International Tennis Hall of Fame

Purpose: Sustaining Cultural Heritage Established in 1954, the International Tennis Hall of Fame (ITHF) is the only American museum dedicated to the study and interpretation of the history of tennis, its leaders and champions, and its impact on American and world culture. The ITHF carries out its ongoing mission through public exhibitions, school and public programs, special events, publications, and its Web site, and by providing research services to scholars, students, the media, collectors, and the general public. The Newport Casino, home of the ITHF, was the site of the first American national tennis championship in 1881 and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1987. This project is the first year of a multiyear effort to catalog and inventory three major components of the ITHF collections: the film and video archive, the photograph collection, and the permanent (object) collection. The grant will support a full-time project manager, two part-time collections assistants, and six interns to work on this task over the course of 12 months. To serve the public in a fully professional way, the museum must gain control of its holdings and the information they contain.