Humpty Dumpty

Over the past twelve years, federal and state grants have played a critical role in many quantum improvements at the George Eastman Museum. Several grants have provided the ante that attracted private foundations and individuals to support a project that costs far more than the grant. Most of the projects enhanced preservation of our collection or historic mansion, or improved knowledge of and online and onsite access to our collections and archives.

For decades, we have benefited from grants from four federal agencies: Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), and National Park Service.

Since 2013, we have received ten IMLS grants, totaling $1,738,166. The completed projects include finding aids for archival materials; cataloging and photographing almost 6,000 objects in the Gabriel Cromer collection of French nineteenth-
century photography; digitizing recordings of interviews, oral histories, talks, and conferences; rehousing more than 1,000 South Asian 35mm film prints; and cataloging and photographing 1,850 objects of cinematographic equipment.

IMLS has awarded the Eastman Museum three grants (about $250,000 each) for projects that have not been completed, of which $525,000 has not been received. The 2022 grant supports the exhibition New Perspectives on George Eastman, to be installed in the new mansion galleries in 2026. In 2023, we received a grant to repair, clean, research, and catalog 135 early Pakistani 35mm film prints. The 2024 grant provides funds to digitize recordings of 500 past public programs at the museum on photography and filmmaking.

Since 2013, we have received six NEH grants, totaling $1,375,615, and these projects have all been completed. The projects included an essential study of the environments in spaces where our collection objects are stored or exhibited; the Technicolor Online Research Archive; the transformative upgrade of our photography vault and technology vault; cataloging and photographing more than 10,000 objects in the Alden Scott Boyer collection of British and American nineteenth-century photography; and the transformative upgrade and expansion of the Louis B. Mayer Conservation Center, our nitrate film storage facility.

Since 2013, we have received four NEA grants, totaling $175,000 for film preservation and access. The National Park Service’s Save America’s Treasures program contributed almost $500,000 to the imperative restoration of the Bruce B. Bates Colonnade.

On March 14, an executive order signed by President Trump directed, “the non-statutory components and functions [of IMLS] shall be eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law, and [IMLS] shall reduce the performance of [its] statutory functions and personnel to the minimum function and presence required by law.” Almost all IMLS staff members were placed on 90-day administrative leave. On April 9, the Eastman Museum received notices that purport to terminate each of our three grants.

NEH has cancelled most of its grants and has put almost all of its staff on administrative leave. Many grant recipients were notified that their funding had ended immediately, and that the agency would be “repurposing its funding allocations in a new direction in furtherance of the president’s agenda.” The communications asserted, “The termination of your grant represents an urgent priority for the administration...”

The Eastman Museum will withstand the loss of the $525,000 in remaining grant funds from IMLS. We will seek additional private funding for the permanent exhibition on George Eastman and may need to remove some of its features. We will seek private funding for our Pakistani film project, though our current list of known prospective funders is short. The project to digitize recordings of past programs at the museum will be deferred until IMLS funds are assured or private funds are secured.

The true damage to our institution—and to museums, libraries, archives, and institutions of higher learning across the nation—will come in the future. For the next four years, we expect that federal grants will be dramatically reduced or eliminated. As a result, there are numerous projects that would result in substantial improvements to the museum that will be much more difficult to undertake.

Even if a future president supports public investment in knowledge, learning, culture, and arts, these federal agencies may no longer exist—and reassembling a staff of experts to review applications and administer grants will take many years. The long-term setback to the George Eastman Museum’s progress will be enormous.

Senator Gillibrand has been a leader in protecting IMLS. We urge you to write to her, Senator Schumer, Representative Morelle, and especially Representative Tenney to express your dismay or outrage at the evisceration of these federal agencies, which had always received bipartisan support in Congress.

Bruce Barnes, PhD

Ron and Donna Fielding Director

May/June 2025 Bulletin