Indiana Humanities awards more than $80,000 in grants 

Since January, Indiana Humanities has awarded more than two dozen cultural institutions, libraries, universities and other nonprofit organizations with grants to provide public humanities programs in their communities.  

Projects supported by Indiana Humanities funding include a poetry reading in celebration of the total solar eclipse; a student competition highlighting Japanese language and culture; an exhibition exploring the history of headwear; an oral-history program that collects the stories of South Bend’s LGBTQ community; an exhibition, talks and tours on Indiana’s historic barns; a series of programs telling the story of the Potawatomi in northwest Indiana; and more. 

“We’re pleased to award so many grants across the state in the first quarter of 2024,” said George Hanlin, director of grants at Indiana Humanities. “Our program partners are presenting a diverse array of public humanities programs that will touch people in nearly every part of Indiana. We look forward to seeing how far our reach will extend throughout the year.” 

From January 1 through April 12, 2024, Indiana Humanities awarded 13 Action Grants, 9 Historic Preservation Education Grants, and 4 INcommon Grants totaling $81,294.  

Action Grants (up to $3,000) support nonprofit organizations that sponsor public humanities programs such as exhibitions, workshops, lectures and reading and discussion programs. 

Historic Preservation Education Grants (up to $3,000, offered in partnership with Indiana Landmarks) fund public programs that educate Indiana citizens about historic places and properties—and particularly about the need to preserve and protect them. 

INcommon Grants (up to $5,000) support programs that use humanities ideas, readings and scholars to spark in-depth thinking and conversation around the persistent social, economic, cultural and racial issues that our communities continue to face. 

The following are the organizations that received grants (full descriptions of the projects follow): 

Action Grants 

• Brick Street Poetry, Zionsville 
• Ball State University, Muncie 
• Indiana Landmarks, Indianapolis 
• Ernest Hemingway Foundation, Evansville 
• Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame 
• Indiana Historical Society, Indianapolis 
• Indianapolis Public Library Foundation, Indianapolis 
• University of Southern Indiana, Evansville 
• Cedar Lake Historical Association, Cedar Lake 
• Indiana Council on World Affairs, Indianapolis 
• Ruthmere Foundation, Elkhart 
• Starke County Public Library System, Knox 
• YWCA Northeast Indiana, Fort Wayne 

Historic Preservation Education Grants 

• Calumet Heritage Partnership, Chesterton 
• Crown Hill Heritage Foundation, Indianapolis 
• Downtown Princeton, Inc., Princeton 
• Fountain Fletcher District Association, Indianapolis 
• Friends of the Frankfort Public Library, Frankfort 
• Great Towns, Inc., Indianapolis 
• Indiana Lincoln Highway Association, South Bend 
• Main Street Plainfield, Plainfield 
• Trustees of Indiana University/Indiana University Press, Bloomington 

INcommon Grants 

• Cedar Lake Historical Association, Cedar Lake 
• Kheprw Institute, Indianapolis 
• Center for Sustainable Living, Bloomington 
• Trustees of Indiana University/Center for Africana Studies and Culture, Indianapolis 

Following are descriptions of the projects. 

Action Grants 

The Hidden Sun 

Brick Street Poetry, Zionsville 

Congressional District: 7 

Awarded: $3,000 

Program Date: March–April 2024 

Brick Street Poetry used grant funds to support public poetry programming related to the April 8, 2024, solar eclipse in Greencastle, Martinsville, Vincennes, Zionsville and other Indiana towns and cities. In Greencastle, poets performed works inspired by the once-in-a-lifetime event and engaged in discussion about the creative process and humans’ relationship with the eclipse. Funds also assisted with the creation of banners featuring poems and eclipse-related imagery for display in the communities. 

2024 Japanese Olympiad of Indiana 

Ball State University, Muncie 

Congressional District: 5 

Awarded: $2,666 

Program Date: February 2024 

Ball State University hosted the 2024 Japanese Olympiad of Indiana, an academic competition focused on Japanese language, culture and history for high school students in Indiana. In addition to the competition, participants enjoyed cultural presentations and demonstrations. 

Harry Davis: An Artist Shaped by the Times 

Indiana Landmarks, Indianapolis 

Congressional District: 7 

Awarded: $2,000 

Program Date: June–July 2024 

Indiana Landmarks will host a public talk and exhibition celebrating Indiana artist Harry A. Davis, who is widely recognized for his teaching and artwork, particularly his architectural renderings of historic Hoosier buildings. Grant funds will support a presentation by art historian Rachel B. Perry that will explore Davis’s artistic journey and examine the influences that shaped his work and affected his worldview. Following the talk, attendees will have the opportunity to view Davis’s work via an exhibition that will be on display for six weeks at Indiana Landmarks’ headquarters. 

