The Barnum Museum was awarded a $10,000 grant by the National Trust for Historic Preservation from the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Fund for Historic Interiors. The seed grant funds will be used to match funds to support the Interior Schematic Design for the Barnum Museum project.
The Barnum Museum was one of the most severely affected structures when the City of Bridgeport was struck by an F1 tornado on June 24, 2010. The Barnum Museum was designed by its namesake, P.T. Barnum with architects Longstaff and Hurd. Over the years, much of the design was lost through renovations that masked many of the building’s interior architectural features and lacked historic sensitivity. The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Fund grant will enable the museum to create schematic documents of the historic interior that will restore the spaces as originally conceived by Barnum.
“The Barnum Museum is home to a collection as unique as Barnum himself and as an iconic building serves as an important anchor for Bridgeport,” said Stephanie Meeks, president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. “The National Trust for Historic Preservation is honored to provide a grant to the Barnum Museum that will turn the destruction of a tornado into an opportunity to reclaim the historical character of this museum.”
The National Trust for Historic Preservation dispenses small grants for local projects through the National Trust Preservation Funds grant program. The grants range from $500 to $5,000 and have provided over $5.5 million dollars of funding since 2002. They are awarded to nonprofit groups, educational institutions and public agencies, and must be matched, at least dollar for dollar, with public or private funds. Preservation Funds grants are being used nationally for such wide-ranging activities as consultant services for rehabilitating buildings, technical assistance for tourism that promotes historic resources and educating children about their heritage. These grants are often the deciding factor on whether historic buildings or sites can be saved for future generations.
For more information on National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Preservation Fund grants, visit: www.PreservationNation.org/resources/find-funding/grants/.