UMD's Clarice Smith Center Wins $5,200 Grant

From the Maryland Humanities Council:

Seven Maryland nonprofit organizations were recently awarded Maryland Humanities Council (MHC) major grants, totaling $50,000 in funding. Nonprofit grantees hail from Talbot, Calvert, Prince George’s, Dorchester, and Harford counties and Baltimore City. Spring awards will support an interactive exhibition, living history performances, a lecture series, symposium, documentary film, and community engagement and dialogue programs. Topics covered by projects range from the War of 1812, Emancipation and the Civil Rights Movement, to the iconic painted screens of Baltimore.

The Maryland Humanities Council provides grants to nonprofit organizations that use the humanities (literature, philosophy, history, etc.) to engage Marylanders. Grant categories and criteria encourage free, public programming in many forms including discussions, exhibits, lectures, living history, and seminars using the humanities as the central tools to explore and understand the complexity of an issue. Many of the grants are awarded with the understanding that participants will be given the opportunity to discuss critical issues affecting their communities. Nonprofits have two opportunities to apply for major grant support, in the spring and fall. Major grants can offer up to $10,000 in support; Opportunity grants provide up to $1,200. For more information, including deadlines and criteria, visit www.mdhc.org/grants. 

The Maryland Humanities Council is a statewide, educational, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization whose mission is to stimulate and promote informeddialogue and civic engagement on issues critical to Marylanders. Learn more at www.mdhc.org.

2013 SPRING MAJOR GRANTS AWARDS

St. Michaels Museum at St. Mary’s Square, Talbot County: $10,000

• 1812 Profiles of Patriots

The St. Michaels Museum at St. Mary’s Square will host performances of 6 monologues based on the lives of six people who figured in the town’s role during the War of 1812. The presentations will take place from midAugust – October 2013. Historic figures who will be featured in the performances are James Madison with the Declaration of War against the British on June 18 General Perry Benson and the Independent Light Dragoons; an African American female slave; and Mary Young Pickersgill who fabricated the Star-Spangled Banner.

Academy Art Museum, Talbot County: $7,000

• Joint Heritage at Wye House

Academy Art Museum’s interpretive exhibition (August 24 through October 13, 2013) draws on new archaeological evidence, unpublished archival sources, household objects, books, recipe collections, maps, and artwork. The exhibit will highlight how the emerging archaeological and historical record reveals the complexities of co-existing cultures at the Talbot County plantation, Wye House, focusing on the pre and postCivil War periods. Programming accompanying the exhibit will include: a searchable database of plantation residents, maps, and farm inventories; curator-led tours; teacher orientation; lectures on the archaeology, the Emancipation Proclamation, and southern cuisine; and an interpretive brochure that explores both the context and significance of artifacts displayed. The project is a collaboration with University of Maryland’s Dept. of Anthropology which has conducted research onsite since 2006.

Calvert Marine Museum Society, Calvert County: $4,213

• “The War of 1812: A Legacy of Division”

Project partners Calvert Marine Museum, Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum, and the College of Southern Maryland will present six lectures that explore multiple perspectives on the War of 1812. Speakers include a museum exhibit developer who worked on two War of 1812 exhibits, a writer who has researched the Great Lakes theater of the war, an historian on how the popular press was used, a presentation that combines lecture with original songs, a recognized Native American historian on the conflict from the Native perspective, and an art historian who curated the National Portrait Gallery's exhibit on the War of 1812. The lectures will be held monthly on Sunday afternoons from Sept. 2013 - May 2014 at the College of Southern Maryland, Prince Frederick. An online forum will extend the experience and invite greater participation.

Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, Prince George's County: $5,200

• Civil War/Civil Rights: The Well-Being of A Nation $5,200; Prince George’s County

“Civil War/Civil Rights: The Well-Being of A Nation” is a nationally focused two day symposium celebrating the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation that will feature humanities presentations exploring the ongoing fight for equality and civil rights. The keynote speaker will be Julian Bond; Liz Lerman and Vincent Thomas will lead a reflection activity; Dean Don Kettl of UMD will introduce a series of TED-style talks to address “Jobs and Freedom: How Far Have We Come?”; and DC Public Radio talk show host Kojo Nnamdi will lead a roundtable conversation focused on “Rights, Equality and the American Dream.” Marian Wright Edelman will give the final keynote with “Still Marching: The Work That Lies Ahead.” Touré, author and MSNBC co-host of The Cycle, will conclude the symposium. The project will also include Creative Dialogues, a free series of panel discussions moderated by Kojo Nnamdi covering the topics “From Lincoln to King to Obama: Inspirational Speaking in Public Life”; “Marriage Equality and the Church”; and “Frederick Douglass and Ireland.”

