National Archives Awards $3.1 Million in Grants
Press Release · Thursday, June 4, 2015

Washington, DC

For Documentary Editing and Archival Projects

Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero has awarded 33 grants totaling $3,066,505 for historical records projects in 19 states and the District of Columbia. The National Archives grants program is carried out through the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC). The complete list of new grants is available online.

Grants went to 16 documentary editing projects to publish the papers of key American figures, including Jane Addams, Walt Whitman, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King, Jr., Eleanor Roosevelt, Thomas Edison, the Civil War Governors of Kentucky, and the Presidential Recordings project.

Grants went to two projects to provide access to historical records: dance companies at the New York Public Library and oral histories from the Brooklyn Historical Society. Three projects will undertake digitization of collections: the Uprising of ’34 Oral History in the Southern Labor Archives at Georgia State University; Civil Rights Collections at the College of Charleston; and interviews from the Eyes on the Prize television series at Washington University in St. Louis.

Four projects were funded under the new Literacy and Engagement with Historical Records category: a project to improve access to World War I documents for people with print disabilities via Connecticut Radio Information Systems; a Citizen Archivist Initiative at Keene State College in New Hampshire to transcribe 19^th century documents; “Mapping the Fourth of July in the American Civil War” at Virginia Tech; and a collaborative of the Huntington Library, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, North Carolina State University, and Zooniverse to transcribe and decode military telegrams sent during the Civil War.

Four grants went to state archives to preserve electronic records in Wisconsin, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Missouri, and three state historical records advisory boards in Mississippi, Indiana, and Michigan were awarded statewide programming grants. Berea College in Kentucky was awarded a three-year grant to host the annual Archives Leadership Institute.

Kathleen Williams, Executive Director of the NHPRC, presented the grant applications and policy issues to the full Commission. The Archivist of the United States, David S. Ferriero, is the Chairman of the Commission. Established in 1934, the NHPRC awards grants for preserving, publishing, and providing access to vital historical documents.

# # #

15-83