The news that the Trump administration and Elon Musk’s DOGE cut $3 million in cultural funding for Connecticut last week, primarily for museums and historical societies, came from an unusual source: testimony at a public hearing.
The Danbury News Times reported last week that Jason Mancini, executive director of the Connecticut Humanities Council, testified that the National Endowment of the Humanities terminated about $3 million of operating support grants previously promised to museums and cultural organizations across the state, with concerns of more lost funds via similar National Endowment for the Arts cuts.
The Connecticut River Museum and Weston Historical Society confirmed they were among the organizations losing grant money that was promised in January.
The River Museum received $25,000 for a project called “Expanding Approaches to Inclusive Storytelling,” which would have developed a plan for touring the Samuel Lay House in Essex, train staff and volunteers to encourage discussion among visitors, and train staff for an exhibition on the history of Black and Indigenous maritime workers in Connecticut.
Weston’s Historical Society received $25,000 for a public impact project that would fund a museum exhibition exploring manufacturing and textile production in the region through the stories of marginalized groups in the town.
State Senators with these organizations in their district did not hold back in their disgust for the rescinded funding, remarking it wasn’t likely a coincidence that the canceled projects had phrases like “Black and Indigenous” and “marginalized” in their descriptions.
“Another day, another DOGE cut, this one in our own backyard,” said Sen. Ceci Maher, D-Weston. “It’s not lost on me that this funding was stripped from a project focusing on the history of marginalized groups in Weston. It’s also not a surprise that the Trump administration is petty enough to cut grants as small as this; $25,000 for a local museum project isn’t my definition of ‘government waste.’”
Sen. Norm Needleman, a Democrat representing Essex, said the attack on arts and humanities came amid the Trump administration’s frenzied effort to break American systems.
“For this project to have its funding stripped doesn’t change our history or erase the hardworking people who faced adversity in the past, but it does reinforce that the federal government is interfering wherever it can,” Needleman said. “Connecticut has already lost funding supporting our libraries, our health systems, our mental health and substance use disorder supports, and this shows we’re at risk of losing more support every day. “
Mancini testified that Connecticut would lose more than just funding with little hope to reverse those cuts. He noted that arts and humanities provide opportunities for education, exposure to new cultures and ideas and critical thinking skills to help people better understand the world around them and confront challenges in their lives.
The cuts come as part of an ominous trend from the Trump administration, which also recently halted $2.1 million in funds supporting library programming, materials for the blind and e-books, among others, through the National Institute of Museum and Library Services. That’s in addition to myriad cuts to health, addiction services, educational and nutrition programs, as well as expected future federal firings of Connecticut-based employees.
