronx Museum of the Arts Executive Director

Klaudio Rodriguez (left, photo by Brendon Cook, BFA) was named Executive Director of the Bronx Museum of the Arts in November after being its interim director since January. We spoke with Mr. Rodriguez to learn more about his role and how he entered the museum field.

MANY: The first thing we want to do is congratulate you on being named Executive Director at the Bronx Museum of the Arts. Can you tell us a little bit more about the museum?

Klaudio Rodriguez: The Bronx Museum of the Arts is the contemporary art museum in the borough of the Bronx. We’re about to celebrate our 50th anniversary in 2021. It started in 1971 in the Bronx county courthouse down the street from us and then moved to its current location in 1982. There was an expansion in 2006 with the addition of the Architectonica designed North Building. We’re actually in the middle of a capital campaign project to do a remodel of the south building. We are one of the only free art museums in the city. We’re the only contemporary art museum in the whole borough of the Bronx. I see the museum as a local, national, and international museum. We expand our reach everywhere, but I think one of the things that makes the Bronx Museum the Bronx Museum is that we are firmly planted in the community. We strive to serve all of our diverse communities. The Bronx is one of the most ethnically, economically, and socially diverse of the boroughs here in New York and in the United States with large Latino, African American, and Caribbean communities. We want to reach those audiences while looking at the broader, international art dialogue.

When did you officially take on the role of Executive Director?

I was officially named on November 13. I had been working in an interim capacity since January.

What were you doing before you joined the staff at the Bronx Museum?

I was a Curator at the Frost Art Museum in Miami Florida for ten years.

From your time as a curator, what experiences have you found most helpful for your role now?

In my role as a curator, I learned about managing multiple people. As a curator you're working with a variety of artists, you’re orchestrating a whole exhibition, you’re working with your whole staff...registrars, marketing and PR, fundraising...so a lot of that is very transferable into the work that I do every day here. As a curator in a university museum, I also mentored a lot of students. The ability to work with young people, to empower them, and to inspire them translated well into the work I do here, especially with the education department. FIU [Florida International University] is a majority minority community and a lot of the student body had never walked into the museum or had familiarity with the museum. My task was to make it [the museum] accessible to them and understand how it relates to their daily lives. I feel like there are similar challenges here [at the Bronx Museum of the Arts] as well. A lot of the community surrounding the museum doesn’t believe that the museum is for them. So how do we open it and make it accessible for them and make it of value to them? These parallels are very important and helped me as I was thinking about how to engage with our community and how to open doors for them, breaking down perceived and actual physical barriers.

Were those some of the reasons that attracted you to leave your position as Curator at FIU to the Bronx Museum of the Arts?

Absolutely. One of the only reasons I considered leaving Miami for New York was the type of work this institution was doing, how it's firmly rooted in the community and how it’s really engaged in outreach. That was probably the biggest driver for me to come up to New York.

Can you describe a favorite day on the job?

The one that stands out is a few weeks ago when the New York Times article came out on November 13. I was overwhelmed by the support and well-wishers from everywhere. I’m still trying to catch up on my emails, texts, and social media because it’s been such an avalanche. It was a pretty spectacular day. As far as day to day, I mean pre-pandemic, my favorite day on the job here is every day that we are open. Every single day that we are open is a good day. I like to walk the galleries. I like to see and engage with people in the galleries. I can’t do this as much now because of social distancing, but seeing people inside the galleries is always a favorite. Pre-pandemic, I loved exhibitions openings too because besides being a big celebration, it validates all the work my staff was doing. So we celebrate the staff, we celebrate the artists, the exhibition. Those days are very fulfilling and I miss those days and having people together.

What are some of your initial and long-term goals for the museum?

One of the initial goals that I wanted to do was mix things up and find better ways to engage the staff across the museum’s departments. I also want to look at the type of work that we’re doing and how it benefits the community. One of the things that this pandemic taught me was that we do have a very nimble staff. The staff were able to shift very quickly and adapt the things that we were doing before the pandemic. I want to continue that momentum.

