Emily Dickinson Museum’s Federal Grant Revoked
April 30, 2025 | In the PressFrom The Amherst Student (https://amherststudent.com/article/emily-dickinson-museums-federal-grant-revoked/ (opens in a new window))
The Emily Dickinson Museum announced that a $117,000 federal grant, awarded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) in September 2023, has been terminated as of April 9.
The IMLS (opens in a new window), a government agency, aims to provide communities and individuals with access to museums and libraries to learn about the country’s “diverse natural and cultural heritage.” According to the notice received by the museum, the grant was terminated because it “is unfortunately no longer consistent with the agency’s priorities and no longer serves the interest of the United States and the IMLS Program.”
The grant was originally awarded for the museum’s efforts to digitize and publicize its collection, which was previously largely inaccessible to the public. The collection consists of more than 8,000 artifacts, including fine art, souvenirs, textiles, and some of the Dickinsons’ personal belongings. According to the museum’s website, its artifacts remained mostly in the archives for practical purposes until an initial grant from IMLS in 2019 funded the baseline documentation and catalog.
The 2023 grant provided additional funding to continue digitizing records of its objects, and also to “locate similar collection-related materials at other institutions,” according to Patrick Fecher, the museum’s associate director of communications.
“The Emily Dickinson Museum had records and information about objects in its collection going back to the 1960s,” Fecher said. “Museum staff and interns digitized these old index cards, handwritten records, paper-based documents, and photographs and loaded them into a digital asset management system where they could be linked to the relevant objects in the collection.”
Fecher explained that in the current phase of this project, the museum is conducting surveys of Dickinson material at Frost Library and various other institutions, such as Jones Library, Mount Holyoke College, Harvard University, Brown University, and Yale University, to gather information on the extent of primary sources related to its collection. This project was planned to be completed by the end of 2025.
With prior federal grants, the museum used objects in its collection to populate both parts of the museum open to the public: the Homestead, home to Emily Dickinson, and the Evergreens, home to her brother Austin, set to reopen (opens in a new window) on May 1. The museum was also able to develop tours for the public, enrichment programs for students of all ages, and project-based internships for college and graduate students. It has also established a national professional development program for K-12 teachers, featuring a series of intensive poetry workshops.
Fecher explained that these programs aligned with the museum's mission of “sparking an interest in Emily Dickinson’s life and work among learners of all ages.”
Since the grant’s termination, the museum has been assessing the long-term impacts of the cut and looking for alternative sources of funding. Currently, the museum’s website has added a section (opens in a new window) under the “digitizing the collection” page inviting visitors to donate to help cover the funding gap and ensure the project’s timely completion.
“Our work to amplify Emily Dickinson’s revolutionary poetic voice — by opening her family homes to visitors, by interpretive and educational use of her family’s material legacy, by holding up her enduring poetry — continues with your support and our unending gratitude,” read a quote on the website from Jane Wald, Jane and Robert Keiter Family executive director.
When asked about the museum’s reaction to the grant loss, Fecher provided a simple response: “It is disappointing, but we’ll carry on.”
