Dear IDARM Network member,

Happy New Year! Felice Anno Nuovo! We are eager to continue our work with you this year and are happy to share more IDARM network introductions, grant opportunities, and our first bilingual spotlight in this first newsletter of 2025. We are still coordinating schedules for our first webinar, so stay tuned for future communications from IDARM.

Want to be featured in an IDARM newsletter? Send us news about your organization! Have you presented at a conference or published a paper? Is your institution embarking on a new initiative? Are there resources you'd like to share with the network? We'd love to hear about what's going in your part of the tri-state region.

In the near future, we'll be getting in touch with each of you to request details about your organization to create an IDARM directory.

With gratitude,

Melissa, Lina, and Nancy

Meet the IDARM Network Partners

Photo courtesy of Brooke Bobovnyik

Meet Jessica Trickett

Hello! I’m Jessica Trickett, Collections Manager for Mahoning Valley Historical Society, and I’ve been working in local history for almost 27 years. One of the great things about the Mahoning Valley is that it's attracted people from around the globe for centuries, first for industrial jobs, and more recently for education and technology opportunities. Our diversity is one of our greatest strengths, and Italian Americans have been integral to the Mahoning Valley's settlement and growth. Through the IDARM network, it’s great to make national and global connections with colleagues who help us understand how our experiences enhance this rich cultural network.



Meet Chris Rutushin

I'm the Multimedia Specialist at Mahoning Valley Historical Society. It’s good to get out of the office, and town for that matter, to get some distance for perspective. Networking is important and it’s something of which I need to be more mindful since it’s so easy to have my head down in my work. Italian American communities in Appalachia are often overshadowed by the New York narrative or "ownership" of Italianità or Italian identity. Participating in IDARM gives all of us a chance not only at evolving our perspectives as well as expanding the network, it affords us the opportunity to realize that there is much more cultural and regional connectivity, especially among our smaller organizations and nonprofits, and widens the horizon to see the possibilities collectively.



IDARM News and Updates

Grant Opportunities

The Ragusa Foundation promotes intellectual activities related to to any period of Italian culture – literature, cinema, (social) media, visual arts, music, etc. – with a strong, but not exclusive, focus on a transcultural and transnational setting. The goal is to spread knowledge and inspire a cultural debate about different periods and aspects of Italian humanistic culture, through scholarly (research projects, conferences, etc.) and creative activities (book/film/art presentations, interviews…).

Deadline: April 15

• Conversations on Italian and International Culture (online and in person) with scholars, authors, and artists (organized and led by the RF)
• Conferences, lectures, symposia, and workshops on Italian culture
• Short-term Fellowships / Research Grants 

The Mellon Foundation invites community-based archives in the United States and its territories to submit applications for general operating support. These grants may provide support in one or more of the following areas of need:

• Operational costs, including staff, space, and utilities
• Collections care, including the acquisition of new materials, physical and digital storage fees, and access and preservation efforts
• Programming activities, including events, exhibitions, and increased community usage

This funding opportunity is overseen by the Foundation’s Public Knowledge program. For the purposes of this call, community-based archives are defined as organizations that gather and share materials as members of under-documented communities to preserve and celebrate their collective histories. These archives serve to affirm and uplift their community’s existence and identity, to help combat patterns of misinformation, and to provide a trusted environment for the perpetuation of community traditions, art forms, and languages, among other forms of empowerment. Formed as counter responses to a long legacy of oversight and extraction by mainstream cultural heritage institutions and by the academy, these archives are essential to the creation of a more inclusive and multivocal American story. 

IDARM Network Spotlight

Società Dante Alighieri

Rome, Italy

The Dante Alighieri Society (Società Dante Alighieri) was founded by a group of intellectuals led by Giosuè Carducci, in 1889. The founders gave the Association the name “Dante Allighieri,” equating the great poet with Italy’s literary and political culture; they stated their mission as that of “safeguarding and disseminating Italian language and culture in the world; reviving connections between co-nationals abroad and their motherland; and fostering among non-Italians a love for Italian culture, civilization, and language.” To further this cause, chapters were opened in Italy and abroad.  