Then there are the basic goals of stabilizing the museum financially because, like all cultural institutions, it has been a challenging year. We’re a small museum and financial stability is a short-term and long-term goal.

As far as other long-term goals, we want to continue to put together a dynamic series of exhibitions, filling the calendar for the coming years with dynamic programming. I’ve been working with our curator on strategizing and planning what that vision is going to look like. We have our 50th anniversary coming up, which of course now it is a little upended with the pandemic so we’re thinking about starting the celebration in the summer and going into the following year. Another thing that excites me is the capital project. It’s a $20 million capital campaign to redo the south side of the museum. It will really remake the museum. We’re hoping to create a new entrance to the museum, a more interactive, outward facing engagement with our audience.

What most excites you in this opportunity to lead the museum?

I’m a curator at heart. The exhibitions excite me. Sitting with our curator [Holly Block Social Justice Curator Jasmine Wahi] to talk and planning out the next three years of exhibitions is exciting. Thinking about where we will be in two or three years and thinking about what’s important and what kind of dialogues and conversations we want to have around the art.

So I think I have a tough question for you. Is there any item in the collection that stands out as a personal favorite?

That’s a tough one and I don’t think I’m going to answer in the way you want me to answer.

That is okay! It’s a difficult question for a former curator.

You know in some ways what I like the most is that I am still discovering the collection. I relish learning about new artists, works, styles and regions. When I was a curator at the Frost [Art Museum], even though my background is Latin American Art, I worked as a generalist. I would do exhibitions on second century Roman Art, contemporary art, video art, fashion, and everything in between. I was always re-educating myself by trying to learn something new. Therefore, of the many reasons that I love the collection [at the Bronx Museum of the Arts] is that I am regularly discovering artists and works that I was not familiar with. Mainly because being from Miami I had less exposure to Bronx-based artists. The depth of the collection here is amazing and I am always discovering something new, I find something and I want to learn more about it.

Let’s go back a bit further. Where did you grow up and what was it like to grow up there?

I grew up in Miami but that doesn’t tell a whole story. My dad is Nicaraguan and my mom is Croatian. They met in Rome and moved to Nicaragua. They lived there for a few years before moving to Miami. I was in Nicaragua for 5 or 6 years. My parents are immigrants, twice over I guess, but I didn’t have the traditional immigrant experience that a lot of my friends had because I sort of had this different background. My dad studied architecture and had a love for the arts and my mom did too. While we didn’t have a lot of money, it was important for my mother to travel to Europe constantly to see family and that meant I went too. She took me to all the best museums in the world growing up. It was important for her to take me to see all these things and it had a huge impact on my life.

Did any of those experiences influence your decision to enter the museum field?

I didn’t know that I wanted to go into the museum field, but I knew that I had to be involved with the arts in some capacity.

Looking back, would your 18-year-old self imagine that you would be where you are today?

My 18-year-old-self wanted to be an architect because my dad wanted to be an architect. He never completed it, so I told myself that I was going to finish what he started. But I also loved art and went to art school and studied painting.

What advice would you give yourself?

I would tell my 18-year-old-self to stay the course. I think that things happen organically in some ways and I ended up exactly where I wanted to be. I don’t know that I could have articulated that when I was 18 necessarily.

I studied painting, I studied art history, I studied sociology, I studied architecture, I studied all these different things and I was always learning something more about where my interests lie. I went to art school first because I could draw and that was my first experience learning that just because I could produce something didn’t mean that I was an artist. It takes so much more to be an artist to have this sort of passion for what you do and the commitment to your vision. I learned very quickly that I was more interested in studying it and stepping back away from it and having that dialogue with artists. All those steps were important because it was a period of discovery. It informed me about what I wanted to do and I ended up where I wanted to be. My advice would be to stay the course but explore and experiment and see where it takes you. If I had been too narrowly focused, I don’t think that I would have ended up here.

Do you have any key mentors or someone who has deeply influenced you? Can you tell us about them?

