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Grant awards support advanced scholarly research,
the documentation of endangered languages, humanities programs for veterans,
and the preservation of historic collections.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (April 9, 2018) — The National Endowment
for the Humanities (NEH) today announced $18.6 million in grants for 199
humanities projects across the country. These grants will provide digital
access to the personal papers of Helen Keller and enable the creation of a new
permanent exhibition at the Delta Blues Museum on the history and influence of
this quintessential American musical genre.
"These
new NEH-supported projects deepen our understanding and appreciation of the
traditions, values, and historical figures who have shaped our country," said NEH
Senior Deputy Chairman Jon Parrish Peede.
These projects help preserve and tell
the story of essential chapters of American history, such as the digitization
of artifacts excavated at Plimoth Plantation documenting the daily lives of
early English settlers and Native American inhabitants of the area, and work at
the American Discography Project to make Thomas Edison phonograph recordings
available online through the Library of Congress’s National Jukebox archive.
Other projects illuminate the unique
history and culture of a particular state, city, or region. “New England’s
Hidden Histories” will collect and publish 18,000
pages of records from the nation’s founding era from the archives of northeastern
churches, while a grant to the New-York Historical Society will provide for the
digitization of 66,000 photographs documenting the construction of the New York
subway system. Other funding will support creation of a new permanent
exhibition at the Idaho State Museum on the role of Native Americans in the
history and culture of Idaho.
Additional awards will ensure the
preservation of nearly 30,000 pounds of correspondence, manuscripts,
photographs, and memorabilia from author Ray Bradbury, and support production
of a documentary on the life and legacy of Mae West, one of the most powerful
women of early Hollywood, whose writing and film roles served as a barometer
of rapidly changing social mores in 20th-century America.
Projects funded through NEH Dialogues
on the Experience of War grants will support humanities-based programs for
military veterans and their families. These include a grant to Aquila Theatre
for Citizen Soldiers, which trains veterans and civilians to conduct public
performance-and-discussion events on war-related themes in classical Greek and
contemporary American drama.
NEH Summer Stipends for scholars will enable
archival research for more than 60 publications, including a book exploring the
rise of forensic science in the 19th century and a cultural history of the Social
Security number.
Other supported projects include curricular
efforts at the University of Dayton to develop undergraduate courses and
experiential learning opportunities in American history, music, sociology, and
computer science related to the life and work of Paul Laurence Dunbar, Dayton
native and prominent African-American writer, and an initiative at Pawnee
Nation College in Oklahoma to integrate Pawnee language, history, and culture
into the tribal college’s natural science curriculum.
NEH Documenting Endangered Languages grants,
administered in partnership with the National Science Foundation (NSF), will
provide for a digital repository of Coeur d’Alene, a nearly extinct Salish
language spoken in northern Idaho, to facilitate language revitalization. And
grants awarded through Humanities Open Book, a joint venture between NEH and
the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, will give second life to important
out-of-print humanities books on classics, medieval studies, American,
European, and Asian history, and science education.
A full list of grants by geographic
location is available here (PDF).
Grants were awarded in the following categories:
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Dialogues on the Experience of War support the study and discussion of important humanities sources about war and military service. (13 grants, totaling $1.2 million)
- Documenting Endangered Languages Fellowships and Preservation Grants is a joint initiative between NEH and the National Science Foundation (NSF) to support fieldwork and other activities relevant to recording, preparation, and archiving endangered languages, as well as the preparation of transcriptions, databases, grammars, and lexicons of languages that are in danger of being lost. (10 grants, totaling $733,828)
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Fellowship Programs at Independent Research Institutions provide scholars with research time and access to resources beyond what is available at their home institutions. (9 grants, totaling $1.6 million)
- Humanities Collections and Reference Resources Grants allow institutions to preserve and provide access to collections essential to scholarship, education, and public programming in the humanities. (41 grants, totaling $7.5 million)
- Humanities Connections expand the role of the humanities in the undergraduate curriculum at two- and four-year institutions. (23 grants, totaling $1.3 million)
- Humanities Open Book is a joint program with the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to give a second life to outstanding out-of-print books in the humanities by turning them into freely accessible e-books. (3 grants, totaling $491,715)
- Media Projects: Production Grants support the preparation of media programs for distribution. (5 grants, totaling $2.2 million)
- NEH On the Road bring NEH-funded traveling exhibitions to small and mid-sized museums across the country. (12 grants, totaling $1,200)
- Next Generation PhD support efforts by institutions to plan for and implement changes that transform scholarly preparation in the humanities at the doctoral level and incorporate broader career preparation for PhD candidates. (4 grants, totaling $89,146)
- Public Humanities Projects: Community Conversations support one- to two-year-long series of community-wide public programs that are centered on one or more significant humanities resources, such as historic artifacts, artworks, literature, musical composition, or films. (3 grants, totaling $1 million)
- Public Humanities Projects: Exhibitions support permanent exhibitions that will be on view for at least three years, or traveling exhibitions that will be available to public audiences in at least two venues in the United States (including the originating location). (10 grants, totaling $2 million)
- Public Humanities Projects: Historic Places support the interpretation of historic sites, houses, neighborhoods, and regions. (1 grant, totaling $52,532)
- Summer Stipends support full-time work by a scholar on a humanities project for a period of two months. (65 grants, totaling $390,000)
National Endowment for the Humanities: Created in 1965 as an independent federal agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities supports research and learning in history, literature, philosophy, and other areas of the humanities by funding selected, peer-reviewed proposals from around the nation. Additional information about the National Endowment for the Humanities and its grant programs is available at: www.neh.gov.
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