Commission Recommends $3.5 Million in Grants
Press Release · Wednesday, December 31, 1969

Washington, DC

Washington, DC...At its Spring meeting, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) recommended to the Archivist of the United States 50 grants of $3.5 million for projects in 25 states and the District of Columbia. These recommendations include $1.5 million for 18 archives and records projects, including grants for the Lowell Thomas Collection at Marist College, an online access program for the Johnson County Kansas archives, the television preservation and access project at Appalshop in Whitesburg, Kentucky, and the establishment of a records management program at Naropa University in Bolder, Colorado. Seven grants were awarded to state agencies to further archives and records programs in their individual states.

Grants totaling $1.85 million were recommended for 21 documentary editing projects—from the Thomas A. Edison Papers to the Papers of Charles Carroll of Carrollton. Two new projects were also included: The Ah Quin Diaries, detailing the life of this 19th century Chinese-American entrepreneur, and the Papers of Abraham Lincoln. Five subventions were awarded to university presses to defray the cost of publishing new volumes, including selected correspondence between Salmon P. Chase and his daughters and the correspondence of Frederick Douglass. A complete list of all grants is attached.

The NHPRC also approved new funding opportunities for FY 2008. In addition to continued support for Publishing Historical Documents and Historical Editing Fellowships, the Commission announced new grants opportunities for:

• Professional Development—programs to improve the training and education of archivists and documentary editors
• Strategies and Tools—programs to develop new strategies and tools to improve the preservation, public discovery, or use of historical records
• Research in Historical Records Issues—a project to investigate how the public gains access to and uses historical records.

Applicants for each of these opportunities are encouraged to visit the NHPRC web site and to apply via Grants.gov.

The Archivist of the United States, Allen Weinstein, is the Chairman of the Commission, and Max J. Evans is its Executive Director. The NHPRC is the sole Federal funding agency whose only focus is the documentary heritage of the United States. Established in 1934, it has awarded grants for preserving, publishing, and providing access to vital historical documents. Twice each year, in May and November, the Commission recommends grants to the Chairman.

Recommended Grants - May 2007

Publishing Historical Records
These long-term projects document major historical figures, records groups, and important eras and social movements from the history of the nation.

The Ah Quin Diaries
California State University, San Marcos Foundation
San Marcos, CA      $55,938

The Papers of Abraham Lincoln
Illinois Historic Preservation Agency
Springfield, IL      $75,000

The Papers of the War Department 1784‑1800
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA      $104,329

The Papers of Jefferson Davis, Volumes 12 and 13
William Marsh Rice University
Houston, TX      $100,236

The Selected Papers of John Jay
Columbia University
New York, NY      $132,065

Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers, Caribbean Series
Regents of the University of California
Los Angeles, CA      $63,262

Emma Goldman Papers
Regents of the University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA      $135,321

The Samuel Gompers Papers
University of Maryland, College Park
College Park, MD      $96,847

The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant Association
Carbondale, IL      $95,717

Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project
Stanford University
Stanford, CA      $86,898

The Papers of George Catlett Marshall
George C. Marshall Foundation
Lexington, VA      $44,000

Clarence Mitchell, Jr. Papers
Research Foundation of SUNY
Albany, NY      $46,070

Documentary Relations of the Southwest
Board of Regents, University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ      $43,095

The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers
George Washington University
Washington, DC      $227,016

The Papers of Howard Thurman       
Morehouse College
Atlanta, GA      $94,469

The Papers of Charles Carroll of Carrollton
College of William and Mary
Williamsburg, VA      $13,207

The Papers of Andrew Jackson
University of Tennessee
Knoxville, TN      $108,560

The Presidential Recordings Project
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA      $112,324

The Selected Papers of Margaret Sanger
New York University
New York, NY      $88,134

The Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton
     and Susan B. Anthony
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Piscataway, NJ      $52,826

Thomas A. Edison Papers Project
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Piscataway, NJ      $99,210

Publication Subventions
Grants to publishers to help defray the printing costs of individual volumes of documentary editions.

State Historical Society of Wisconsin
Madison, WI      $10,000
The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution,
Vol. 23:  Ratification of the Constitution by the States:  New York, Vol. 5

Kent State University
Kent, OH      $10,000
The Chase Daughters Project –
Selected Correspondence Between Salmon P. Chase and His Two Daughters

Yale University
New Haven, CT      $8,000
The Frederick Douglass Correspondence Series, Volume 1: 1841‑53

University of North Carolina Press, Inc.
Chapel Hill, NC      $10,000
The Harriet Jacobs Family Papers, Vols. 1 & 2

University of Tennessee
Knoxville, TN      $10,000
The Papers of Andrew Jackson, Volume 7, 1829

State Board Administrative Support Projects
Grants to support the operations of State Historical Records Advisory Boards (SHRABs)—made either directly to the SHRAB or a fiscal agent.

