2008 Save America's Treasures Grants

The following Save America's Treasures grants are being supported by the Arts Endowment.

Illinois

Rosenthal Archives Collections, Chicago
Award: $65,105
The Samuel R. & Marie Louis Rosenthal Archives includes the Fine Arts Network Live Concert Series, the George Stone Collection's Conversations Series, and the Oral History Project. These three collections contain one-of-a-kind live interviews and concerts that document the history of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and its role in American music and culture. All three of the endangered collections are currently stored on deteriorating reels and cassette tapes. Grant funding will transfer these historical audio recordings to digital format before the information is completely destroyed and ensure sustainable public access.

Massachusetts

Public Radio Broadcast of the March on Washington, Boston
Award: $72,120
On August 28, 1963, over 200,000 people converged on the National Mall, the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial, for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Public radio produced 15 hours of live coverage from the streets, from the stages, and from the midst of the crowds. Forty years later, WGBH Radio discovered that it had the only existing recordings of the broadcast. The collection contains hours of interviews and commentary captured nowhere else, and provides an important alternative to the commercial broadcast coverage of the March. The SAT award will support documentation, restoration, and archival preservation of these threatened recordings, which will then be accessible to scholars and the public.

Missouri

New Letters on the Air, Kansas City
Award: $68,505
Since 1977, "Letters on the Air" has brought public radio audiences throughout the United States a weekly airing of some of the most important literary voices of our time, such as Robert Creeley, Muriel Rukeyser, and Joseph Brodsky. In over 30 years, giants of poetry, fiction, essays and drama have appeared on the program, reading and talking about their creative process. The SAT award will be used to improve storage, stabilize the tapes and make the collection of accessible.

New York

McKim, Mead & White Collection, New York
Award: $180,693
The McKim, Mead & White Collection is a nationally significant resource representing the history of both American architecture and some of the nation's most notable buildings. As the leading American architectural firm of the latter 19th and early 20th centuries, McKim, Mead & White's commissions included the original Madison Square Garden, the Morgan Library, the original Pennsylvania Station in New York, the Boston Public Library, the Rhode Island State Capitol, the Vanderbilt town house, and the restoration of the University of Virginia's Rotunda. The grant funds will be used to re-house and stabilize the thousands of drawings, blueprints and documents.

Oklahoma

Tulsa Foundation for Architecture Archives, Tulsa
Award: $150,000
The Tulsa Foundation for Architecture (TFA) holds architectural drawings, renderings, specifications, tracings, photographs/slides, periodicals, and books that document the history of architecture, particularly the Art Deco period that is evident in many of the city's buildings designed by leading architects of the period. Grant funds will be used to preserve and conserve these "at risk" collections and provide greater public access via technology to scholars, architects, historians, and researchers.

South Dakota

Clowser Collection, Deadwood
Award: $272,700
The Clowser Collection comprises art and artifacts that are rare and significant to the history and culture of American Indians, particularly Northern Plains tribes. The conditions in which the collection is housed at the Days of '76 Museum are poor and the items are not protected from water, temperature fluctuations, or animals and insects. With this Save America's Treasures grant, at-risk artifacts will be conserved in accordance with a previously conducted assessment and the collection will be stabilized.

National Endowment for the Arts · an independent federal agency
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Washington, DC 20506