The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has just announced the allocation of $34.79 million in grants to support 97 humanities projects nationwide.
An August 1 NEH press release noted that these grants will “support various humanities projects that celebrate the nation’s 250th anniversary; the reinstallation of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston’s permanent galleries of eighteenth-century art of the Americas; fund a digital edition of more than 13,000 speeches, letters, and other writings by Frederick Douglass; and assist the 9/ 11 Memorial & Museum in decontaminating, documenting, and preserving plastic objects in its collection of items associated with the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.”
A centerpiece of the awards is a historic $10 million grant to the University of Virginia, the largest ever awarded by the NEH. This project accelerates work on Founding Era documents — like the papers of Washington, Madison, and others — and serves as the financial and technical foundation for IndependenceHub, a digital platform offering curated exhibits, interactive tellings of the Declaration’s legacy, and educational resources.
Workshops and summer institutes have been funded to help K – 12 educators and college faculty explore a variety of topics such as “the history of Florida’s ‘Space Coast’; Emily Dickinson’s poetry; the music, history, and culture of the Mississippi Delta; and the ancient Olympics and daily life in the ancient Mediterranean,” per the press release.
Media projects in film, television, and radio have been funded, along with support for the creation of a national, digital resource of historically significant newspapers published between 1690 and 1963.
This funding round comes during a transitional period for the NEH, following earlier controversies around staff reductions and the cancellation of more than 1,200 previously awarded grants.
For an overview of the amount of funds/number of grants by category, scroll to the end of the NEH press release here.
