In summer 2025, staff member Julia Aguiar began a project to make RI Humanities’s internal Grants Archive more searchable. Since 1973, RI Humanities has asked every grantee to share with us the objects that tell the story of their grant-funded project, creating an eclectic, dynamic collection of 35,000 items—films, photographs, posters, publications, and more. To help us more easily connect projects over 50 years of grantmaking, Julia sought to identify and label common themes.

Julia discovered that regardless of when these grants were awarded, many of their themes still speak to the tensions and topics we are navigating today in Rhode Island. As we approach our nation’s 250th anniversary, topics like Civic Health, Community-making, Cultural Preservation, and Revolutions are top of mind in the public humanities sector, and across the country. Together, Julia and fellow staff member Isabella Robinson, are bringing these projects and themes to life with our new monthly feature, Humanities in Action.

In the coming months, we’ll explore projects that demonstrate how the public humanities offer tools to reflect on our collective past and navigate our present. Read more about this month’s featured projects focused on civic health below and follow the series on social media as well @rihumanities on Instagram and Facebook.

Digital Civics / History Program for Grade 5 Students by The Coggeshall Farm Museum

Supported by a 2020 CARES Act project grant, this curriculum sought to highlight the complex histories of slavery and abolition in the North in elementary classrooms through downloadable, digital lesson plans. Students were also shown through engagement with primary sources that, like those who rose against slavery, they too can instigate change in their communities through civic participation.

Click here to view/download five lesson plans containing primary sources, videos, and worksheets.

My State House by the Rhode Island State House Restoration Society

The recipient of a 2019 major grant, this initiative invited community members to draw or write new interventions on maps of the Rhode Island State House that would make it feel more relevant and welcoming. The maps created by a diverse set of community members were then scanned and made available on the design competition website. A selection of the community maps and final proposals were then displayed in a design competition and special exhibition in the State House.

Click here to view the maps and learn more about this project. 

We, They, and the People by Mixed Magic Theatre

Funded by a 2021 Why It Matters project grant, this project included the production and virtual showcase of three programs focused on the impact of three important Supreme Court Decisions (Shelby v. Holder, Tennessee v. Garner, and Koramatsu v. United States). This project stressed the value of being informed and socially engaged especially in regard to voting. 

Click here to watch a showcase from We, They, and the People. 

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This monthly Humanities in Action series is curated by Julia Aguiar, Grants and Humanities Initiatives Coordinator, & Isabella Robinson, Development and Engagement Coordinator.