One was a professor at FIU of mine, Juan Martínez [Professor Emeritus of Art History], who passed away recently. He was a mentor that really pushed me into this field. He told me that I could make a living and that I could really do something with this during a time when I was sort of questioning what I was going to do with the rest of my life. I took many classes with him and he just created this love of art and dialogue.

The other person who influenced my life was actually someone I never worked with and only had a handful of conversations with and that was Holly Block. She worked with a lot of Cuban artists in the Bronx and she was an expert in the Cuban art field and community. I had been doing a lot of exhibition work with Cuban artists in Miami and she sort of followed what I was doing and she would send me these nice little notes like “Congratulations on this opening,” and I really didn’t know her other than in passing. I came to New York several years ago for a curatorial conference and one of those sessions was held in the Bronx Museum of the Arts and I ran into Holly. We got into a conversation and she was asking me a lot of questions. I didn’t know what she was up to at that point. After I returned to Miami, she called and invited me to come back for a consultation for a Cuban art exhibition at the museum. I flew back up and she asked for my opinion on a lot of things. That’s the best way to get interviewed for a job, when you don’t know that you’re being considered. I was being very critical about a number of things. I think she actually liked that and a few weeks later she asked me to apply for the job. At that point I had no interest in leaving Miami nor my job. I was fairly happy with what I was doing but I applied and flew up for an interview. At the end I hesitated about making the move, but Holly would not take no for an answer. She sold me on the possibilities and here I am. She was the one who told me that I needed to be here. Sadly, I never worked with her. My first day on the job I was told that she was stepping down because she was sick and two weeks later she passed away. But the sole reason I’m here today is because of Holly and you can’t have more of an influence than that.

Are there any insights you have gained in the past six months about working in a museum that you’d like to share with our museum community? Besides working from home, what has been the biggest change for you?

I saw a staff that was creative, innovative, and worked as hard during this period than before. We learned a lot about how we can engage our community without physically being able to do so. My education team stepped up incredibly. Almost overnight our educators produced a full slate of online content. We are very nimble and small enough to move quickly and creatively. For me, I learned a lot and there’s a lot that I will take away from this experience about how to manage, how to keep people motivated, and how to continue the work that we’re doing. If we’re able to do all of this with these obstacles, just think of what we can do without these obstacles.

Also, the museum field got together and started working collaboratively on plans to reopen. We [NYC museums] met every Wednesday to create our policies and procedures for reopening. It was nice to see the collaborative, city-wide way of operating that created a bond within the field. But the pandemic has also challenged us to think differently. It’s been an interesting exercise when thinking about the traditional models and how we can adjust and reimagine this model. Hopefully when we come out of this, we take these lessons and implement them in our day to day to continue on.

Learn more about the Bronx Museum of the Arts: http://www.bronxmuseum.org/

Get a Jumpstart on 2021 Member Benefits

Mon, 21 Dec 2020 18:49:09 GMT

In a year that has pushed so much of our work and communication into virtual spaces, MANY has added new programs and resources for members on our website and now we are expanding your access to these resources. Beginning in 2021 all Organizational members will have the opportunity to add up to 9 additional contacts in their membership “bundle.” This means more of your staff, volunteers, and board members can benefit from your Organizational Membership with secure, personal access to MANY’s growing number of members-only resources.

What does this mean? Instead of having just one email that can login to your membership, and a second email that receives members-only communications, you can have a total of 10 users–each with their own email and password–who can view program recordings, register for events, and post opportunities to the MANY job board.

How does it work? Your current account holder will become the “bundle administrator” who can add members to your “bundle” and will have sole access to the account’s billing and renewal information. Once more individuals are added to your membership bundle, they’ll be able to set a password and will have full access to all the benefits of your Organizational Membership. We will share out more information on adding individuals to your membership in January.

