During Women’s History Month, the National Trust for Historic Preservation is pleased to announce the fourth round of Dorothy C. Radgowski Learning Through Women’s Achievement in the Arts grants to five Historic Artists' Homes and Studios (HAHS) sites. The projects in this latest round of grants will receive $76,577 in awards this March, significantly expanding the partnership between the Where Women Made History program and HAHS that connects K-5 students to the lives and accomplishments of women at historic places. To date the program has funded over $265,000 of innovative new student- and family-based STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math) educational programming at 16 HAHS sites across the country.

“I’m awed by the creativity of these projects and the depth of their commitment to recognizing women as a central part of their history,” said Chris Morris, senior director of preservation programs at the National Trust and leader of Where Women Made History. “Thousands of students, families, and teachers across the country are benefitting from these programs that introduce them to art making, engineering, botany, biology, chemistry, ecology, math, physics, and so much more through the lives of the women who shaped these historic sites. It’s transforming how both children and adults experience and understand these places.”

“It is wonderful to see these sites acknowledged as the important sources for creative learning that they are; providing educational resources and hands-on engagement opportunities that extend well beyond a traditional student field trip excursion,” adds Valerie Balint, Director of HAHS. “It is so fulfilling to see these grant funds serve as a catalyst for sites to build new relationships with educators, schools, and schools districts that will have impact far beyond the specific project awarded.”

The five projects funded in this latest grant round illustrate the many influential roles women played at home, in the art studio, in their communities, and in our national history:

Ann Norton Sculpture Garden (West Palm Beach, FL) for “From Stone to STEAM: Where Science and Art Bloom.” One of the most significant female sculptors of the 20th century, Ann Norton (1905-1982) created monumental works that boldly defied traditional expectations and were groundbreaking for their intentional integration with nature. Her works were designed to harmonize with the gardens she carefully cultivated at her home and studio, creating immersive art environments that today are the perfect setting for 300 elementary school students (grades 1-3) to participate in the Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens’ (ANSG) “STEAM Day.” Local institutes, educators, and professionals will partner with ANSG on a series of hands-on learning and problem-solving activities for the students to explore the engineering and design principles underlying Norton’s monumental sculptures, visualize how creativity and the senses are processed in the brain, create their own Norton-inspired artworks, and more, with curricula and activities they can take away for continued learning at home and in the classroom.

Demuth Foundation (Lancaster, PA) for “Augusta’s STEAM Academy: On-Site Workshops Exploring Horticulture and Culinary Arts.” The Demuth Foundation is dedicated to preserving the legacy and groundbreaking artwork of painter Charles Demuth, but much less attention has been given to Demuth’s mother, Augusta (1856-1943), who single-handedly ran the household, raising her son and pursuing her creative outlets of cooking and gardening. “Augusta’s STEAM Academy” will build on and celebrate the new museum gallery dedicated to interpreting this influential woman at the site. A new series of 6 on-site, educational workshops for students (grades 3-5) will bring Master Gardeners and culinary instructors to the museum to lead activities in the garden and the kitchen that draw on Augusta’s own recipes and favorite plants. These will be complemented by STEAM-based lessons on horticulture, color theory, weather, garden design, cooking chemistry, math, measurement, and household technology to demonstrate how Augusta’s personal interests in cooking and gardening profoundly influenced the family’s environment and Charles’ artwork.

Norman Rockwell Museum (Stockbridge, MA) for “Open Studio: Expanding the Narrative of Norman Rockwell’s The Problem We All Live With.” Norman Rockwell’s widely published illustrations offered everyday people an opportunity to participate in the national conversation in a way that few artists of his time could. The Stockbridge studio is where Rockwell created his series of 1960s paintings contemplating the complexities of a racially diverse and divided country during the civil rights era, including his iconic 1964 work, The Problem We All Live With. A new immersive and interactive virtual studio field trip and curriculum materials will introduce thousands of K-12 students across the country to the experiences of the four young Black girls —Ruby Bridges, Leona Tate, Gail Etienne, and Tessie Prevost—who directly challenged school segregation in New Orleans and inspired the painting, and bring long-overdue attention to Rockwell’s young Stockbridge neighbor, Lynda Gunn, who was the life model for this powerful artwork.

