Funding will support plans to significantly expand Research Center capacity
Fort Ticonderoga has been named a recipient of a prestigious grant from the National Endowment for Humanities Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections grant program in the amount of $40,000. The funds will be utilized to develop a Master Preservation and Storage Needs Plan for the collections of historical artifacts housed in the Thompson-Pell Research Center (TPRC) on Fort Ticonderoga’s 2,000-acre museum campus and historic site.
The grant will be used to assemble an interdisciplinary team of museum staff and professional consultants to address collections preservation issues as the TPRC is converted into a dedicated collections and Ticonderoga Institute facility. The team will provide museum staff with professional guidance and recommendations to create critical new resources for collections and Ticonderoga Institute initiatives, while also upgrading visitor amenities and overall accessibility.
The plan will also include recommendations concerning the storage needs for a new 3,000-object collection that the museum will be acquiring and moving to the TPRC in 2022.
“This planning grant will allow Fort Ticonderoga to position itself as more than just a battlefield or military site, but as a resource to provoke active national discussions on the conflicts that shaped the political and cultural geography of the United States in the 18th century,” said Miranda Peters Fort Ticonderoga Director of Collections and project director for the NEH planning grant. “To accomplish these goals, improvements to the Thompson-Pell Research Center are necessary as the space is redesigned as a collections facility from an administrative one and to ensure the preservation of Fort Ticonderoga’s current and future collections. When completed, the facility will greatly improve access to the museum’s collections, many of which have never been displayed or published before.”
“This project will enable Fort Ticonderoga to move forward to fulfill its mission in transformative ways while also serving as a model for other cultural institutions through the dissemination of a white paper report that discusses the effectiveness of the sustainable preservation strategies used,” said Beth L. Hill Fort Ticonderoga president and CEO. “We are very grateful to have the grant support of the National Endowment for the Humanities to make this important project possible.”
About Fort Ticonderoga:
Welcoming visitors since 1909, Fort Ticonderoga preserves North America’s largest 18th-century artillery collection, 2,000 acres of historic landscape on Lake Champlain, and Carillon Battlefield, and the largest series of untouched Revolutionary War era earthworks surviving in America. As a multi-day destination and the premier place to learn more about our nation’s earliest years and America’s military heritage, Fort Ticonderoga engages more than 75,000 visitors each year with an economic impact of more than $12 million annually and offers programs, historic interpretation, boat cruises, tours, demonstrations, and exhibits throughout the year, and is open for daily visitation May through October. Fort Ticonderoga is supported in part through generous donations and with some general operating support made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
Fort Ticonderoga has received a prestigious grant from the National Endowment for Humanities Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections grant program.