What are some of the resources our staff will have access to? Our Program Recording page includes the spring and summer Virtual Meet-Up sessions when we gathered together as a community on Fridays to connect, learn, and share ways to support one another in the first six months of the pandemic. Our Fall Programs, which include Humanities NY workshops, a series of discussions co-curated by Museum Hue on museums engaging in essential community work, as well as virtual tours and discussions with organizations in the Capital Region are also available at any time. Your bundle members will be able to register for events and automatically receive any MANY Member discounts for paid programs. Your bundle members will also receive all our MANY communications, including our monthly newsletter, Letter from Erika, and other notices about upcoming programs.

What else is coming up in 2021? We are excited that we’ll be extending our partnership with NYCON into the next year so active Organizational Members can purchase NYCON Affiliate Memberships at discounted rates. NYCON Memberships are valid from January 1 until December 31, 2021 so they may not be on the same calendar cycle as your MANY renewals.

If you have any questions about your membership, member resources, NYCON or getting your colleagues included in your membership bundle, please don’t hesitate to reach out to the MANY Administrator, Hadley DesMeules, hdesmeules@nysmuseums.org

Letter from Erika: History will Read Us Loud and Clear

Mon, 21 Dec 2020 18:44:43 GMT

Dear MANY members, friends, and colleagues,

As we prepare to put behind us a year that changed our lives, I am filled with gratitude for our museum community. Your calls, emails, notes in chat boxes, and social media comments gave us the hope and energy to face an unknowable future together with resolve and resilience.

We will need to find ways to sustain ourselves in the face of insufficient federal aid. I believe our strength as a field lies in our ability to remain creative, flexible, and adaptive. When we finally reach the other side of the pandemic, the need to advance equitable staffing practices, generate sufficient funding, and improve digital communications will still exist. In the face of so much loss, it may be hard to reflect upon and change the ways we add to our collections, develop our programs, and serve our communities, but success will come through rebuilding to fit new circumstances.

An article by James West Davidson in the July 9 Atlantic Monthly imagined the chapter in a future history textbook about the year 2020. A single chapter will never hold all this year has brought. Future authors and curators will dedicate entire books and exhibitions to this year. 2020 will become a signifier in the same way we understand 1492,1609,1776, and 1861. 2020 will be a symbol, a sound, and an image. It will take the distance of time to distill all of its meanings and learnings.

It falls to us to do the work to help future generations hear us loud and clear. Those of us who have lived through this year won’t be able to step back far enough to see the long term effects of 2020. But we can gather the evidence, collect the data, and share the incalculable loss to help future museum colleagues make sense of this year and ensure our museums continue to be integral and essential community partners.

Look for a survey of NY Museums in the first quarter of 2021 so we can continue to hear you loud and clear. We need your support now so that MANY can be there to serve you as a vital resource, an ally, and an advocate. Every dollar helps. Click here to donate today and let us know how MANY can help you.

With gratitude and best wishes for the new year,

Erika Sanger

The Pomeroy Fund for NYS History End of Year Report

Mon, 21 Dec 2020 17:23:02 GMT

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic the William G. Pomeroy Foundation and the Museum Association of New York formed a new partnership and created the Pomeroy Fund for NYS History to support the state’s smallest history-related organizations. In three grant rounds, the Pomeroy Fund for NYS History funded 69 organizations across New York State $147,808.72.

“MANY was able to quickly assess the urgent needs of the history community and was an invaluable resource during this difficult time,” said Deryn Pomery, Director of Strategic Initiatives of the William G. Pomeroy Foundation. “We were impressed with how they mobilized and advocated for the museum community and assisted us in the grant review process.”

Grant applications were reviewed by a panel that included MANY Board, MANY staff, and Pomeroy Foundation staff. Eligible organizations did not need to be members of MANY to apply.

Total Amount of Funds Dispersed by Grant Round

Total Number of Grants by REDC

Total Amount of Funds by REDC

Round 1

In Round 1, 31 organizations with budget sizes of $100,000 or less were awarded grants ranging between $1,000 and $2,000, totalling $50,808.72. More than 170 organizations applied totaling almost $300,000 in requests. Funds were used to purchase computer hardware or software, gain internet access or expand bandwidth, pay for utilities, and secure facilities and collections.

