Funded Projects Query Form
36 matches

Prototyping an interactive tour of Pamplin Historical Park’s battlefield and plantation.

We are designing an Augmented Reality application for visitors to Pamplin Historical Park in Petersburg, Virginia. At its museums, battlefield, and historic home, Pamplin HP educates large public audiences of all ages about Civil War history. Our application will share new stories, informed by current humanities scholarship, presented in innovative ways. Using mobile devices, visitors will learn about less familiar Civil War topics: interconnections between the environment and military affairs; the war’s transformative impact on African Americans and other civilians; and the benefits of reading both wartime documents and material artifacts with a historian’s eye. They will experience multimedia guided interpretations of historical documents from this place, view videos of historians sharing diverse perspectives, see visualizations of how slavery and war affected the landscape, and more. Visualizing the past in new ways will inspire deeper empathy, curiosity, and understanding.

Prototyping of a multiformat digital project on the history of Los Angeles’s Chinatown.

Los Angeles Chinatown was demolished in the 1930s to make way for Union Station Passenger Terminal. Based upon a cache of historic photographs made prior to destruction, this project brings historical research together with Augmented Reality tools. The latter will allow users, as they walk through the grand rail depot, to see a lost neighborhood. Because the imagery had been meticulously addressed, the Chinatown History Project can locate the images with geospatial accuracy across the throughout the byways of the station and its entrance esplanade. Historical research into census and immigration records, newspaper accounts, oral histories, and other sources further invites users to learn who lived in this or that building, who worked here, who once called this vibrant place home. In a fraught time of anti-Asian thought and behavior, the project invites the public to reflect on the history of the Asian American experience in Southern California and beyond.

Prototyping of an interactive platform that contextualizes Jane Austen’s life, worldview, and works through personal artifacts, novels, and archival documents.

We are applying for an NEH “Digital Projects for the Public - Prototyping” award for $100,000 to provide start-up funding for creating a functioning prototype of “Jane Austen’s Desk” (JAD), a public-facing website that will become a space for scholars, fans, and general readers around the world to explore and learn, as well as connect and collaborate. JAD will simulate Jane Austen’s historical workspace, using Austen’s writing table and traveling writing desk as a conceit for hosting historical, musical, literary, material culture, and philosophical sources in as interactive a manner as possible. Attracting a wide audience, JAD will foreground Austen's active and multi-faceted composition process in the Spring of 1813, when Austen has just published Pride and Prejudice and is composing Mansfield Park. The project will highlight Austen's vicarious travel, particularly via her brothers in the West Indies and elsewhere; her varied reading; and her views on abolition of the slave trade.

Entangled Ecologies is an augmented reality application that would reveal hidden histories and relationships entangled in the 995-acre Shaker Forest, a property located in Enfield, NH. Integrating the environmental humanities with digital technologies and public outreach, this application provides a dynamic historical narrative of the socio-ecological interactions in the area and an opportunity for those engaging with the forest to connect to its rich historical and environmental legacy. Our application will use digital storytelling to highlight and interpret the signs of the complex and at times conflictual intermingling of different human and nonhuman communities in the forest. Through the encounter with augmented reality objects, users will experience the forested landscape as a series of socio-environmental narratives capable of evoking the Shaker Forest’s multi-layered histories in which humans, trees, animals, and geological forces interacted and affected one another.

Prototyping of an interpretive website that integrates 200 years of proposals for new amendments to the Constitution.

The Amendments Project aims to compile, analyze, and present to the public the text of proposed amendments to the U.S. Constitution from 1787 to 2020, in the form of a digital archive and a narrative podcast. The project builds on raw, incomplete, and inaccessible data compiled by the National Archives in 2016 and extends that collection through research designed to discover proposals made by historically disenfranchised and poorly enfranchised groups. Through a collaboration with the Comparative Constitutions Project, the Amendments Project will provide access to this collection to an interested general public that will include researchers and teachers, elected officials, political parties, non-profit organizations, constitutional reformers and, especially, students from kindergarteners to senior learners. The project aims to advance civic education and support emerging proposals for constitutional reform, in alignment with the NEH’s Special Initiative, “A More Perfect Union.”

The Whitesbog Preservation Trust is seeking a one-year $100,000 Prototype Grant for the Deep in the Pines Mobile Experience, to be produced by Whitesbog Preservation Trust and their partner Night Kitchen Interactive. The Deep in the Pines Mobile Experience is an AR/VR mobile application that interprets the history of Whitesbog and the rich and layered past of the Pine Barrens. Crafted in close collaboration with some of the leading scholars in their fields, this project will highlight how Whitesbog Historic Farm and Village has been shaped over centuries through the interaction of nature, technology, and human effort.