Reading Hemingway’s In Our Time: A Centenary Celebration 

Ernest Hemingway Foundation, Evansville 

Congressional District: 8 

Awarded: $3,000 

Program Date: January–December 2024 

Ernest Hemingway scholar and University of Evansville English professor Mark Cirino will produce 18 new episodes for the podcast series One True Podcast, which explores Hemingway’s life, work and world. The new episodes will celebrate the centennial of Hemingway’s first collection of short stories, In Our Time, and will feature analysis of each of the collection’s chapters along with discussion of that vignette’s historical, biographical and literary contexts. As part of the project, Cirino will present content and findings from the podcast to a public continuing-education class at the University of Evansville. 

Queer Oral History Project Collaboration between Saint Mary’s College and LGBTQ Center of South Bend 

Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame 

Congressional District: 2 

Awarded: $3,000 

Program Date: February 2024—February 2025 

Students at Saint Mary’s College will conduct oral-history interviews with 20 people associated with South Bend’s LGBTQ Center in honor of the center’s 20th anniversary. They’ll then collaborate with Indiana University South Bend’s Civil Rights Heritage Center to create and house the histories in an archival collection. Students will also engage the public with the materials through an exhibition, a multimedia digital storytelling project and an audio listening session, and they’ll make the materials available to the LGBTQ Center for use at its 20th-anniversary gala in 2025. 

Resist! 

Indiana Historical Society, Indianapolis 

Congressional District: 7 

Awarded: $2,400 

Program Date: April 2024–August 2025 

The Indiana Historical Society will host an exhibit called Resist! from April 2024 to August 2025. The exhibit will focus on a 1924 clash between University of Notre Dame students and the Ku Klux Klan in South Bend, utilizing archival materials, virtual reality and first-person interpretations to tell the story. Themes will focus on constructs of race and ethnicity, the history and legacy of the Klan, and resistance to the Klan. The exhibit will also elevate other individuals and groups who spoke out against the Klan.  

Preserving Community Voices, an Oral History Symposium 

Indianapolis Public Library Foundation, Indianapolis 

Congressional District: 7 

Awarded: $2,960 

Program Date: August 2024 

The Indianapolis Public Library will host an all-day training session to help local residents develop the knowledge and skills they need to capture their own communities’ historical and cultural narrative through oral-history projects. Sessions will cover technology, copyright and project planning and implementation. Doug Boyd, director of the Louis B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky Libraries, will deliver the keynote address. 

Heritage Artisans Days 

University of Southern Indiana, Evansville 

Congressional District: 8 

Awarded: $3,000 

Program Date: April 2024 

Heritage Artisans Days, hosted by the University of Southern Indiana and Historic New Harmony, welcomed approximately 2,500 elementary school students to experience New Harmony in the early 1800s. More than a dozen artisans and interpreters described their lives, demonstrated their crafts and explained their roles in the context of New Harmony’s beginnings. By hearing their stories, students learned about the significance of New Harmony’s two utopian communities and the communities’ influence on Indiana’s development. 

Culinary Anthropology 

Cedar Lake Historical Association, Cedar Lake 

Congressional District: 1 

Awarded: $3,000 

Program Date: May–June 2024 

The Cedar Lake Historical Association will develop an exhibition on the Potawatomi people, with a focus on the moons of the Potawatomi calendar, changes in seasons and the ways that the Potawatomi hunted and planted and harvested food around the Cedar Lake. As supplementary programming, the CLHA will bring in a scholar to present two sessions on the native vegetation of the Calumet Region, the diet of the Potawatomi and the influence that Europeans had on the foodways of northwest Indiana. In a third program, a local chef who focuses on culinary anthropology will prepare a meal inspired by the Potawatomi tradition. 

Migration-Immigration: Responding to Demographic Shifts 

Indiana Council on World Affairs, Indianapolis 

Congressional District: 7 

Awarded: $3,000 

Program Date: April 2024 

The Indiana Council on World Affairs will partner with the International Center of Indiana, the Global Village Welcome Center and the Center for Interfaith Cooperation to plan and facilitate a programming series designed to help participants better understand the social, cultural and economic drivers of immigration and to identify strategies for successful integration of immigrants into the state of Indiana. Programming elements include two workshops, an information tabling event, an international dinner and a keynote speaker. 