The Fulton County Historical Society (FCHS), was awarded $1,558. Since closure at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, FCHS began to think more carefully and creatively about virtual programming, experimenting with online programming, and social media use to improve their digital presence and expand their reach. FCHS used the funds to purchase a laptop computer and to update the museums’ hardware and software in order to develop more online programming.

Round 1 Grantees

Anderson Falls Heritage Society

Black Rock Historical Society

Brentwood Historical Society

Broome County Historical Society

Clinton County Historical Association

Darwin R. Barker Library and Museum Association

Fulton County Historical Society

Gates Historical Society

Hastings Historical Society

Historic Red Hook

Historical Society of the Tonawandas, Inc.

Historical Society of Woodstock

Howland Stone Store Museum

Interlaken Historical Society

Java Historical Society

Lodi Historical Society

Macedon Historical Society

Mastic Peninsula Historical Society

Montgomery County Historical Society

National Bottle Museum

Nunda Historical Society

Oswego County Historical Society

Peekskill Museum, Inc.

Preservation Association of the Southern Tier

Schoharie Colonial Heritage Association

The Warsaw Historical Society and Gates House Museum

Town of Madison Historical Society

Town of New Scotland Historical Association

West Bloomfield Historical Society

Wappingers Historical Society Inc.

Yaphank Historical Society

Round One of Grants by REDC

Round One Grant Amount by REDC

Round Two

The Pomeroy Fund expanded eligibility in Round Two to organizations with an annual budget size of $150,000 or less but organizations needed to be open to the public no fewer than 250 hours, including program delivery hours. Organizations that received funding in the 1st round were not eligible. Grants were made on a sliding scale between $1,000 and $5,000 based on budget size. The Pomeroy Fund received 112 applications requesting $367,000. 18 organizations were awarded a total of $50,000.

Applicants shared details regarding their public programming both onsite and virtual, identified the wide range of audiences served, and the ways in which they engage their communities through unique and distinct partnerships.

The Livingston County Historical Society used its $4,000 grant to support general operating expenses including salary for the only paid staff person. This staff person was essential in creating a safe reopening plan for the museum.

The National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum (NAHOF), an all volunteer organization, used its $1,000 grant to cover the cost of internet services and its email service to its members and supporters. The grant helped the NAHOF maintain and expand their virtual reach to their local, state, and national supporters and promoted the organization to develop more online programs.

Based on a follow up survey administered by MANY that assessed rounds one and two, when asked to specifically name items purchased with grant funding, 35% of awarded organizations mentioned computers and related hardware such as printers. 22% mentioned software like Microsoft Office or Past Perfect. Others mentioned using funds for general operating expenses like utilities and staff salaries. When asked what impact the grant had on staff, organization, and/or community, 34% mentioned increased community engagement and connecting with their community virtually, 20% mentioned increased access to collections through digitization, and 10% mentioned building security.

Round Two Grantees

Beacon Historical Society

City Island Historical Society

Constable Hall Association, Inc.

Dyckman Farmhouse Museum Alliance

Friends of City Reliquary, Inc.

Friends of Mills at Staatsburgh

Greece Historical Society

Livingston County Historical Society

National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum

North Country Underground Railroad Historical Association

Phelps Mansion Museum

Sodus Bay Historical Society

The Coney Island History Project Inc.

The Historical Society of the Town of Chester

The Lake Ronkonkoma Historical Society

Waterville Historical Society

Webster Museum and Historical Society

West Seneca Historical Society and Museum

Round Two Number of Grants by REDC

Round Two Grant Amounts by REDC

Round Three

In July, a 3rd round of funding was announced to provide an additional $50,000 in grants in a continuation of rapid response to history-related organizations. 21 organizations were selected to raise up to $6,000 for a 2:1 match by the Pomeroy Fund. Each submitted proposals that outlined plans for reopening, identifying multiple funding sources, creative ways to grow donors, and collaborative partnerships to find new avenues of support.