Harford Community College Foundation, Inc., Harford County: $7,600;

• Faces of Freedom: Harford County, Maryland and Beyond

Faces of Freedom: Harford County, Maryland and Beyond The “Faces of Freedom” project uses several humanities disciplines to explore the meaning of freedom generally and specifically in the Upper Chesapeake before, during, and in the aftermath of the Civil War and Emancipation. Through performance and discussion of a play, book and film discussions, an exhibit, and a lecture and discussion series, the project will inspire learning and community engagement about freedom, slavery and emancipation. The exhibit and programs (Feb. – Al 2014) will emphasize Harford stories of the Underground Railroad. The project commemorates the 150th anniversary of the Maryland Constitution of 1864, which ended slavery here. It involves different departments at HCC as well as the Hays-Heighe House, Rites of Passage Mentoring Program, Hosanna School Museum, and the Historical Society of Harford County. 

Nanticoke Historic Preservation Alliance, Inc., Dorchester County: $9,000

• African-American Sharecroppers of Indiantown (Dorchester County) Maryland

Nanticoke Historic Preservation Alliance will complete a 15-20 minute video, based on interviews and photos, of the Jackson, Pinder, and Robinson families, descendants of free and enslaved people owned by the Steele family on the Handsell plantation in Vienna. After Emancipation many of the families opted to stay in the area and sharecrop the land, working and living together until the last descendant left in the 1990s. The film will be shown to a variety of audiences across the Eastern Shore at venues such as Dorchester County Historical Society, Vienna Community Center, Nabb Center for Delmarva History at Salisbury University, public libraries in nearby counties, reunions of the local families, and at the Banneker Douglass Museum in Annapolis.  A copy of the film will be distributed to Dorchester County Schools and posted on the internet. Discussions will follow screenings and a reading list on local African American history will be developed. 

Painted Screen Society of Baltimore, Inc., Baltimore City: $7,000

• From Little Bohemia to Middle East: 100 Years of Painted Screens 

Painted Screen Society will collaborate with residents and community groups in the Middle East neighborhood to restore knowledge and presence of painted screens to their birthplace through a series of public programs and educational outreach designed to teach skills and historical context to a changing community thus offering a source of community pride, heritage, accomplishment and knowledge. Residents and community experts will share knowledge with scholars of place and traditional screen painters at a street festival event land marking the corner grocery store where the first painted screen was created in Baltimore 100 years ago. 

Throughout the fall there will be a series of community discussions, field trips to exhibitions, a book release on the subject, and a film screening that link the historic and present community with the built environment., 1812; Jacob Gibson and San Domingo Creek; Brigadier

Harford Community College Foundation, Inc., Harford County: $7,600

• Faces of Freedom: Harford County, Maryland and Beyond

The “Faces of Freedom” project uses several humanities disciplines to explore the meaning of freedom generally and specifically in the Upper Chesapeake before, during, and in the aftermath of the Civil War and Emancipation. Through performance and discussion of a play, book and film discussions, an exhibit, and a lecture and discussion series, the project will inspire learning and community engagement about freedom, slavery and emancipation. The exhibit and programs (Feb. – April 2014) will emphasize Harford stories of the

Underground Railroad. The project commemorates the 150th anniversary of the Maryland Constitution of 1864, which ended slavery here. It involves different departments at HCC as well as the Hays-Heighe House, Rites of Passage Mentoring Program, Hosanna School Museum, and the Historical Society of Harford County.

Nanticoke Historic Preservation Alliance, Inc., Dorchester County (NHPA): $9,000

African-American Sharecroppers of Indiantown (Dorchester County) Maryland

Nanticoke Historic Preservation Alliance will complete a 15-20 minute video, based on interviews and photos, of the Jackson, Pinder, and Robinson families, descendants of free and enslaved people owned by the Steele family on the Handsell plantation in Vienna. After Emancipation many of the families opted to stay in the area and sharecrop the land, working and living together until the last descendant left in the 1990s. The film will be shown to a variety of audiences across the Eastern Shore at venues such as Dorchester County Historical Society, Vienna Community Center, Nabb Center for Delmarva History at Salisbury University, public libraries in nearby counties, reunions of the local families, and at the Banneker Douglass Museum in Annapolis. A copy of the film will be distributed to Dorchester County Schools and posted on the internet. Discussions will follow.

Painted Screen Society of Baltimore, Inc., Baltimore: $7,000.

• From Little Bohemia to Middle East: 100 Years of Painted Screens

Painted Screen Society will collaborate with residents and community groups in the Middle East neighborhood to restore knowledge and presence of painted screens to their birthplace through a series of public programs and educational outreach designed to teach skills and historical context to a changing community thus offering a source of community pride, heritage, accomplishment and knowledge. Residents and community experts will share knowledge with scholars of place and traditional screen painters at a street festival event land marking the corner grocery store where the first painted screen was created in Baltimore 100 years ago. Throughout the fall there will be a series of community discussions, field trips to exhibitions, a book release on the subject, and a film screening that link the historic and present community with the built environment.

*Grant support received through funds from the Maryland War of 1812 Bicentennial Commission.