National Archives Awards $2.9 Million in Grants for Documentary Editing and Archival Projects
Press Release · Thursday, May 24, 2012

Washington, DC

Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero today awarded 31 grants totaling $2.9 million for historical records projects in 18 states and the District of Columbia. The National Archives grants program is carried out through the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC).

Grants totaling $1.2 million went to 16 documentary editing projects to edit and publish the papers of key American figures, including Frederick Douglass, Walt Whitman, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Martin Luther King, Jr., Eleanor Roosevelt, Andrew Jackson, Thomas Edison, Jane Addams, and the Presidential Recordings from the Kennedy and Nixon administrations.

Grants totaling $1.4 million went to 14 archival projects, including the W.L. Eury Appalachian Collection at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina; the backlog of unprocessed records at the South Dakota State Archives; the papers of California governor Edmund G. “Pat” Brown; Vietnam War-era poster collections; the records of the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission; and the Pan American World Airways records at the University of Miami.

Luther College in Decorah, Iowa received a grant for a three-year project to design and host the Archives Leadership Institute, a program that brings together 25 archivists for a week-long intensive program to develop their skills in serving their institutions and the public.

The National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) supports projects to facilitate the use of historical records held by archives and other repositories and to assure their long-term preservation. The Archivist of the United States, David S. Ferriero, is the Chairman of the Commission. Kathleen Williams 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 Established in 1934, it has awarded grants for preserving, publishing, and providing access to vital historical documents.

The National Archives and Records Administration is an independent Federal agency that preserves and shares with the public records that trace the story of our nation, government, and the American people. From the Declaration of Independence to accounts of ordinary Americans, the holdings of the National Archives directly touch the lives of millions of people. The National Archives is a public trust upon which our democracy depends, ensuring access to essential evidence that protects the rights of American citizens, documents the actions of the government, and reveals the evolving national experience. The National Archives carries out its mission through a nationwide network of archives, records centers, and Presidential Libraries, and on the Internet at http://www.archives.gov.

Grants ~ MAY 2012

PUBLISHING HISTORICAL RECORDS –New Republic through the Modern Era
Projects that document major historical figures, and important eras and social movements in the history of the nation.

University of Tennessee
Knoxville, TN       $52,710
To support editorial work on the Correspondence of James K. Polk, a selected edition of the letters to and from the 11th President of the United States.

William Marshall Rice University
Houston, TX       $56,452
To support editorial work on the Papers of Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederate States of America.

George C. Marshall Foundation
Lexington, VA       $33,000
To support editorial work on the Papers of George Catlett Marshall, a documentary edition of the historical records of the 20th-century military leader, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, and creator of the Marshall Plan after World War II.

SUNY College at Old Westbury
Old Westbury, NY       $57,806
To support a project to edit the Clarence Mitchell Jr. Papers. As director of the Washington Bureau of the NAACP, Mitchell worked to promote civil rights through legislation and executive action.

Regents of the University of California
Los Angeles, CA       $59,670
To support a project to prepare a selective book edition of The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers. Garvey was a staunch proponent of early 20th-century black nationalism and Pan-Africanism movement.

Indiana University-Purdue University
Indianapolis, IN       $57,844
To support a project to edit the Frederick Douglass Papers, a documentary edition of the historical records of this 19th-century African American social reformer, orator, and statesman.

New York University
New York, NY       $84,585
To support a project to edit the Selected Papers of Margaret Sanger, a documentary edition of historical records of this 20th-century social activist.

University of Nebraska
Lincoln, NE       $64,607
To support a project to prepare “Walt Whitman and Post-Reconstruction America” as part of the online Walt Whitman Archive, a collection of historical documents by and about the 19th century American poet.

University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA       $97,500
To support the editing of the Presidential Recordings project, a documentary edition of the audio recordings made by six U.S. Presidents from 1940-1973. This grant will assist the preparation of online editions of John Kennedy’s recorded conversations relating Civil Rights and Richard Nixon’s telephone tapes from 1971.

Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation
Springfield, IL       $107,585
To support a project to edit and publish an electronic edition of the Papers of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States. This project is preparing a comprehensive edition that will include both images and annotated transcriptions of Lincoln’s papers.

Ulysses S. Grant Association
Starkville, MS       $48,320
To support a project to prepare a comprehensive book edition of the Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, a documentary edition of historical records of the 18th President of the United States.

Stanford University
Stanford, CA       $89,807
To support a project to edit the Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers, a documentary edition of historical records of this 20th-century Civil Rights leader.

George Washington University
Washington, DC       $187,500
To support a project to edit the Eleanor Roosevelt Papers,a documentary edition of the historical records of the 20th-century First Lady and human rights advocate.

University of Tennessee
Knoxville, TN       $90,106
To support a project to edit the Papers of Andrew Jackson, the seventh President of the United States.

Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
Brunswick, NJ       $100,356
To support a project to edit the Papers of Thomas A. Edison, a documentary edition of the historical records of the late 19th/early 20th century American inventor and entrepreneur.

Duke University
Durham, NC       $56,483
To support a project to edit the Selected Papers of Jane Addams, a documentary edition of historical records of this American recipient of the Nobel Prize, settlement worker, and leader in women’s suffrage.

