Lilly Endowment Awards $43M For Museum Religion Exhibits

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Lilly Endowment Inc. has awarded 18 grants totaling more than $43 million to museums and other cultural institutions across the U.S. to develop exhibitions and other programs that portray the role of religion in the society.

Smithsonian National Museum of American History is receiving an $8 million grant to establish a new Center for the Public Understanding of Religion in American History and to create 3,500-square-foot gallery space focusing on the influence of religion in American history and culture, the Indianapolis-based endowment said Wednesday.

Four Indiana institutions -- Children's Museum of Indianapolis, Conner Prairie Museum, Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art and Snite Museum of Art at the University of Notre Dame -- were among the grantees.

Other grantees including Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History, Colonial Williamsburg and the Boston Children’s Museum will receive amounts between $500,000 and $2.5 million.

“These organizations will use the grants to help visitors understand and appreciate the significant impact religion has had and continues to have on society in the United States and around the globe," said Christopher Coble, the endowment’s vice president for religion.