PPH receives grants from the NEH, IMLS, and MOTT

PORTER-PHELPS-HUNTINGTON MUSEUM

Receives grants from the National Endowment of the Humanities, Institute of Museum and Library Services, and Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism for the reinterpretation and commemoration of the American Revolution at “Forty Acres”

HADLEY- The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Foundation (PPH) has received three grants totalling $80,950 to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution. PPH has received a Historic Places Planning Grant from the National Endowment of the Humanities (NEH), an Inspire! Grants for Small Museums award from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), and a MA250 award from the Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism (MOTT).  These awards will fund research, a new exhibit and programming titled “Forty Acres and the American Revolution: Stories of Independence and Servitude,” and the renovation of the Museum’s historic North Garden, all planned for 2025. 

The Historic Places Planning Grant award, in the amount of $40,000, is part of the NEH initiative: “American Tapestry: Weaving Together Past, Present, and Future.” The 2024 Inspire! Grant, in the amount of $23,450, furthers the goals of the IMLS250 “All Stories, All People, All Places” initiative. The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum’s project will combine funding from these two national awards to cover discrete aspects of the  new historical research, exhibit planning, and program development that will share the experiences of individuals in rural Western Massachusetts who are rarely considered in accounts of the American Revolution. With this funding, PPH will present the life stories of Cesar Phelps, Peg Bowen, George and Mary Andries, and John Morison, 18th-century enslaved and indentured laborers at the Forty Acres farmstead, whose experiences embody the complex relations between American Independence and servitude. The exhibit “Forty Acres and the American Revolution: Stories of Independence and Servitude” and accompanying programming will contribute to a nationwide collaborative network of semiquincentennial commemorations - Massachusetts project “Rev250.”-  which commemorates America’s 250th anniversary. 

Funds from these two federal grants will also support the restoration and the reinterpretation of the North Garden, an ornamental English style garden created by John Morison, a Scottish Highlander, ornamental gardener, and prisoner of war indentured at Forty Acres in 1778 and who remained as a gardener on the property for the rest of his life.

The MA250 grant, in the amount of $17,500, awarded from the Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism, supports programing and marketing related to the American Revolution’s 250th anniversary.  This highly competitive grant disbursed 1.5 million to 37 recipients, of which only three are located in Western MA. For this grant PPH will collaborate with the Hadley Historical Society in producing MA250 programming including a concert, a speaker series, and cemetery tours.

The National Endowment for the Humanities is the only federal agency in the United States dedicated to funding the humanities. Since its founding in 1965, NEH has awarded nearly $6 billion in grants to museums, historic sites, colleges, universities, K–12 teaching, libraries, public television and radio stations, research institutions, independent scholars, and to its humanities council affiliates in each of the nation’s 56 states and jurisdictions. The Institute of Museum and Library Services is the primary source of federal support for the nation’s libraries and museums, and advances, supports, and empowers America’s museums, libraries, and related organizations through grantmaking, research, and policy development. IMLS envisions a nation where individuals and communities have access to museums and libraries to learn from and be inspired by the trusted information, ideas, and stories they contain about our diverse natural and cultural heritage. The Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism promotes Massachusetts as a leisure-travel destination.

The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Foundation acknowledges that it occupies the unceded lands of the Nonotuck people. The Porter-Phelps-Huntington House was built in 1752 by Moses and Elizabeth Porter and was central to the 600-acre farmstead known as “Forty Acres.” Today, the 114 acre property is “Forty Acres and Its Skirts”, a National Register historic district that includes the PPH museum and homestead, and neighboring Phelps farm, surrounded by protected farmland, forest, and river frontage. The Museum contains a collection of the belongings of seven generations of one extended Hadley family, and portrays the activities of family members, enslaved people, artisans, household servants, and farm laborers who made "Forty Acres" an important social and commercial link in local, regional and national cultural and economic networks.   The Museum is open for tours from 1pm-4pm Friday, Saturday, and Sunday until October 13, 2024. Outdoor folk music concerts will resume in June of 2025. For more information visit www.pphmuseum.org  or call (413) 584-4699.