National Archives To Award $2 Million For Historical Records Projects
Press Release · Wednesday, November 29, 2023

Washington, DC

Archivist of the United States Dr. Colleen Shogan approved 27 proposals totaling $2,009,467 in National Archives awards for projects in 25 states and the District of Columbia. The National Archives grants program is carried out with the advice and recommendations of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC).  A complete list is available online.

In partnership with state historical records advisory boards, the National Archives awarded $795,632 for 17 State Board grants to carry out programs that assist smaller archives, provide workshops and educational tools, and provide statewide archival services. Two grants totaling $125,000 went to Archives Collaboratives. Utah Valley University was awarded a Major Archives Collaborative grant of $350,000 for its Center for Constitutional Studies to partner with the Quill Project at Oxford University to expand its undergraduate‐led digital modeling of state constitutional conventions.

Through our Publishing Historical Records program, $738,835 will go to  seven projects that document major historical figures and important eras and social movements in the history of the nation. Two new projects received their first NHPRC grants: ¡Presente!: Documenting Latinx History in Wisconsin at the University of Wisconsin and via Johns Hopkins University, a collaborative digital edition project, Kinship and Longing: Keywords for Black Louisiana, a digital edition that highlights Black life and culture of the Gulf Coast. 

In addition, through a three-year program funded by the Andrew Mellon Foundation, Planning Grants for Collaborative Digital Editions in African American, Asian American, Hispanic American, and Native American History and Ethnic Studies will go to 11 projects for a total of $1,273,022. New projects plan to document: 

• Black Joy and Resilience in Philadelphia 
• Black Artists of Oklahoma
• Student Activism at the University of Texas
• South Asian American Entrepreneurship and Community Building
• African American Experiences in Lake Forest, Illinois
• Colonial Zapotec Indigenous Texts 
• Native American Boarding Schools in Oklahoma and Utah
• Early Black Women Intellectuals
• Literary Voyager or Ojibwe Muzzeniegun, 19th-century Indigenous literary culture 
• Revue des Colonies (1834-1842), a global antislavery periodical
• Asian American Histories in Ohio

The National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) of the National Archives supports projects that promote access to America's historical records to encourage understanding of our democracy, history, and culture. The 15-member Commission includes representatives from all three branches of the Federal government as well as the leading archival and historical professional associations. Archivist of the United States Dr. Colleen Shogan is the Chair, and Christopher Eck is the Executive Director. Since it was established in 1934 along with the National Archives, the NHPRC has awarded 5,200 grants for preserving, publishing, and providing access to the nation’s historical documents.