Juniper--

This may not work at all for you--I don't know what kind of music you are doing--but another option is historical societies that put on anniversary celebrations of this, that & the other. Here in Calif., we've got the Spanish missions and any number of adobes & historical houses now under custodianship of the State. They're fairly open to getting musicians (and story-tellers) in for their programs. The good news is that they have a marginally bigger budget than schools, libraries and museums. (Sorry, I was a librarian for 11 years, & the thought of getting money out of a public library for something like that is quite amusing to me. Of course if you're talking some big research institution or something, that might work.)

Now the down side is that we not only confined ourselves to "period" stuff or reasonable facsimiles thereof, but we were also in "period dress," which meant everybody had an additional outlay for buying or making clothes that would pass for c.1850s. I thought that was a plus and one of the ladies thought making a flouncy dress with petticoats and all that was her idea of fun, but not everybody in the group was exactly wild about this part of it.

This isn't for everybody, obviously, but maybe some toned down application of the "historical" aspect would help you broaden your appeal.

And do a CD--surely somebody mentioned that. Sell copies at the gigs you do get, and then even if the host doesn't pay you, somebody might want a copy for friends. A friend of mine who's a really good blues man does the bit where you get your stuff on the web where people pay to download it. I think he said he now makes about $30 every month or month and a half. I'm not quite caught up on all this tech stuff & don't know how it works, but I know it can be done.

Good luck

Chicken Charlie