These participating organizations had until October 1 to raise funds in order to receive the match.

The Irish American Heritage Museum engaged their membership through their newsletter and social media channels. Their Board took an active role in raising the matching funds and was challenged to raise $1,500, half of the needed funds. The museum had 40 donors total and raised $6,355, $355 more than goal.

In Western NY, the Steel Plant Museum had 65 individual donors raising $5,013. The grant helped the museum stay open, with funding dedicated to monthly rent and curator’s salary.

In a follow up survey, 30% said they used the funds to support operating expenses and staff salaries and 30% purchased and installed COVID safety measures including sanitation stations, wipes, gloves, masks, safety signage, plexi dividers, touchless amenities for bathrooms, and air filter upgrades.

Round Three Grantees

Amagansett Life-Saving and Coast Guard Station Society

Bundy Museum of History and Art

Canal Society of New York State, Inc.

Chenango County Historical Society & Museum

Cincinnatus Area Heritage Society

Cobblestone Society

Douglaston and Little Neck Historical Society

East Bloomfield Historical Society

Freeport Historical Society

Gates Historical Society

Half-Shire Historical Society

Historical Society of Newburgh Bay and the Highlands

Irish American Heritage Museum

John Brown Lives

Robert Jenkins House and Museum

Seneca Museum of Waterways and Industry

Slate Valley Museum Foundation

Sodus Bay Historical Society

The Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation

The Steel Plant Museum of Western New York

Round Three Number of Grants by REDC

Round Three Grant Amount by REDC

Throughout each grant round, the high response by the history-related organizations in New York State demonstrates how deeply museums have been affected by the pandemic and how much support will be needed moving forward. MANY thanks the Pomeroy Foundation for their rapid response to aid our historical societies and history museums.

“We are very proud of our work with MANY, and through our partnership, were able to provide much needed emergency funding for 69 small history-related organizations struggling during the pandemic,” said Deryn Pomeroy.

Greener Museums in 2021? Q & A with Joyce Lee

Mon, 21 Dec 2020 17:16:55 GMT

Greener Museums in 2021?

Q and A with Joyce Lee, FAIA, LEED Fellow, WELL AP

IndigoJLD Green + Health; info@indigoJLD.com

Joyce Lee, FAIA, WELL AP, LEED Fellow is the President of IndigoJLP Green + Health, providing green health, planning, benchmarking, and design services with a focus on cultural facilities. We spoke with Joyce about how museums are working towards being greener spaces, some of the challenges they face, and how museums can become more sustainable with green energy.

MANY: What is your favorite NY museum and why?

Joyce Lee: I have many favorite museums. Having served as Chief Architect for New York City OMB, I have always been an admirer of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, American Museum of Natural History, the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum. But there are plenty of wonderful museums north of the city that I love because of the stories they tell. The Everson in Syracuse; the Corning Museum of Glass near the Finger Lakes; the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown and the George Eastman Museum in Rochester. And as a mid-century modern fan, I took my family to the Empire Plaza in Albany to soak in the sculptures and works of architecture. A socially distanced glorious afternoon was spent in Albany during this apple picking season.

George Eastman Museum

Corning Museum of Glass

What NY museum building projects have most interested you?

Having the Queens Botanical Gardens achieve the first LEED Platinum for a New York City government building was definitely a highlight. The master planning phase already identified water as a common theme and its symbolic importance in this multi-cultural community. Water is a scare resource. Making it central in the building design of the administration building was so smart and forward-looking. I also encourage everyone to visit the Garden to see the roofscape of this building; it is highly functional in addition to its aesthetics, catching the sun, channeling water and piloting a green roof when there were so few precedents.

Highlighting water in constructed wetlands and composting toilets makes everyone acutely aware of our symbiotic relationship with clean water. The relevance today is astounding as climate change causes more flooding than ever before. The deluge of unhealthy water vs. precious clean water resonates all over the world.

Queens Botanical Gardens

Has environmental impact always been a concern in your work?

