We The People Endowment at St. John's College, Annapolis, Maryland

Recipient: Dink, Michael (Annapolis, MD 21401 USA) in affiliation with St. John's College, Main Campus (Annapolis, MD 21404 USA)

Goal: Endowment for faculty study groups, preceptorials, acquisitions, lectures, and outreach programs dealing with American founding documents and topics.

Description: St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, is applying for a "We the People" challenge grant of $1,000,000 to be matched by $3,000,000 raised to endow activities and library acquisitions centered on "We the People" themes. An endowment dedicated to these themes ensures that works and ideas in U.S. history, events, and culture are given proper consideration in a curriculum that spans thousands of years and examines subjects as diverse as ontology and quantum physics. The bulk of the "We the People" activities will be in four areas: faculty study groups, preceptorials, lectures, and outreach programs.

Grant: 191887 / CZ-50208-09,   Division: Challenge Grants,   Program: Special Initiatives,   Year Awarded: 2009

John Muir in the New World

Recipient: Tatge, Catherine A (New York, NY 10025-3322 USA) in affiliation with Global Village Media

Goal: Production of a two-hour television documentary and website that examines the life of the Scottish-American naturalist John Muir and places his writing, his beliefs, and his activism in the context of late 19th- and 20th-century American history.

Description: This two-hour documentary,John Muir in the New World [working title], shot on high definition for PBS' American Masters, will follow the life of the Scottish-American naturalist and place his writing, his beliefs, and his activism in the context of late 19th and 20th century American history. We will show how, through his writings and associations, Muir became an early and influential spokesman for the conservation movement of the United States. Visually, this film will be strongly rooted in the locations of Muir's life, from Scotland to California, which were the prime influences on his thinking and writing. While preparing this documentary, we will look specifically at the emergent field of environmental history and the new scholarship on the definition of wilderness. We will also explore Muir's egalitarianism within the context of American political thought. And we will consider the importance of religion in Muir's thinking as it related to his botanical and geological observations.

Grant: 194668 / TR-50032-09,   Division: Public Programs,   Program: America's Media Makers Production,   Year Awarded: 2009

Center for American Studies and Civic Leadership (CASCL)

Recipient: Kaufer-Busch, Elizabeth (Newport News, VA 23606 USA) in affiliation with Christopher Newport University

Goal: Endowment for programs in the university's Center for American Studies and Civic Leadership.

Description: The Center for American Studies and Civic Leadership (CASCL) will provide a forum for genuine intellectual engagement on the foundations, evolution, and future of American's Experiment in liberty, democracy, free-enterprise, and consent-based governance. The Center is premised on the belief that the perpetuation of America's democratic institutions requires a proper understanding of the ways in which America's intellectual foundations have shaped the nation's practices, values, and ideals. The uniqueness of our Center lies not only in these goals, but also in its interdisciplinary approach. The Center's methodology encourages an examination of the American experiment from interdisciplinary perspectives, such as literature, art, history, politics, religion, and economics, and stresses the intersection between America's philosophical roots and the practical applications of those theories.

Grant: 191875 / CZ-50196-09,   Division: Challenge Grants,   Program: Special Initiatives,   Year Awarded: 2009

The Papers of James Madison

Recipient: Stagg, John C. A (Charlottesville, VA 22904-4117 USA) in affiliation with University of Virginia (Charlottesville, VA 22903 USA)

Goal: Preparation of volumes 1 and 2 in the Retirement Series; preparation of volumes 9 and 10 in the Secretary of State Series; and preparation of volume 7 in the Presidential Series. (24 months)

Description: The purpose of the project is to assemble and edit for publication the complete papers and recorded actions of James Madison. This project proposes work on The Secretary of State Series and The Presidential Series. In order to understand the significance of Madison's still largely undocumented contribution to the development of the nation and its government in the early nineteenth century, it is essential that the modern edition of Madison's papers, especially those that relate to his career as Thomas Jefferson's secretary of state, 1801-9, and to his own presidential administrations, 1809-17, be completed.

Grant: 196559 / RQ-50390-09,   Division: Research Programs,   Program: Scholarly Editions,   Year Awarded: 2009

'Democratic Vistas': Civic Life, History and American Art

Recipient: Zeiger, Susan (Watertown, MA 02472 USA) in affiliation with Primary Source

Goal: Two conferences of two days each in summer 2009 for up to 100 educators, to strengthen the use of Picturing America images in the teaching of core subjects in the school curriculum.