Stone Quarry Hill Art Park (Cazenovia, NY) for “Artland: A Library of Video Teaching Tools to Guide Student Exploration of Art and Nature.” Artist, educator, and conservationist Dorothy Riester (1916-2017) left a lasting mark on the Syracuse area, creating and founding the104-acre Stone Quarry Hill Art Park for the public’s enjoyment of art and nature. This project will position Stone Quarry and its historic Dorothy Riester House and Studio as educational resources. An in-depth workshop will inform a series of new video-based teaching tools that supplement STEAM curricula for grades 4-6. By bringing together art and science educators with Stone Quarry staff, artists, and expert advisors, these videos will demonstrate how Dorothy and and the Park’s contemporary visiting artists utilize science, technology, and engineering in their art marking. This project will provide a consistent framework for students to engage with the art and land of Stone Quarry––both on site and in the classroom.

Thomas Cole National Historic Site (Catskill, NY) for “Lesson Plans and On-Site Programs Using Historic Paintings to Explore Botany and Ecology.” Artist Emily Cole (1843-1913) exhibited and sold her paintings, received critical acclaim, and was a founding member of the NY Society of Ceramic Arts. She shared a studio with her father, Thomas, in successive decades and installed a kiln on the grounds to create her botanical paintings on porcelain that documented many of the plant species in their gardens. Working with local teachers, a science master teacher, and an herbalist, the Cole National Historic Site will develop a series of classroom lesson plans (grades K-3) and on-site programs using Emily’s 19th-century botanical paintings and the gardens to study botany, ecology, and pigment making. A new visually engaging plant identification guide for the Site will serve K-3 student and their visiting young families and will be available to visitors and learners of all ages.

Following their successful first collaboration at the Stone Quarry Park in Cazenovia, New York, the Women’s Leadership Initiative of RAMSA (Robert A.M. Stern Architects) renewed their commitment to provide substantial pro bono design, planning, and technical expertise in support of the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Where Women Made History (WWMH) initiative. The National Trust is honored that RAMSA leadership and the Women’s Leadership Initiative are continuing and expanding our pilot partnership with $100,000 in professional services directed to an important site of women’s history in need.

History of the Palmer Memorial Institute

The RAMSA and WWMH team unanimously decided that the full amount of RAMSA’s gift of services will be dedicated to master planning at the Palmer Memorial Institute in Sedalia, North Carolina, a State of North Carolina Historic Site and home to the Charlotte Hawkins Brown Museum. Founded in 1902 by civil rights advocate, suffragist, and educator, Dr. Charlotte Hawkins Brown, the Alice Freeman Palmer Memorial Institute transformed the lives of the African American students who attended school there.

Following Dr. Brown’s death in 1961 the school struggled financially, changing ownership and then officially closing in 1971. After many years of effort and advocacy, the surviving Palmer buildings and 40 acres of the central campus were purchased by the North Carolina's Division of Archives and History as the first African American state historic site. Funding for maintenance and operation continued to be a challenge at the property, and in 2022 Palmer Memorial Institute was listed on the National Trust’s the America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places list to draw attention to the deteriorated state of the buildings at this important site of Black history and women’s history.

A Coalition of Support

Since the listing, a project team composed of predominantly women architects, designers, and planners from RAMSA, along with National Trust staff from Where Women Made History, HOPE (Hands-on Preservation Experience) Crew, and the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, have been meeting with leadership at the Charlotte Hawkins Brown Museum, Palmer Alumni, and the NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. Our goal was to understand the needs and condition of the 12 buildings and the central landscape, and their potential to be rehabilitated and reactivated to achieve the State staff’s compelling vision for the campus as a center of Black community, public events, and learning that carries on the legacy of Charlotte Hawkins Brown.

In 2024, to reinforce this work and support the future of the site, the Action Fund awarded Charlotte Hawkins Brown Museum at the Historic Palmer Memorial Institute $75,000 for Endowment Project Planning.

Both the team and the project are grounded in a deep respect for the legacy and achievements of Charlotte Hawkins Brown and the many students, alumni, and heirs who shaped the campus and its history. Over the next 3-4 months the RAMSA team members will consult with the NC State staff and National Trust staff to create a master plan for the main campus, which will highlight and enhance that legacy by positioning the Palmer campus and historic site to become a vibrant center of education, research, training, and events for learners of all ages and interests.

Their work will include assessing the potential to undertake practical rehabilitation projects to achieve the desired uses in the existing buildings and landscapes. This will include written recommendations for a phasing strategy to establish near-term and long-term priority projects. They also will create compelling visuals (building plans, landscape plans, space plans, rendering, etc.) of specific projects and proposed uses that will assist the State staff, administration, alumni, donors, stakeholders, and community members in envisioning the proposed projects and their positive impact on the Palmer campus and its operations.

During Women’s History Month, the National Trust for Historic Preservation is delighted to announce the third round of Dorothy C. Radgowski Learning Through Women’s Achievement in the Arts grants to four Historic Artists' Homes and Studios (HAHS) sites. The projects in this latest round of grants will receive a total of $71,000 in awards this March, continuing and expanding the successful partnership between the Where Women Made History program and HAHS to engage young students in the lives and work of women at historic places.