Prototyping of a web-based, mobile game that explores the history of the Grand River.

The Grand Rapids Public Museum (GRPM) will create a state-of-the-art digital learning game called River of Time that will engage thousands of players. River of Time will encourage players to explore and interact with humanities content through their smartphones or tablets without having to download an app. The goal of the project is to create a scalable platform, running on the web, that will allow the GRPM to deliver curated information, digital collections, and fun interactive experiences directly through ‘activation points’, triggered by a device’s camera, at locations anywhere in the community. Using personal devices, the game will be offered to the general public, who will be able to access it anywhere, anytime, at no cost. The software will lay the foundation for innovative community engagement that directly ties human experience to Museum quality content. The prototype will focus on activation points along the 40-mile-long Lower Grand River corridor.

Prototyping of an interactive online exhibition exploring the history of ancient Syria through coin distribution.

The SYRIOS Project: Studying Urban Relationships and Identity over Ancient Syria (Prototype) guides a public audience through exploration of the different coins and histories of the city of Antioch during the Greco-Roman period.

Prototyping of an interactive digital history on the New York Conspiracy trials (1741), in which both enslaved people and poor white New Yorkers stood accused of plotting to burn the city and murder its white inhabitants.

Historic Hudson Valley (HHV) requests funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to develop a prototype of a digital graphic history provisionally titled Cuffee’s Trial. This product will depict the trial of Cuffee, an enslaved man accused of conspiracy to commit arson and insurrection in colonial New York. Cuffee, who was among the first of 37 men and women to be tried, convicted, and sentenced to death for what became known as the New York Conspiracy, was the property of Adolph Philipse, the proprietor of Philipsburg Manor, a provisioning plantation that HHV now maintains as a National Historic Landmark in Sleepy Hollow, New York. Cuffee’s Trial represents both HHV’s deep expertise in relaying the history of northern colonial slavery, and our commitment to sharing this knowledge extensively through dynamic digital storytelling. The digital graphic history will become part of our constellation of “Slavery in the Colonial North” digital products.

Prototyping of an online interactive game using Oneida folklore to explore Oneida language, culture, and, philosophy.

The proposed project is an online game for elementary aged children and their parents to introduce them to and support their learning of Oneida language and culture. The game will be structured around the “Thanksgiving Address,” a traditional Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) address that thanks the earth and the environment for all that they give to humanity. The game will include narratives recounting Oneida folklore, with targeted vocabulary introduced throughout based on the content of the stories. Game development will involve collaboration with Oneida tribal organizations as well as with indigenous scholars and artists. A Strong Fire is built on two important and interrelated humanities themes: the experiencing of oral literature, and the introduction to Oneida culture and philosophy via the language, especially the Oneida belief in the Good Mind, which includes recognizing the interconnectedness of all beings and showing gratitude and respect to all beings.

Development of a project prototype using augmented reality and virtual reality to explore the history of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

The Chicago History Museum proposes to create a digital storytelling prototype that transports audiences to the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, where fair-goers are captivated by the technological marvel of the first Ferris wheel. Using virtual and/or augmented reality to share historical images alongside contemporary scenes and extant sites, the project will relay iconic urban history in a bold new way, weaving humanities topics that explore the complexity and relevance of a defining moment in the life of a great American city. Chicago 00: Ferris Wheel will be a user-driven, broadly accessible exploration of history. The prototype process will strongly emphasize evaluation of platforms and themes to help us deliver meaningful immersive reality experiences to new audiences. By integrating evaluative moments throughout, we will identify pathways for design that maximize impact and reach. These pathways and measurement tools will be iterative and shared with peer organizations.

A prototype of a new user interface and four mobile tours charting the history of West Virginia using the digital platform Clio.

With a prototype level grant, Marshall University will design, test, and make freely available a new authoring platform within Clio that will allow scholars and organizations to create walking tours and digital heritage trails that guide users to their next location while they listen to location-aware audio and browse related text and media. Our team will also build features requested by humanities organizations and the public that will enhance Clio www.theclio.com a free website and mobile application that connects the public to humanities scholarship related to nearby historical and cultural sites. Our team will work with community partners to create model tours, user guides, and instructional videos to assist similar organizations to utilize the new platform. Members of the team will also design requested resources and features for K-12 educators and features that will provide greater accessibility for the vision impaired.

Development of a website prototype and interactive timeline on the history of African American music.

