Rockabilly Exhibition/Rockabilly Loop Project NEH Planning Grant 2015

FAIN: GE-235004-16

Arkansas State University, Main Campus (Jonesboro, AR 72403-0600)
Marti L. Allen (Project Director: August 2015 to November 2017)

Planning for a permanent exhibition, a traveling suitcase, and a music trail exploring Rockabilly as a representation of post-World War II American cultural change.

For this one-year project, Arkansas State University Museum seeks $40,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities (Planning Grant category) to refine the content, format, and interpretive approaches, develop the preliminary design, and project implementation costs for a permanent exhibition on the 1950s music genre now known as "Rockabilly", a musical form with national and global significance. The project will also plan a suitcase exhibit that focuses on kid-appropriate aspects of Rockabilly and target Pre--K-8; and, make plans and establish formats for a complementary music trail in Northeast Arkansas called the Rockabilly Loop, which will articulate with the exhibition and attract new audiences.