$64K in grants awarded locally

Grants totaling more than $64,000 from the W. E. Smith Family Charitable Trust have been approved for 23 history-related projects from libraries, museums, school programs, and other organizations across Southwestern Ohio.

Requests for support were submitted for display and storage materials for collections; computer equipment to manage collections; school and community outreach programs; publishing projects documenting historic events or early settlers in the area; materials for archival projects, technology-enhanced applications for virtual tours of facilities, and other events and programs.

The Smith Trust was established by the estate of Ophia Smith, longtime Oxford resident and wife of W. E. Smith, who chaired Miami University’s history department and was first Director of the William Holmes McGuffey Museum. Together, they collaborated on research and writing of a three-volume “History of Southwestern Ohio: The Miami Valleys,” and other published works, both together and separately.

Grants went to:

■ Butler County Historical Society: (1) Heritage Hall McCloskey Museum displays in expanded space and youth activity with collections; (2) Soldiers, Sailors and Pioneers Monument computer and software to manage collection; (3) Updating computer for Butler County Historical Society; expanded six-program package for schools; expanded community outreach thru speaker’s bureau, and restoration of a barber pole for permanent doctors’/dentists’ exhibit

■ Cincinnati Preservation Association: Project to capture Cincinnati’s Built Histories by researching, designing and building a website for use by property owners and public officials to not only identify, but use the tools to save historic structures

■ Friends of Chrisholm Historic Farmstead: To create and install interpretative display panels and signage at Chrisholm’s farmstead site to inform visitors about the portable fence invented by John Augspurger, son of Christian and Catherine Augspurger, Amish pioneers who once owned the farmstead

■ Friends of Harriet Beecher Stowe House: To fund African American internship for the Stowe House to develop tours, projects and programs

■ Friends of White Water Shaker Village: Assistance to create recordings interpreting and educating site visitors and to subscribe to a mobile phone audio tour program for three years. Mobile phones can access the tours on outdoor signs via QR code scans

■ God’s House of Praise and Worship: To create a new outdoor sign including historic founding date, and conduct interviews and write the history of the early African American Church

■ King Studios (Cincinnati): To fund Xavier University intern to create oral histories with Evanston elders about their experiences in this musical and social neighborhood during King’s production of Bluegrass, Rhythm and Blues and Rock-n-roll

■ Lane Library Hamilton-Cummins History Room: In support of a continuing digitizing project to digitize the Journal-News (1978-2015), Fairfield Echo and Pulse journal to make them more accessible for research and reference

■ Middletown Historical Society: Assistance for restoring several paintings by Middletown artist Leah Verity Hook, daughter of Armco Steel Co. founder George M. Verity, who studied at Cincinnati Art Academy and in Paris in the 1930s

■ National Voice of America Museum of Broadcasting: To fund video monitor equipment for a new program/lecture auditorium for presenting programs and showing video of history of VOA

■ New London Cemetery Association: To fund restoration of the cemetery’s original record book dating to the beginning of the cemetery in 1867

■ Ohio History Connection: Project is a discovery program for the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks to create a booklet as a collaborative effort with the organizations involved in the UNESCO World Heritage nomination of the eight earthen mounds of the Ohio River Valley

■ Over-the-Rhine Museum: For costs associated with continuation of Voices of Overthe-Rhine Oral History project

■ Oxford Museum Association: For cost of materials and specialty repair and treatment of plaster walls in the Doty House at the Pioneer Farm Museum, to correct water damage coming through the porous walls, which threatens collections

■ Preble County Historical Society: Funds to continue digitization of their collection inventory database

■ Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park & Museum: To provide computer dedicated to collection management, educational materials and signage/ panel about historic Fortified Hill, and archival supplies for storage of important documents and artifacts as part of Founder’s Library

■ Reily Twp. Historical Society: For funding to continue entering into Past Perfect data on collections, including recently acquired family historic materials, Reily High School class exhibits, books and quilt

■ Smith Library of Regional History: For funding digitization of yearbooks for McGuffey High School Reflector 19251953; Talawanda High School Triumvirate 1989-2020; Ross High School Rossonian 19892020 and to fill gaps in other school yearbooks

■ Veterans Memorial Museum Foundation: To provide funds for 10 mannequins and display cabinets to display historic military uniforms and veterans’ artifacts

■ West Chester-Union Twp. Historical Society: To reprint Virginia Shewalter’s booklet about historic Gano, platted as a village in 1873 in celebration of the township’s 200th anniversary

■ Hugo West Theatricals: Funding assistance to produce the musical about historic Utopia, Ohio for a premier performance by a Falcon

Theater cast