Carnegie Hall requests an NEH Digital Projects for the Public Prototyping Grant of $100,000 to develop a working prototype as the next phase of an initiative to redevelop an interactive digital timeline of the history of African American music. The goal of the prototyping process is to produce an engaging and innovative resource that makes the humanities content on African American music, culture, and history accessible to a broad public audience. By engaging in an iterative, user-centered, and mobile-first design approach, Carnegie Hall intends to create a dynamic, responsive resource with multifaceted layers that can continue to grow, evolve, and be used and sustained over time. Carnegie Hall plans to relaunch the timeline prominently and support broad engagement with the new digital resource for music lovers, students, educators, and researchers worldwide.

Prototyping of an interactive mobile app and website using 360-degree video to examine multiple perspectives on the impact and legacy of Reconstruction.

Reconstruction 360 will apply the elements of documentary film—interviews with historians and descendants, carefully crafted video reenactments, archival footage and music, photographs, drawings, maps, and text—to stories that represent significant Reconstruction themes. The final products will be an immersive, mobile application and a companion website that are widely available to a global audience on tablets and smartphones, bringing the Reconstruction era to life for users of mobile and online platforms at all levels of expertise. We will also develop resources for teachers and students in grades 8–12, as well as fundraising, marketing and promotion plans for implementation of the site, and outreach programming for general audiences statewide and for dissemination nationally.

Prototyping of an augmented reality experience on the campus of Kent State University examining the history and memorialization of the May 4, 1970, Kent State shootings.

The project aims to create an augmented reality (AR) application to engage the public with humanities themes and interpretation of historical events surrounding the May 4th shootings that took place on the campus of Kent State University in 1970, during which Ohio national guardsmen killed 4 students and wounded 9 others. The project will create a freely accessible and cross platform website that offers an augmented reality tour of important May 4 landmarks at Kent State. As we prepare for the fiftieth commemoration, this project will help visitors better understand the landscape of both memory and history of the 17.24 acres recently designated the Kent State Shooting National Landmark. By virtually reconstructing buildings and landscapes we can help visitors better understand the events of May 4 and the larger struggle to memorialize and commemorate the victims. The humanistic ideals of citizenship, free speech, protest, and excessive use of force lay at the heart of this project.

Prototyping of a mobile application and website exploring the history of housing and urban design in San Francisco.

Walking Cinema: Museum of the Hidden City (MoHC) is a mobile application and walking tour exploring San Francisco’s history of affordable housing. Due to its unique mix of preservationist and progressive policies, San Francisco’s affordable housing stock spans a range of eras: from Depression Era minimalist housing blocks, to inclusionary housing in expensive new glass towers, to the largest concentration of Single Room Occupancy hotels left in the United States. The project will use this architecture and its surrounding neighborhoods as stages to show how the history of affordable housing informs present and future efforts to create shelter for all the city’s residents. Amidst numerous cranes, ubiquitous upscaling, and notorious evictions, MoHC will reveal a saga of unintended consequences for a project that may just be getting its footing in one of the most expensive cities in the country

Prototype for a statewide website and mobile application showcasing Ohio humanities and cultural resources.

Ohio Humanities requests a prototyping grant of $100,000 to expand its cultural heritage tourism initiative by developing SeeOhioFirst.org to be a comprehensive, content-rich digital portal showcasing Ohio's rich and varied humanities resources. As the home of First Peoples and the birthplace of astronauts, the human story plays out across the landscape of Ohio. The natural and built environment of the state has contributed to the national story—as a gateway to an expanding nation, as contest ground for empires and contemporary politics, as a proving ground for invention and innovation. SeeOhioFirst.org will include thematic landing pages, a searchable database, and mapping tools to provide the first curated overview of the state's historical and cultural assets. Our goal is to showcase the humanities as a civic and economic asset for the state, and by encouraging cultural heritage experiences, to stimulate the educational potential of travel.

The prototyping phase of a website on the exploration of the history of slavery in the north during the colonial period.

Historic Hudson Valley is requesting $100,000 to develop a prototype that demonstrates the humanities ideas, digital technology, and public outreach for an online interactive documentary tentatively titled Slavery in the North. The website will shed light on the history of slavery in the colonial North, with a focus on individual stories as a means to personalize the past. Continuing our successful collaboration with design firm C&G Partners and evaluation firm ExposeYourMuseum, HHV will use the Prototyping grant to: 1) Consult with humanities scholars, museum professionals, education advisors, and multi-media storytellers; 2) Compile and expand upon content relating to all northern colonies; 3) Refine the website structure and user experience; 4) Develop scripts and digitize selected assets; 5) Develop a website prototype; 6) Test and evaluate the user experience; and 7) Finalize the website design and technical specifications for Production.