Having contributed to the PlaNYC environmental blueprint under Mayor Bloomberg, I find his vision giving a much larger context for my earlier green building work. My team was overseeing a city program when we had to report on over 200 million sqft of public facilities, including museums and libraries. Sustainability and awareness of environmental impact was just simply a better way to manage these assets.

My firm’s current cultural institutions work is still very connected to the cities and neighborhoods that they serve. As trusted institutions and pillars of the community, museums can educate and inspire a future that is not only just, equitable, but beautiful and climate positive for our next generations.

The trust factor in museums is also about authenticity. Museums need to talk the talk and walk the walk when it comes to carbon. Since museums can be enormous carbon emitters, they need to be better steward of the environment too. It will give museums much credibility when they use the climate platform towards COP 26 and beyond.

What are some of the sustainable operations and challenges museums face?

Although many people believe that car and truck emissions are the biggest contributors to Co2 in the earth’s atmosphere, we now know that buildings in fact contribute at much higher levels (up to more than 70% in cities). Since Co2 is so invisible to many museum professionals, I always start by saying planting a tree for shading can have energy impact.

We know that lighting is critically important for collections and exhibitions. The good news is that LED technologies have grown by leaps and bounds in the last decade. It behooves every museum to find the right LED lights for their space and gallery. Same with HVAC operations in the building where continuous commissioning could save much money, give better control of the collection environment, and increase human comfort. Now there is even low-cost financial programs for energy efficiency and COVID related strategies. But all this requires retooling our business practice and listening to experts. The biggest challenge? Complacency.

Museums are known as energy intensive organizations, why and what can be done?

Yes, since the publication of my benchmarking article in late 2017, many museum professionals have been surprised to learn that a museum can be more carbon intensive than a hospital. Most museums have 24/7 collections rather than 24/7 patients. And the back-of-the house staff sometimes have so many responsibilities that managing energy efficiency has not been a priority.

Thanks to the recent ASHRAE Chapter 24 guidance, there are many new advances. They include the range of temperature and relative humidity rather than an absolute number, like 70F or 50%. The gradual drifting has been well tested now for various material. The relaxation from strict numbers can save a lot of energy and money. Exhibit design including local micro-climate control display can also make a huge difference in galleries, taking human heat generation into account in high traffic areas.

Continuous air monitoring and AI driven analytics can pinpoint energy saving opportunities while improving air quality and ventilation. Finally, the design of large volume spaces, behind-the-scene spaces as well as the tightness of the building envelope can be defining factors if one is comprehensive about retrofits.

How can a museum that was built 100 years ago become a green building and become more sustainable?

Believe it or not, many older buildings constructed before the age of air-conditioning and elevators tend to be greener, more humane buildings than those in later eras. With a robust building mass and large windows, there is a lot to work with already. Remember this summer those buildings with operable windows and cross ventilation are those making headways too with fighting COVID?

Then there is the time value of carbon. The older the building, the lower the embodied carbon, which is a good thing. Every demolition creates enormous construction waste, some of which could be toxic, like asbestos, and much is still landfill bound. Retaining the building and creatively adapting it with today’s functions have many promises for museums. In our recent UN Climate Week webinar, we highlighted MoMA’s embodied carbon video in our webinar booklet. It is an important reference.

Who in the organization should be responsible for/own the work? Operations? Facilities?

Ideally everyone should have sustainability in the job description. Having the CEO embrace the concept is certainly a leadership move. Having sustainability and climate action discussed in board meetings is enormously helpful. Do not forget that the incoming generation of donors are very versed in this topic and may be driving Tesla cars already. The staff at the museum needs to be equally knowledgeable and savvy in their own domain, whether it is collections, education, facilities or communications.

Start with asking how one can use climate action as a way to lower operational cost. Is every long and short haul flight necessary? Do lights have to be on in all the current areas? Do we have guidance for event planners to save energy and water? Can we revisit setpoints in the building? Are there savings in trash removal? In this financial environment, who would want to be wasteful? This “waste-not” mindset could be applied in many ways. Please check out past winners of the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) Sustainability Excellence Awards.