Description: Up to 100 educators from diverse geographic regions will take part in two, two-day conferences in Boston on the democratic tradition in American art and engage in follow-up activities to apply the knowledge they gain with the support of project staff and scholars. The major goals of the project are: (1)To deepen the knowledge, capacity and confidence of educators to teach about important works of art as an expression of the inclusive democratic tradition in America; (2)To cultivate an understanding of how to incorporate a diverse array of artworks across core K-12 subjects; (3)To model to participating educators the ways in which local art resources inform and enrich classroom studies; and (4) To generate a lasting, on-line resource, free for use by the public, to disseminate the highlights of the conferences, as well as the curriculum projects they generate, to all interested educators.

Grant: 196101 / AP-50012-09,   Division: Education Programs,   Program: Picturing America School Collaboration Projects,   Year Awarded: 2009

The New Negro Renaissance in America, 1919-1941

Recipient: Early, Gerald (St. Louis, MO 63130 USA) in affiliation with Washington University

Goal: A three-week school teacher institute for thirty participants on the social, cultural and political dynamics encompassing African-American communities in the interwar period.

Description: "The New Negro Renaissance in America" aims to introduce junior and senior high school teachers of various disciplines to interdisciplinary approaches to an important era in African American social, cultural, and political history: The New Negro Renaissance of the 1920s and 1920s, sometimes referred to as the Harlem Renaissance. The primary goal of the institute is to work with teachers to show how, through the study of the social, cultural, political, and literary history of a major epoch in African American life, they can reconfigure aspects of teaching their particular disciplines while broadening students' understanding of the rich complexity of both the United States as a whole and of the specific disciplines they are taught.

Grant: 197458 / ES-50290-09,   Division: Education Programs,   Program: Institutes for School Teachers,   Year Awarded: 2009

Cataloging the Morris Ernst Collection

Recipient: Sibley, Joan (Austin, TX 78713-7219 USA) in affiliation with University of Texas, Austin (Austin, TX 78712 USA)

Goal: The arrangement and description and the creation of finding aids for 275 linear feet of the papers of American attorney and civil liberties advocate Morris Leopold Ernst (1888-1976).

Description: The Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin requests funds to support a two-year project to arrange, describe, and preserve the papers of Morris Leopold Ernst (1888-1976) in order to provide students, educators, and scholars access to this important but underutilized research material. Dating from 1916 to 1976 and totaling more than 275 linear feet, the Ernst Papers include manuscripts for his books and articles as well as legal research and case files. Extensive correspondence files document Ernst???s professional and personal communications with numerous politicians, jurists, artists, and business leaders including presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman; judges Felix Frankfurter and Learned Hand; government officials J. Edgar Hoover and Harold L. Ickes; writers Edna Ferber and James Joyce; journalists Edward R. Murrow and Walter Winchell; and publishers Henry Luce and Arthur Sulzberger.

Grant: 194442 / PW-50349-09,   Division: Preservation and Access,   Program: Humanities Collections and Reference Resources,   Year Awarded: 2009

James Madison and Constitutional Citizenship

Recipient: Harris, William F (Orange, VA 22960 USA) in affiliation with Montpelier Foundation

Goal: Two one-week workshops for eighty school teachers on James Madison's role in the creation and implementation of the U.S. Constitution, held at Montpelier, Madison's home.

Description: The Montpelier Foundation seeks funding to conduct two five and one-half day "Landmarks of American History and Culture: Workshops for School Teacher" seminars that will occur in the summer of 2010 at James Madison's Montpelier. The Workshop - James Madison and Constitutional Citizenship - will combine advanced scholarship on Madison and the Constitution, paired with an examination of James Madison's Montpelier as one of the central sites in the creation of the U.S. Constitution. Montpelier's Center for the Constitution has hosted highly acclaimed versions of this proposed Landmark Workshop in 2005, 2006, and 2008.

Grant: 197510 / BH-50326-09,   Division: Education Programs,   Program: Landmarks of American History,   Year Awarded: 2009

Advanced Fellowships in American Material Culture

Recipient: Roselle, David P (Winterthur, DE 19735 USA) in affiliation with Winterthur Museum

Goal: The equivalent of one fellowship per year for three years.

Description: Winterthur is a center for advanced study in America's artistic, cultural, social, and intellectual history to the early twentieth century. Our ongoing Research Fellowship Program enables scholars to pursue research projects for the duration of one to six months. Past NEH support enabled us to expand this program through the addition of long-term fellowships (six to twelve months) for advanced scholars. Research fellows are drawn to Winterthur by the strength of our research collections, our commitment to scholarly activity, and our facilities for scholars. Former fellows have included leading scholars in American social and cultural history, and publications resulting from their work often have been cited for scholarly excellence. Winterthur now seeks NEH support to continue offering long-term fellowships.