The Global Language of Headwear: Cultural Identity, Rites of Passage, and Spirituality Special Exhibition 

Ruthmere Foundation, Elkhart 

Congressional District: 2 

Awarded: $3,000 

Program Date: July—September 2024 

The Ruthmere Foundation will host a traveling exhibit titled The Global Language of Headwear that explores the cultural identity, rites of passage and spirituality that various headwear represent. The exhibit presents 89 hats and headdresses carefully selected to represent a diverse group of cultures and cultural ideas. Attendees will be invited to consider their meaning, symbolism and importance. Accompanying programming will include a scholarly talk on the use of headwear in religious practices as well as free family days and children’s activities.  

Beyond the Book Festival 

Starke County Public Library System, Knox 

Congressional District: 2 

Awarded: $3,000 

Program Date: September 2024 

The Starke County Public Library will host the Beyond the Book Festival, a one-day event that will showcase more than 30 local, national and international authors. The goals of the festival are to connect readers with writers; illustrate the many ways that reading encourages personal and cultural empathy and knowledge; and encourage the love of reading and creative expression in children and adults. Authors will meet with patrons, sign books, give presentations and facilitate workshops as part of the day’s programming. 

Allyship and Film Series with YWCA Northeast Indiana and Fort Wayne Cinema Center 

YWCA Northeast Indiana, Fort Wayne 

Congressional District: 3 

Awarded: $3,000 

Program Date: April—August 2024 

The YWCA of Northeast Indiana’s Racial Justice program will partner with the Fort Wayne Cinema Center to plan and host a three-film event series that will engage audiences in building cross-cultural understanding, empathy and allyship. The series will promote the voices and stories of marginalized groups and educate viewers through specialized scholar facilitation and thought-provoking community discussion. 

Historic Preservation Education Grants 

Calumet Chronicles: Historic Architecture of Northwest Indiana 

Calumet Heritage Partnership, Chesterton 

Congressional District: 1 

Awarded: $2,900 

Program Date: January–March 2025 

The Calumet Heritage Partnership will create a series of five videos that will engage, inform and entertain viewers as they learn about notable built structures in northwest Indiana. Each video will cover an architecturally or historically significant site that is either thriving today as a result of careful planning or that currently needs more attention and resources devoted to its preservation. Project directors will post the videos online, share them on social media and incorporate them into in-person programming. They also hope to include signage at each site with a QR code linking to the site’s video. 

Crown Hill Cemetery Historic Preservation Programs for Students 

Crown Hill Heritage Foundation, Indianapolis 

Congressional District: 7 

Awarded: $3,000 

Program Date: April–October 2024 

The Crown Hill Heritage Foundation will use grant funds to support its 2024 field trips, which provide preservation-related programs for students from kindergarten through college. Activities will include cemetery tours, workshops on how to clean tombstones, summer camps, presentations on architectural history, discussion of preservation standards and more. 

Historic Princeton, Indiana 

Downtown Princeton, Inc., Princeton 

Congressional District: 8 

Awarded: $500 

Program Date: June–December 2024 

Downtown Princeton, Inc., is in the process of nominating to the National Register of Historic Places two historic districts: downtown’s courthouse square and the Devin District. As it undertakes these efforts, it will host educational lunch and learns for the community. Local and statewide experts will provide information on historic properties within the districts, the benefits of inclusion on the National Register, the value of historic preservation broadly, the positive impact that historic preservation has on communities, preservation guidance and more. 

Fountain Fletcher Digital History Tour 

Fountain Fletcher District Association, Indianapolis 

Congressional District: 7 

Awarded: $3,000 

Program Date: January 2025 

The Fountain Fletcher District Association will create a digital tour highlighting the history and architecture of Indianapolis’ Fountain Square and Fletcher Place neighborhoods. It will place signs with QR codes in the windows of 18 historic buildings/locations; each QR code will direct users to a web page featuring primary-source documents, oral-history narratives, images and videos explaining the history of the location. In addition to individual pages, the home page for the tour will feature a map so that visitors can start at one location and explore the neighborhoods in person or virtually. 

Barns and Blooms 

Friends of the Frankfort Public Library, Frankfort 

Congressional District: 4 

Awarded: $3,000 

Program Date: May 2024 

The Friends of the Frankfort Public Library will host a series of events celebrating Indiana’s historic barns. Activities will include an exhibition about barns, including artwork and information about the history of barns provided by the Indiana Barn Foundation; a presentation by a member of the Indiana Barn Foundation highlighting the organization’s work; and tours of the Red Barn Summer Theatre (housed in a 1908 cattle barn) and the Old Gray Barn (an event venue housed in a restored 1930s barn). 