ARCHIVES LEADERSHIP INSTITUTE

Luther College
Decorah, IA       $234,823
To fund a three year project to design and hold an Archives Leadership Institute, to bring 25 archivists for a week-long intensive training on campus that will include presentations by experts in advocacy, project management, digital challenges, and human resources.

DOCUMENTING DEMOCRACY: ACCESS TO HISTORICAL RECORDS
Projects that promote the preservation and use of the nation's most valuable archival resources.

Appalachian State University
Boone, NC       $112,693
To support a two-year project to process and provide online access to primary research materials within the W.L. Eury Appalachian Collection. The project will describe 450 unprocessed accessions totaling over 750 linear feet of material related to the Southern uplands, with strengths in the social sciences, regional history, folklore, music, religion, genealogy, fiction, and African and Native Appalachia.

University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA       $133,577
To support a two-year project to process 216 collections that concern the LGBT civil rights and social equity movement documenting the experiences of artists, activists, and organizations between the 1940s and 1990s. The project will process 1,445 linear feet and eliminate the ONE Archives backlog.

Pennsylvania Heritage Society
Harrisburg, PA       $59,843
To support, on behalf of the Pennsylvania State Archives, an 18-month project to provide detailed processing for five groups of large-format documents and special media that make up a portion of the records of the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission, 1937-1990. Records include engineering drawings, photographic negatives, slides, motion picture film, and microfilm.

University of Wisconsin
Madison, WI       $68,553
To support, on behalf of the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, a 15-month project to process the manuscripts and audio and video recordings of art agent and documentary filmmaker Emile de Antonio. His first documentary film on the McCarthy hearings appeared in 1964. He later produced films about the John F. Kennedy assassination, the Vietnam War, the Nixon presidency, J. Edgar Hoover, and others.

Virginia Historical Society
Richmond, VA       $96,602
To support a two-year project to process 1,191 linear feet of records from 14 Virginia-based businesses that have operated during the 19th and 20th centuries in coal mining, law, pharmaceuticals, hosiery and shoe sales, real estate, metals production, energy and natural gas production, paper, and the lumber trade. These records document aspects of the national economy and the American marketplace, and present researchers with resources for the study of the establishment, development, growth, and decline of specific industries in the mid-Atlantic region.

South Dakota Department of Tourism
Pierre, SD       $57,120
To support, on behalf of the South Dakota State Historical Society, a two-year project to process 1,765 cubic feet of state and local government records held by the State Archives. Among the collections to be processed are the records of the Secretary of State; records documenting the Dakota Territory; and the records of the departments of Social Services, Transportation, and Environmental and Natural Resources.

Georgia Historical Society
Savannah, GA       $68,488
To support a two-year project to create 1,594 Encoded Archival Description finding aids for an online database available through the Digital Library of Georgia. The project will also create links between the finding aids and existing online educational resources and tools for students of Georgia history.

Mint Museum of Art, Inc.
Charlotte, NC       $45,369
To support a project to establish an archives for the museum. Founded in 1936 as the first art museum in North Carolina, the Mint Museum plans to identify and establish a space for archival processing, consolidate its approximately 200 cubic feet of records into one physical location, process and provide basic online descriptions for those records, and establish a records retention and collection development policy.

Berklee College of Music
Boston, MA       $125,182
To support a project to establish an archives for the college. Founded in 1945, Berklee employs a demanding and pragmatic educational approach that includes jazz, R&B, pop, rock, gospel, and other forms of music. Alumni include producer and composer Quincy Jones, jazz saxophonist Branford Marsalis, songwriter Melissa Etheridge, and film composer Alan Silvestri.

Fund for Innovative TV
Chicago, IL       $87,270
To support, on behalf of the Media Burn Independent Video Archive, an 18-month project to digitize 450 videotapes from its Chicago Collection and upload them to mediaburn.org. FITV’s mission is to increase public access to independently produced documentary media that educates people about history and culture.

Regents of the University of California
Berkeley, CA       $164,281
To support a two-year project to process the Governor Edmund G. “Pat” Brown papers, documenting his tenure as the state’s governor from 1959 to 1967. The collection offers insight into California history, postwar American affluence, westward migration, the rise of the modern conservatism, 1960s social turbulence, civil rights, environmental history, and the development of modern American higher education.

Regents of the University of California
Berkeley, CA       $100,630
To support, on behalf of the Environmental Design Archives, a project to process and make available the 211 linear feet of records of architects Ernest Kump and Warren Callister, documenting both mid-20th-century design and the architecture of educational institutions and public and private housing.

University of Miami
Coral Gables, FL       $153,809
To support a two-year project to process 1,600 linear feet of the records of the Pan American World Airways collection, 1927-1991. An international leader in aviation transportation, Pan Am set the standards for innovation and technology during its history, and the collection will be valuable to researchers interested in the rise of the airline industry in the 20th century.

Center for the Study of Political Graphics
Los Angeles, CA       $132,918
To support a two-year project to process its entire holdings of 80,000 social movement posters, perform item-level processing of a collection of Vietnam War-era posters, create a folder-level EAD finding aid, and provide online access to approximately 5,500 detailed catalog records with images.

CONTACT: Keith Donohue, NHPRC Communications Director, Keith.Donohue@nara.gov, 202.357-5365.

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