GRANTS AND OUTREACH
The Lepage Center provides educational resources and funding opportunities to promote the importance of historical scholarship, methods and inquiry for the public interest.
Grant Program
The Lepage Center sponsors an annual public grant program that supports individuals and institutions pursuing historical projects in the public interest. The Center seeks to inspire a wide range of submissions from a diverse pool of applicants that are original and imaginative in content and form. Examples of the types of projects include a series of blog posts, a series of podcast conversations, digital and in-person exhibits, an oral history project, an initiative with a local newspaper to write a series of op-eds, a mapping project, a digital timeline, a crowd-sourced syllabus, an educational workshop, a multimedia resource, a collaboration with local activists, and other creative ideas.
2023-2024 Grant: Cities in Historical Perspective
This year, the Center is funding projects that creatively engage with the broad range of questions, concerns, policies and practices raised by the study of the role of cities in history, and how historical study can further public understanding of the present moment.
See our winners below!
1838: Philadelphia's First Civil Rights Movement
A project to develop a curricular unit and coordinate a teaching workshop to incorporate local historical events and personal narratives to teach the history of Black activism and agency in the context of 19th century Philadelphia using documents from the Historical Society of Pennsylvania's extensive African-American collections, including the records of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society and the American Negro Historical Society in th eLeon Gardiner Collection. A collaboration led by 1838 Black Metropolis project co-founders Morgan Lloyd and Michiko Quinones with Historical Society of Pennsylvania Director of Education and Programs Justina Barrett.
Programming Coordinator and Lead Interpretive Guide at the African American Museum in Philadelphia, Morgan Lloyd
Morgan Lloyd is a curator, public historian, educator, and activist based in Lanapehoking (Philadelphia, PA). She currently serves as the Programming Coordinator and Lead Interpretive Guide at the African American Museum in Philadelphia and has held fellowships with institutions, including Montclair University, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, in interpretation, curation, journalism, and programming. As the co-founder of the 1838 Black Metropolis Educational non-profit, she works to reclaim, rewrite, and restore the lives of the nearly 20-thousand free Black people who lived in the city of Philadelphia in the early 19th century, as well as those in its surrounding region, though research, programmatic activations, exhibitions, and meaning partnerships.
Co-founder of 1838 Black Metropolis, Michiko Quinones
Michiko Quinones is a public educator and public historian in Philadelphia. She has been a docent for over a decade at both the African American Museum in Philadelphia and the Rosenbach Museum. She holds a BA in African American Studies/Government from the University of Maryland-College Park and an MS in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from George Mason University. She is nearing completing an ALM (MA) in Museum Studies from Harvard University. Michiko is the co-founder of the 1838 Black Metropolis public education non-profit, co-founder of the Black Docents Collective, and co-host of the Philly People Now Deceased Podcast, which surfaces untold biographies of Philadelphians.
Historical Society of Pennsylvania Director of Education and Programs, Justina Barrett
Justina Barrett joined HSP’s staff in November 2021 as the Director of Education and Programs. In that capacity she oversees all public programming and k-12 educational activities. Prior to HSP, Justina worked for 16 years at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, most recently as the interim head of public programs in the Education Division.
A People's Guide to Bangkok
A tourist guidebook research project aimed at the University of California Press's A People's Guide series. The guidebook will highlight a ground-up perspective on Bangkok's history, architecture, and urban planning from Dr. Gavin Shatkin, professor of Public Policy and Urban Affairs and the School of Architecture at Northeastern University alongside coinvestigators Dr. Koompong Noobanjong of King Mongkut Institute of Technology Ladkrabang, and Chulalongkorn University professors Dr. Naphong Rugkhaphan and Dr. Wasana Wongsurawat.
Dr. Gavin Shatkin, Northeastern University
Dr. Gavin Shatkin is Professor of Public Policy and Urban Affairs and Architecture at Northeastern University. His research focuses on the political economy of urban inequality in Southeast Asia. He is author of Cities for Profit: The Real Estate Turn in Asia’s Urban Politics (2017, Cornell University Press). He holds a PhD in Urban Planning and Policy Development from Rutgers University.
Dr. Naphong (Tao) Rugkhaphan, Chulalongkorn University
Dr. Naphong (Tao) Rugkhaphan is Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Architecture at Chulalongkorn University. He is an urban planner whose research takes an international comparative approach in examining the relationship between historic preservation, urban redevelopment, and public memory. His publications have appeared in Environment and Planning A, the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Urban Geography, and other venues. He holds a PhD in Urban Planning from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.
Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of History at Chulalongkorn University, Dr. Wasana Wongsurawat
Dr. Wasana Wongsurawat is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of History at Chulalongkorn University. Her research focuses on China and the Chinese diaspora. She is author of The Crown and the Capitalists: The Ethnic Chinese and the Founding of the Thai Nation (2019, University of Washington Press). She holds a PhD in Chinese History from Oxford University.
Dr. Koompong Noobanjong, King Mongkut Institute of Technology Ladkrabang
Dr. Koompong Noobanjong is Professor of Architecture at King Mongkut Institute of Technology Ladkrabang. He is author of numerous works exploring power and representation in Thai architecture, including The Aesthetics of Power: Architecture, Modernity, and Identity from Siam to Thailand (2013, White Lotus Press). He holds a PhD in Architectural History, Theory and Criticism from the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Carleton College Visiting Assistant Professor in Digital Arts & Humanities, Chris Saladin
Digital Roman Carthage
An ongoing mapping project by Dr. Christopher Saladin of Carleton College, visualizing the urban landscape of the Roman colony in ancient Tunisia. The product of this mapping project will be used by researchers and instructors studying and teaching the Punic Wars, the Roman empire, and the relationships between Ancient Rome and Carthage through digitizing material evidence of Carthage's ancient inhabitants.
