On February 6, 2019, Dr. Patrick T. Conley, president of the Heritage Harbor Foundation, announced that the Foundation has awarded $86,155 in grant money for 2019 to twelve local organizations. The purpose of the grants is to support projects aimed at increasing the awareness of Rhode Island adults and school-age students of their historical, ethnic, and cultural heritage.
- The Barrington Preservation Society was awarded $7,455 for the restoration of a Barrington militia flag from the Dorr Rebellion of 1842 and an exhibit relating to the town’s military history.
- Southeast New England Film, Music and Arts Festival was awarded $7,500 towards the post-production cost of the documentary film Slatersville: America’s First Mill Village by filmmaker Christian de Rezendes.
- The Steamship Historical Society of America was awarded $5,000 towards the development and promotion of the web-based game “Crossing on the Fabre Line,” about the Marseilles-based passenger line that brought 84,000 immigrants to the Port of Providence from 1911 to 1934.
The Steamboat Bay Queen dockside in Providence. It was recently discovered on the bay floor at Providence Harbor. The Steamship Historical Society of America received a grant related to making a game involving the Fabre line of steamships. (Providence Public Library)
- Providence College was awarded $6,700 for the development and addition of “Thomas Wilson Dorr and the Politics of Gender in Antebellum America” to the college’s Dorr Rebellion Project website. It will highlight the role of women in this political uprising.
Two grants, one to the Barrington Historical Society and the other to Providence College, deal with the influence of voting rights agitator Thomas Dorr (National Portrait Gallery)
- Rhode Island Middle Passage Medallions received a $5,000 grant in support of the development of the Medallion project that deals with Rhode Island’s role in the African slave trade and sites relating to the existence of slavery in Rhode Island.
- The Blackstone Valley Tourism Council received a grant of $10,000 for the outfitting of the Blackstone River Exploration Center in order to inform visitors of the historic and ethnic heritage of the Blackstone Valley.
- Linden Place was awarded $11,000 for its sponsorship of the development and exhibition of “The Women of the East Bay” highlighting prominent women from this area. The exhibit coincides with the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment granting the vote to women.
- The Providence Preservation Society was awarded $10,000 for interpretive panel designs and video for the 1769 Old Brick School House on Meeting Street to create a visitors’ information center.
- The Rhode Island Aviation Hall of Fame received $5,000 for the generation of public displays relating to the development of military aviation in Rhode Island from 1910-1930.
- The Rhode Island Historical Society received a grant of $7,000 for the establishment of a permanent digital repository of their historical collections to make their holdings more accessible to researchers.
- Westerly Armory Restoration, Inc. was awarded $3,500 for the update and printing of a booklet by Dr. Roberta Mudge Humble on the historic armories of Rhode Island.
- The Portsmouth Historical Society received a grant of $8,000 for the restoration of interpretive signage at Lehigh Hill and Patriot Park relating to the Battle of Rhode Island as well as new signage at the Melville Depot, site of a Civil War hospital and Leigh Hill coal mines worked by early Irish immigrants.
Rhode Island is one of only four states without its own state history museum. In 2007 the museum was at an 80% development point in the former Narragansett Electric South Street power station (now the state nursing school) when the dramatic downturn in the economy and the change in the state’s historic tax credit program caused its development partner, Struever Brothers, Eccles, and Rouse of Baltimore, to withdraw.
Unable to continue its museum course, Heritage Harbor Corporation used its dual identity and switched from museum to foundation. A clause in its deed from Narragansett Electric Company enabled it to sell its easement and interest in the building and use the proceeds to establish a grant-making endowment to carry out its mission and promises to donors. The multi-million dollar endowment, created through the efforts of Museum and Heritage Harbor Foundation president, Dr. Patrick T. Conley, is lodged at the Rhode Island Foundation.
By seeking applications from other museums and historical groups willing to carry out the thematic fields which would have been museum exhibits, the Heritage Harbor Foundation is meeting the intent and wishes of its many donors. The fundamental aim of the Heritage Harbor project has been to feature history programs of such an inclusive nature that all Rhode Islanders can see their own history celebrated and thus be encouraged to participate fully in the state’s civic life.
In its first three years of making selective and competitive awards, the Rhode Island Foundation has granted more than $400,000 to Rhode Island’s historical and cultural organizations. For 2020 the Foundation will continue to make selective awards only, including the publication of books by its affiliate, the Rhode Island Publications Society, biographical research by the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame, and the establishment of a Museum of South Providence History in St. Michael’s Church, but will take a one-year hiatus from making competitive awards because of the size and expense of these internal projects.
Inquiries for more information about the Foundation’s grant program should be addressed to the Heritage Harbor Foundation, 1445 Wampanoag Trail, Suite #201, Attention: Russell J. DeSimone, Grants Committee Chairman.
[Banner image: The Steamboat Bay Queen dockside in Providence. It was recently discovered on the bay floor at Providence Harbor. The Steamship Historical Society of America received a grant related to making a game involving the Fabre line of steamships. Providence Public Library).]
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