If These Walls Could Talk: Tipton, Indiana 

Great Towns, Inc., Indianapolis 

Congressional District: 7 

Awarded: $3,000 

Program Date: May 2024 

Great Towns will sponsor an educational program/competition for high-school students in the town of Tipton. Students will research and write essays about the background and potential reuse of historic buildings in the town. Judges will evaluate the essays and select up to four finalists, who will then create videos about the buildings they researched. The videos will be on display at local venues such as the high school, public library and historical society. 

Not Just a Blue Line: Showcasing the Indiana Lincoln Highway  

Indiana Lincoln Highway Association, South Bend 

Congressional District: 2 

Awarded: $3,000 

Program Date: June 2024 

The Indiana Lincoln Highway Association is hosting the 30th-annual national Lincoln Highway Association conference in Elkhart. Grant funds will support presentations and guided bus tours that will highlight the region’s unique history, architecture, natural beauty, art, culture, food and industry for conference attendees and interested members of the general public. 

Main Street Plainfield: Where Stories Unfold 

Main Street Plainfield, Plainfield 

Congressional District: 4 

Awarded: $3,000 

Program Date: April–May 2025 

Main Street Plainfield will update its website to educate the community about the rich history of downtown Plainfield. The refreshed website will feature sections with interactive timelines, historical articles and multimedia content, allowing visitors to explore the evolution of downtown Plainfield and gain a deeper appreciation for its cultural significance. Residents will be invited to share their own stories and photos related to downtown Plainfield, fostering a sense of community and preserving local narratives. 

Architecture in Indianapolis, Volume 2: 1900–1920 

Trustees of Indiana University/Indiana University Press, Bloomington 

Congressional District: 9 

Awarded: $3,000 

Program Date: March 2025 

Indiana University Press will use grant funds to support publication of the second volume of Architecture in Indianapolis covering the years 1900 to 1920. The book, researched and written by historic preservation expert James A. Glass, will discuss the evolution and development of Indianapolis’s early-20th-century architecture and will include full-color illustrations and locator maps. As part of public outreach, Glass has delivered and will continue to present a series of lectures highlighting many of the buildings featured in the book. 

INcommon Grants 

Indigenous History Programs 

Cedar Lake Historical Association, Cedar Lake 

Congressional District: 1 

Awarded: $4,868 

Program Date: July–October 2024 

The Cedar Lake Historical Association’s Indigenous history programs will elevate the interpretation of the pre-European presence of the Potawatomi people at Cedar Lake through projects including a land-acknowledgment outdoor exhibit, guest speakers, book studies, narrative additions to CLHA’s steamboat tours and content updates to its educational website. 

Mo*Con: “The Mo*Con Comics Group” 

Kheprw Institute, Indianapolis 

Congressional District: 7 

Awarded: $5,000 

Program Date: May 2024 

As part of its Mo*Con writers convention, the Kheprw Institute will facilitate a series of public conversations on topics such as the legacy of Octavia Butler, the role of graphic novels in Afrofuturism, the work of professional magazine editors and more. The conversations will take place at University High School, Ujamaa Community Bookstore, the Ark/Alkhemy Community Wealth Building Center and other locations throughout greater Indianapolis. 

Bloomington Beyond Borders: Expanding Communities of Care 

Center for Sustainable Living, Bloomington 

Congressional District: 9 

Awarded: $5,000 

Program Date: June—August 2024 

An affiliate of the Center for Sustainable Living, Redbud Books, will host a series of public programs that aims to initiate wide-ranging conversations with Bloomington’s artists, intellectuals, activists and community members about the ways—visible and invisible—that borders shape our lives and the methods we engage to cultivate practices of communal care. Programming will include a month-long reading group of the book Borders, Human Itineraries, and All Our Relations, a roundtable discussion with the authors of the text and a four-film screening series. 

Out of the Gardens: The Dust Bowl Story 

Trustees of Indiana University/Center for Africana Studies and Culture, Indianapolis 

Congressional District: 7 

Awarded: $5,000 

Program Date: February 2025 

The Center for Africana Studies and Culture at IUPUI will produce and screen a feature-length documentary chronicling the history of Indianapolis’ Dust Bowl basketball tournament and its legacy for the proliferation of Black joy, resistance and culturally insistent place-making. For years, the Dust Bowl tournament took place in Lockefield Gardens, a public-housing development near Indiana Avenue, a part of the city that was deemed undesirable by most white residents. The 60-minute film will tell the story of how, out of this racial isolation, a Black epicenter emerged in the arts and in business, and how sports have made an impact on culture. 

For more information about Indiana Humanities’ grants, contact George Hanlin, director of grants, at ghanlin@indianahumanities.org.