The Society’s archive preserves its historical memory, from the moment of its founding to the present day. The archival collection documents the cultural and administrative activities carried out by the Society with the aim of sharing and elevating Italian language and culture in the world. The archive documents the ongoing work of the Society’s Chapters in holding and promoting lectures, exhibits, and gatherings; it is, in fact, the best resource for reconstructing the past and contextualizing many of the Society’s developments.     



Un gruppo di intellettuali, guidati da Giosuè Carducci, fonda la Società Dante Alighieri nel 1889. I fondatori intitolano l’Associazione “Dante Allighieri”, individuando nel Sommo Poeta il rappresentante della cultura letteraria e politica italiane, e individuano come scopo quello di “tutelare e diffondere la lingua e la cultura italiane nel mondo, ravvivando i legami dei connazionali all’estero con la madre patria e alimentando tra gli stranieri l’amore per la cultura, la civiltà e la lingua italiana”. Per sostenere tale progetto vengono aperti Comitati nel territorio nazionale e all’estero.

L’archivio conserva la memoria storica della Società, dal momento della sua fondazione ad oggi. La raccolta archivistica testimonia le attività, culturali e amministrative, svolte dall’ente con lo scopo di divulgare e valorizzare la lingua e la cultura italiane nel mondo, grazie al lavoro dei suoi Comitati. È possibile rintracciare in esso la fitta rete di relazioni, manifestazioni, incontri tenutisi e promossi nel corso del tempo. È, infatti, la fonte privilegiata a cui rivolgersi per ricostruire il passato e comprendere il presente di molte scelte. 



Emigrant guide (1953) 

Un esempio di guida per l'emigrante (1953). 

The archive is organized in four series, each one corresponding to a specific group of activities: 

• Chapters abroad, containing correspondence between the Central Headquarters and Chapters around the world; 
• Italian Chapters, containing correspondence between the Central Headquarters and Chapters located in Italy; 
• Central Headquarters, containing papers documenting the activities of the administrative center; 
• Photographic archive, contains photographs sent to the Central Headquarters by Chapters in Italy and abroad to document their activities, especially of a cultural or social nature.  

Our archival holdings, therefore, reveal much about the relationship between emigrants and their home country, the local contexts in which the Society developed, the cultural and social impact that the “Dante” has had in these areas, and the birth and development of a feeling of “italophilia.” 

Il complesso documentario è organizzato in quattro serie, ciascuna relativa a un campo specifico di attività:

• Comitati esteri, contenente la corrispondenza tra la Sede Centrale e i Comitati nel mondo;
• Comitati italiani, contenente la corrispondenza tra la Sede Centrale e le sedi dislocate sul territorio nazionale;
• Sede Centrale, contenente carte di varia natura che testimoniano le attività relative all’istituto centrale;
• Collezione fotografica, conserva fotografie inviate dai Comitati, italiani ed esteri, alla Sede Centrale a testimonianza delle loro attività, soprattutto in occasione di eventi culturali e mondani.

Il nostro patrimonio documentario, quindi, permette di approfondire il rapporto tra l’emigrante e la patria, i contesti locali nei quali la Società si è sviluppata, l’impatto culturale e sociale che la Dante ha avuto in queste zone e la nascita e lo sviluppo di un sentimento di “italsimpatia.”



Dante Alighieri of Toulon nursery school (1908) 

Asilo infantile Dante Alighieri di Tolone (1908)

Contact Information

The Archive of the Central Headquarters of the Dante Alighieri Society is located on the second floor of Palazzo Firenze (Piazza di Firenze 27, Rome). 

The Archive is open to the public without charge, but reservations are necessary to consult archival materials. Appointments may be made by phone (39) 06 6873694/5 or by email, to the attention of Dr. Giulia De Castro, Dante Alighieri Society Archivist (g.decastro@dante.global).  

L’Archivio storico della Sede Centrale della Società Dante Alighieri si trova al secondo piano di Palazzo Firenze (Piazza di Firenze 27, Roma).

L’accesso è libero e gratuito, ma per la consultazione del materiale documentario è necessario fissare un appuntamento che si può concordare chiamando il seguente recapito telefonico 06-6873694/5 oppure prendendo contatti con l’archivista di sala, la dott.ssa Giulia De Castro, scrivendo a g.decastro@dante.global.



Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this newsletter, do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.