Thanks to a generous expanded gift from our lead donor, the National Trust has now provided nearly $190,000 to fund creative new student- and family-based STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math) educational programming at 11 sites across the HAHS network.

“We are so fortunate to have a donor who understands the importance of this type of groundbreaking educational programming,” said Chris Morris, senior director of preservation programs at the National Trust and leader of Where Women Made History. ”As part of our larger commitment to increasing gender equity in our work, these grant projects are changing the ways in which the public--particularly young people--encounter women’s stories and achievements at historic places.”

“All of the projects funded by the Radgowski grants will become part of a virtual casebook of educational models for historic sites that the National Trust will document and share widely later this year,” added Valerie Balint, director of HAHS. “These grant awards and resulting projects are impactful for the entire network of HAHS sites and beyond. They provide critical funds and important programmatic examples for engaging young students - something sites throughout the country are striving to do. “

The four projects funded in this latest grant round showcase very different types of female artists across the country, drawing on their personal histories and the intersection of the arts and sciences to examine complex issue of identity, self-reliance, social advocacy, the relationship between art and the natural environment, and much more:

Alice Austen House (Staten Island, New York) for “Alice Austen’s Lens: Bringing the Mobile Photography STEAM Wagon to PS 59: The Harbor View School.” The Alice Austen House will retrofit and transform a mobile food pantry truck into a “STEAM Wagon,” a mobile classroom and photographic lab. Through a six- week intensive residency program delivered to every grade level at the nearby PS 59 on Staten Island, students will look closely at the life and artwork of Alice Austen (1866-1952), one of America’s first female photographers who produced over 7,000 photographs of a rapidly changing New York City through the lens of her lesbian identity. Students will learn how Austen and her female peers broke boundaries of acceptable female roles and created groundbreaking art and inventions; will explore a range of photographic techniques from the Victorian era guided by teaching artists; and create an exhibition of their own photography.

Elisabet Ney Museum (Austin, Texas) for “Breaking the Mold: Mobile Hands-On Art Crates Featuring Art, History, and Science Programs.” Elisabet Ney (1833-1907) was a German-born, emigree sculptor who defied societal norms in the 19th century and broke down barriers for future women artists. This program is designed to address the shortfall of arts education in local public schools by providing comprehensive materials, along with qualified museum education staff, to lead classroom discussions and guide K-5 students through a series of three hands-on activities. Working with a science teacher and an arts education coordinator, Ney Museum staff will create curricula and three different traveling Art Crates focused on distinct aspects of Ney’s story as a suffragist living and working in a male-dominated sculpting field, and her story as an immigrant. Ney’s process as an artist, her social advocacy, her rightful place in Texas history, plus her admiration of the natural world will be evident in the out-of-the box designs and innovative object-centered teaching lessons in each of the Art Crates.

Pond Farm Pottery (Guerneville, California) for “4th Graders Explore Design, Physics, and Nature at Marguerite Wildenhain's Pond Farm Pottery.” For decades Pond Farm Pottery was the studio and home of artist and educator Marguerite Wildenhain (1896-1985), the first female master potter trained at the Bauhaus in 1925. This project for local 4th grade students will consist of field trips to Pond Farm Pottery that connect the artistic concepts of texture, form, and color with Wildenhain’s legacy and themes of resilience and perseverance. Students will learn from Wildenhain’s philosophies and teaching pedagogy and strengthen their observational skills by learning from a pottery educator demonstrating throwing a pot on one of the kick wheels; exploring patterns, colors, and forms found in nature; creating their own work with clay; and sharing what they learned. Ultimately this pilot project will be expanded from two local school districts to nearly 40 other schools.

Frelinghuysen Morris House & Studio (Lenox, Massachusetts) for “Suzy's Palette: Exploring Abstract Color Relationships with Personal and Mathematical Insights.” By examining the paintings of opera singer and abstract artist, Suzy Frelinghuysen (1911–1988), the museum staff and local educators will create pilot workshops and a lesson plan for 4th and 5th graders that uses math as a method to teach students to appreciate and understand the color proportions and formal composition principles in abstract art. The lesson plan will be developed over the course of 20-30 on-site student workshops, and the final lesson plan will become part of a toolkit for educators that contains all project research, along with clips of a new video that will provide an overview of the House & Studio, Suzy’s story and her art, and “how to” guidance for teachers or parents undertaking the lessons outlined in the toolkit.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation is pleased to announce the second round of Dorothy C. Radgowski Learning Through Women’s Achievement in the Arts grants to three Historic Artists' Homes and Studios (HAHS) sites. This grant round, made possible with funding from the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, continues and expands the successful partnership between the Where Women Made History program and HAHS. With these awards, the National Trust has provided $118,365 in grants during the first year of the program to support the exploration of women’s wide-ranging influence at sites of creativity across the HAHS network.