Idaho State Historical Society    $10,000
Indiana Commission on Public Records    $10,000
Minnesota Historical Society    $8,580
Missouri Office of Secretary of State    $5,817
Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission    $16,400

State Collaborative and Regrant Projects
Grants support efforts to improve statewide, regional, or national collaborations and services.

Arizona State Historical Records Advisory Board
Phoenix, AZ      $10,000
To support an ongoing regrant program with additional funds to serve under-documented and under served communities in Arizona.

Archives and Records Projects
Grants to support preservation of, and access to, historical records.

Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County
Chicago, IL      $126,220
To support a two‑year project to microfilm and index over 400,000 Declarations of Intention from immigrants to become citizens (791 volumes) for the period 1906‑1929.

Marist College
Poughkeepsie, NY      $139,149
To support a two‑year project to arrange and describe the Lowell Thomas papers. Thomas (1892‑1981) was a well‑known journalist, explorer, and radio.

Naropa University
Boulder, CO      $90,000
To support the Naropa University Archives and Records Program for a two‑year project to develop a records management program and process the university's archival records.

San Antonio Public Library Foundation
San Antonio, TX      $97,452
To support the City of San Antonio and San Antonio Public Library for a one‑year project to develop the city's archival program.

Appalshop, Inc.
Whitesburg, KY      $83,365
To support a two‑year project to process, re-house, and make accessible the audio‑visual recordings of Mountain Community Television (1972‑78) and the "Headwaters Television" series (1981‑85). Descriptive information will be made available through EAD finding aids on the web sites of Appalshop and the Kentuckiana Digital Library, and catalog records on Moving Image Collections (MIC), an online moving image cataloging and information resource.

Johnson County, Kansas
Olathe, KS      $20,000
To support the County’s Archives and Records Management Program to develop a strategic plan to allow public online access to the Archives' finding aids, indexes, and eventually its records.

Idaho State Historical Society
Boise, ID      $75,941
To support a 17‑month project to arrange, describe, and make more readily accessible prisoner files and inmate photographs from the Idaho State Penitentiary for the period 1880‑1947.

Jekyll Island State Park Authority
Jekyll Island, GA      $35,000
To support a 13‑month project to arrange and describe the records of the Jekyll Island State Park Authority (1950‑present) and the Jekyll Island Club (1886‑1947, 1960s‑1970s). 

Art Institute of Chicago
Chicago, IL      $34,500
To support a one‑year project to process the papers of architects Harry Weese (1915‑1998) and his brother, Ben Weese (b.1929). 

Philadelphia Museum of Art
Philadelphia, PA      $142,449
To support a three‑year project to establish an institution‑wide records management program and process at least 550 cubic feet of special exhibitions records. 

Utah State Archives and Records Services
Salt Lake City, UT      $76,100
To support a one‑year project to arrange, describe, and microfilm the historic records of the district courts for three counties in Utah from 1852‑1955.

Society of American Archivists
Chicago, IL      $35,600
To support a 14‑month project to write and publish "Guidelines for Managing Congressional Papers." These guidelines, which will be directed toward donors, repository administrators, and archivists, will be designed to help ensure the long‑term preservation of the historical records found in Congressional collections.

Office of the Capitol Commission
Lincoln, NE      $27,440
To support a project to survey and inventory the archival holdings of its Nebraska Capitol Collections.

Regents of the University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA      $64,532
To support the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley to process three collections of papers of historians' who studied indigenous populations of the Southwestern United States and Mexico.

Japanese American National Museum
Los Angeles, CA      $134,400
To support a two‑year project to identify the Museum’s archival collections and process the most important collections. In this project, the Museum will identify all archival collections, establish processing priorities and plans, and process at least 400 cubic feet to the appropriate level.

Santa Clara County
Santa Clara, CA      $201,334
To support a two‑year project to transfer and process 1,500 cubic feet of the county's historical records to an archival facility, arrange for the transfer of another 500 cubic feet during the project, and establish regular research hours and records transfer procedures for the archives.

Big Pine Paiute Tribe of the Owens Valley
Big Pine, CA      $60,000
To support a one‑year project to plan and implement a tribal archives and records management project.

City of Boston
Boston, MA         $113,400
To support a one‑year project to implement a city‑wide archives and records management program. The project staff will implement a records management program by updating the city's various records schedules and providing a single online schedule, designating departmental records officers, and providing appropriate records training for these records officers. The city's archival program will be expanded through the creation of a general EAD finding aid to all 14,000 linear feet of records held by the city archives.

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