Chris Saladin is a Visiting Assistant Professor in Digital Arts & Humanities at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. He is a historian of ancient Roman imperialism in North Africa, with a focus on Rome's colonization of the site of Carthage in modern-day Tunisia. Dr. Saladin received his PhD in History from the University of Minnesota and has taught courses on a wide range of premodern history and digital humanities methods.
Drag Me Philly!
A collaborative project between Beyond the Bell Tours and The Drag Arts Oral History Project to create a 2-hour walking tour of the Philadelphia Gayborhood's LGBTQ and drag history, featuring four drag artists (both drag queens and drag kings) telling their stories and one tour guide. Communitas Arts & Culture founder & CEO Wilfredo Hernandez, Beyond the Bell Tours co-founder Joey Leroux, and Beyond the Bell Tours co-founder/Drag Oral History Project Historical Researcher Rebecca Laureanna Fisher will lead the project.
Wilfredo Hernandez, Founder/CEO of Communitas Art & Culture
Wilfredo Hernandez (he/they) is an interdisciplinary artist, cultural producer and nonprofit consultant. He is Founder/CEO of Communitas Arts & Culture, LLC (a national consulting and producing lab) and Founder/Executive Producing Director of the Drag Arts Oral History Project . He most recently served as Interim Executive Director of CultureWorks Greater Philadelphia//President of CultureTrust Greater Philadelphia where he helped direct the development of shared capacity resources in support of over 100 fiscally sponsored arts, culture and social justice projects in Philadelphia.
Rebecca Fisher, Beyond the Bell Tours
Rebecca Fisher (She/Hers) is the cofounder of Beyond the Bell Tours, an inclusive historical walking tour company in Philadelphia. Graduating from Haverford College in 2018 with honors in Italian Studies and Peace, Justice and Human Rights, she is multilingual and wrote her thesis about inclusive tourism. She has presented her thesis research internationally. She's passionate about the intersection of tourism and social justice. She most recently the Tutleman artist in residence at Haverford College, where she designed an on-campus tour covering many of the justice themes covered on a typical Beyond the Bell Tour called: The People's History Tour of Haverford College, for which she received the Young Alumni Award in 2018. She currently is a consultant on the "Our Market Project" led by artist Michelle Angela Ortiz in the 9th street market.
Trine University assistant professor of Humanities and Communication, Ryan Schnurr
Fire! An American Burning
A five-episode podcast series on the stories of twentieth and twenty-first century industrial fires in American cities from the nonprofit media publisher Belt Media Collaborative. The project stretches from NYC to the Rust Belt to California, connecting business, climate, and indigenous history, led by Trine University professor Dr. Ryan Schnurr. Ryan Schnurr is assistant professor of Humanities and Communication at Trine University. He is the author of In the Watershed (Belt Publishing, 2017).
Making A Way Out of No Way
This is a digital history exhibit which explores the contributions to the community and culture of Durham, North Carolina made by descendants of those formerly enslaved on Stagville Plantation. They will draw on North Carolina Central University's own Black Durham Oral History Archive, North Carolina Collections Archive, and other repositories, and will employ graduate students and web design experts to put this work in conversation. The project is led by Vanessa Hines of The Stagville Memorial Project, Dr. Charles Johnson of the North Carolina Central University History Department, and Lauren Panny of the Durham County Library. The Stagville Memorial Project is a non-profit, 501c3 organization working to bring lesser known histories about formerly enslaved people at Stagville Plantation to wider audiences through public art.
Dr. Charles Johnson, Director of Public History Program, North Carolina Central University
Dr. Charles Johnson is a public historian, digital humanist, University professor and activist specializing in Public History in the Global African Diaspora at the community level. Johnson is passionate about oral history, collaborative community-based participatory research, and creating transformative pathways to success.
Vanessa Hines, Founding Executive Director, Stagville Memorial Project
Vanessa Hines is the founding executive director of The Stagville Memorial Project, a community-driven effort to establish public art in downtown Durham that uplifts the stories of those who were enslaved at Stagville Plantation and highlights their contributions to what became the city of Durham, North Carolina.
Lauren Panny is the Head of the North Carolina Collection at Durham County Library. She has been leading that department since 2017, and previously worked in the special collections libraries of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of California at Irvine, and Chapman University. She completed her Masters in Library and Information Science at the University of Pittsburgh.
Dr. Edward Holt, Interim History Department Chair, Grambling State Universit
Voices of Grambling
An oral history podcast looking at the economic, racial, and social history of the business district of Grambling, Louisiana. It is a multi-phase mission to record and interpret the African American experience in Northern Louisiana, led by Grambling State University faculty Dr. Edward Holt and Ms. Yanise Days and University of Arkansas faculty Dr. Brian McGowan, in cooperation with undergraduate researchers to bring context and nuance to narratives that often exclude rural regions, HBCUs, and their affiliated cities. This season of the podcast will interview former business owners and city officials from the 1960s-1980s.
Educational Resources
Recorded Events
The Lepage Center hosts an annual series of events, exploring contemporary issues of societal significance from a historical perspective. All events are recorded and accessible to the general public on YouTube.
- 2023 – 2024: Cities in Historical Perspective
- 2022 – 2023: Climate Change in Historical Perspective
- 2021 – 2022: Turning Points in History
- 2021 – 2020: Decolonizing History
- 2019 – 2020: Revisionist History
- 2018 – 2019: Histories of Democracy
- 2017: Fake News and Fake History; Endless War
"1968: In Hindsight" Podcast
Released in 2018, the 50th anniversary of this tumultuous year, "1968: In Hindsight" looks at key global issues, then and now. Through scholarship and conversation, this six-part series dives into questions from 50 years ago that still matter today.
Listen on: iTunes | Google Play