These projects represent groundbreaking work in gender equity, public engagement, and student education at historic places, with imaginative approaches to connecting women to the arts and sciences that embrace new partnerships in the sciences and education, elevate diversity and inclusion, and adopt multiple program types including in-class, after school, and online options.

The projects will receive a total of $49,865 in awards this July and will become part of the virtual casebook of educational models for historic sites that the National Trust plans to document and share widely in 2024:

Thomas and Mary Nimmo Moran Studio (East Hampton, New York) for “Artistic Identities: Using STEAM, History, and Artmaking to Understand Gender, Race, and Class.” Mary Nimmo Moran’s and Sarah Fowler’s lives intersected at the Moran Home & Studio in the 1880s and 1890s. Through the etchings of Nimmo Moran and the beading and basket weaving of Fowler (a member of the Montaukett Indian Nation), this afterschool program will explore how both women used science to create artwork expressing their identity and heritage. An intensive 28-week OST (Out of School Time) program will center on opportunities to learn science and history while incorporating a comprehensive art program featuring artmaking with professional artists and members of several Long Island Indigenous communities. The program is designed to help students meet NY State learning standards for grades 4-6, improve student achievement, school attendance, and social and emotional learning. A potential “in-class” version of the program available for all five local school districts will be considered as well.

Mabel and Victor D’Amico Home and Studio and Art Barge (Amagansett, New York) for “Mabel D’Amico Full STEAM Ahead: A Found Object Art Tour and Workshop.” This project will celebrate and amplify the experimental art-making and innovative teaching of Mabel D’Amico with a five-phase, multi-day program that can be adjusted to fit the needs of educational partners. Mabel’s pedagogy, lifestyle, and artmaking are the sources of inspiration for the program, encouraging children to learn about the natural environment around them through engagement in the creative process. Hands-on, found-object construction experiences align with Mabel’s artwork and build on her connection to the natural environment and wildlife around her home, studio, and the art barge. Students will consider scale, balance, stability, and materials used in Mabel’s work, and explore the skills used in building and sculptural construction. A new, free online video will highlight Mabel’s deep connection to the local environment in her artwork and collections, and will include descriptions of Mabel’s construction process along with detailed steps for creating found-object construction.

Sam and Alfreda Maloof Foundation for Arts and Crafts (Alta Loma, California) for “Alfreda Maloof and Art, Math and Science Lessons of the Maloof Historic Home.” In partnership with the Ontario Montclair School District (88% Latino/Hispanic student population) and the Smithsonian Institution’s “Leadership for Change” internship program, the Maloof Foundation will expand its four-week K-6 curriculum beyond its current focus on art to incorporate science and environmental teaching. A new “Guide to Science Learning in the Maloof Discovery Garden” will conduct new archival research about the life and work of Alfreda Maloof in the management of the family’s citrus groves, creating up to six new bilingual lessons (in English and Spanish) relating to science, environment, and climate change. The guide will be developed in collaboration with teachers from science academies in local public schools and piloted with students before, during, and after their field trip visits to the Maloof Foundation, and also will be made available as a free, online resource.

"We are confident each of these will produce outstanding projects to address the considerable demand for educational content that allows grade schools students to understand women’s achievements across the arts and sciences in the context of the physical places and environments where they made their impact," said Chris Morris, senior director of preservation programs at the National Trust.

On September 20, 2022 the National Trust for Historic Preservation hosted the last of three events celebrating "Women's Work." This event "Women's Work: A Conversation with Lucy Lippard and Harmony Hammond " was developed by the National Trust’s Where Women Made History program in conjunction with the “Women’s Work” exhibition at Lyndhurst—a National Trust Historic Site located in Tarrytown, New York.

Writer, activist, curator, co-founded various artists’ feminist and activist organizations and publications, and author of 25 books on contemporary art and cultural criticism, Lucy Lippard, will be joined by Harmony Hammond, a leading figure in the development of the feminist art movement in New York in the early 1970s, and co-founder of A.I.R., the first women’s cooperative art gallery in New York. You won’t want to miss this spirited and thought-provoking conversation between two leading figures of the feminist art movement—and two long-time friends—as they reflect on their careers from the 1970s up to the present, and the evolution of “women’s work” in the art world as reflected in the artists and artwork of the Women’s Work exhibition at Lyndhurst.