How has the Covid-19 pandemic changed your work?

I am so saddened by the fatalities in this country. If there is a silver lining, it is the rapid recognition of quality indoor environments. Museums offer this exemplar environment to the public. This summer I collaborated with a number of built environment experts to encourage the World Health Organization to be clearer about indoor aerosol transmission. It is a subject that I have been studying with other scientists since early this year before the lockdown. We started looking at air changes, filters, efficacies of ultra-violet lights and bipolar ionization for clients.

While conservators have been taking the lead to measure air around the collections, we now know that continuously monitoring air quality is beneficial for human beings and collections in a museum. As for touchless faucets and toilets, adding in sensors and upgrading to low flow toilets can be synergistic strategies for health (lowering virus transmission) and the environment.

Then there is the design of the outdoors. Many museums could create well-conceived outdoor functional spaces while enhancing its urban design and contribution to the community. Even a rain garden is an amenity. Most regions of New York can have meaningful three-season active or contemplative spaces so that the visitors have more choices to engage with the institution.

What can a museum expect to save when they invest in green technologies?

We talk about the benefits of greening already, healthier for people and smarter for collections. It is not unusual to save 20-50% utility costs through an intensive analysis of the current operations.

Adding on to efficiency savings is the incorporation of state and local financial incentives. The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) has programs to help New York institutions. Take solar for example, a photovoltaic array could take Kwh off more carbon intensive grid electricity. Both the Sciencenter in Ithaca and the New York Hall of Science have been early adopters of renewable energy.

Once the solar array is paid off, the institution could harness the clean electricity for free. It is very possible to generate green power cheaper than the museum buying it from the grid while getting very close to achieving carbon neutrality.

What are the short-term as well as long-term returns?

The short-term return is sending an immediate message to your visiting public and potential donors that the museum action is part of the solution, not part of the problem. The International Council of Museums (ICOM) has made a sustainability resolution in 2019 with the global museum community.

By following the Paris Agreement principles, there are implementation avenues like operating expense reduction and capital expenditure avoidance through a shared savings model, commonly called an Energy Services Agreement.

Long term savings could be quite attractive. As a rule of thumb, for every $100,000/year in energy savings (around 1/3 of annual bills), the museum could identify $500,000 upfront capital improvement it does not need to fund. 20% of the $100K/yr savings could go towards reducing annual museum budgets and 80% would go to the Service Agreement to equipment payments and comprehensive maintenance. Every capital plan or campaign should benchmark its annual energy and water bills and go through this exercise to maximize its year-over-year savings and long-term returns.

For museums who have made progress in reaching green building status, what is the next step?

This is by no means exhaustive; many in the embedded list already have LEED status by 2019 for design and construction. The goal now is to operate green, paying attention to all aspects of the institutional operations, from exhibits to catering, staff commute and air travel as well as managing waste and recycling. In addition to Energy Star Portfolio Manager, the international ARC platform is very comprehensive and aligns with private companies that report on ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance). I am encouraged to find many interested museums in the commonwealth countries as well.

Museums can now demonstrate action not only in programming and operations, one can also lead by example through the museums’ investment portfolios. I am thrilled to be partnering with the CEO of the Wild Center in Tupper Lake, NY, to offer an American Alliance of Museums (AAM) free webinar on Endowments and ESG on February 17. We hope it will be very enlightening.

Joyce Lee FAIA, WELL AP, LEED Fellow, is president of IndigoJLD Green + Health providing green health, planning, benchmarking, and design services with a focus on cultural facilities. Joyce served under Mayor Bloomberg as Chief Architect at the New York City OMB. Her work has received numerous awards from USGBC, AIA, and HHS. She is on the University of Pennsylvania adjunct faculty. Her practice continues to assist cities to strengthen community sustainability, and help organizations reach carbon and wellness goals. She can be reached at info@IndigoJLD.com