Grant: 194587 / RA-50077-09,   Division: Research Programs,   Program: Fellowship Programs at Independent Research Institutions,   Year Awarded: 2009

Norman Bel Geddes: American Designer

Recipient: Henderson, Cathy (Austin, TX 78713-7219 USA) in affiliation with University of Texas, Austin (Austin, TX 78712 USA)

Goal: Planning of an exhibition on how American culture and lifestyle have been shaped and influenced by the theatrical and industrial designer Norman Bel Geddes (1893-1958).

Description: The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin requests $39,609 to plan the exhibition Norman Bel Geddes: American Designer (working title) which will demonstrate how American culture and the American lifestyle have been shaped and influenced by the theatrical and industrial designer Norman Bel Geddes (1893-1958). Bel Geddes is most closely associated with popularizing and applying the principles of streamlining to the design of everyday objects, ranging from soda siphons to automobiles, yet his influence ranges far more widely, impacting disciplines as seemingly disassociated as the arts and urban planning. Given the range and breadth of Bel Geddes???s accomplishments and influence, a retrospective of his career, documenting the way his vision has shaped American life, is long overdue.

Grant: 196948 / GE-50145-09,   Division: Public Programs,   Program: America's Historical and Cultural Organizations Planning,   Year Awarded: 2009

Pride and Passion: The African American Baseball Experience - A Traveling Exhibition to Libraries

Recipient: Schwitzner, Ted (Normal, IL 61790-8900 USA) in affiliation with Illinois State University (Normal, IL 61761 USA)

Description: The 1,000-square-foot panel exhibition examines baseball as a reflection of race relations in the United States, asking how baseball has shaped, and been shaped by, national identity and culture. Photographs, broadsides, team rosters, scorecards, and other baseball memorabilia would tell the story of black participation in baseball, from the integrated amateur leagues of the nineteenth century and the creation of segregated Negro Leagues in the Jim Crow era to Jackie Robinson's now-famous breaking of the color barrier in 1947.

Grant: 196826 / LT-50065-09,   Division: Public Programs,   Program: Small Grants to Libraries: Pride and Passion,   Year Awarded: 2009

Lincoln: The Constitution and the Civil War - A Traveling Exhibition to Libraries

Recipient: Stevens, Robert (Ypsillanti, MI 48197 USA) in affiliation with Eastern Michigan University (Ypsilanti, MI 48197 USA)

Description: Eastern Michigan University is submitting the attached proposal "Lincoln: The Constitution and Civil War" to NEH Small Grants to Libraries program in order to host this exciting exhibition. Through hosting this exhibition and through public programming, EMU will engage the community in a debate and discussion about the difficult choices Lincoln faced as president, and what we can learn from his experience to guide us today. EMU will partner with the Ypsilanti District Library, Ypsilanti Community Band, EMU Departments of History and Philosophy, Political Science, African American Studies, and EMU Gear Up in order to engage members of both the local Ypsilanti and EMU communities, including students from local high schools. Program activities will include an opening reception,including a performance by Fred Priebe, Lincoln re-enactor, a public lecture, a concert and reading, a workshop for high school students, and a closing panel of humanities faculty members.

Grant: 197285 / LL-50065-09,   Division: Public Programs,   Program: Small Grants to Libraries: Lincoln, Constitution and Civil W,   Year Awarded: 2009

NEH on the Road: Farm Life

Recipient: Rosseter, Sandra McCall (Eatonton, GA 31024 USA) in affiliation with Eatonton-Putnam Arts Foundation, Inc. (Eatonton, GA USA)

Goal: Ancillary public humanities programs to accompany the NEH on the Road: Farm Life traveling exhibition.

Grant: 199931 / MR-50056-09,   Division: Public Programs,   Program: NEH on the Road,   Year Awarded: 2009

C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, Washington College

Recipient: Goodheart, Adam (Chestertown, MD 21620 USA) in affiliation with Washington College

Goal: Purchase and renovation of an historic house for use as a fellows' residence, and endowment for a program of research and writing fellowships on the Founding Era and its legacy.

Description: Washington College seeks to create new programs at its C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, especially a residential Fellows program supporting outstanding work on the Founding era and its legacy. This innovative project, complementing our existing George Washington Book Prize, would be open to both academics and independent writers, focusing on book projects that contribute to public awareness of history beyond the academy. The Challenge Grant would create a Fellows Residence in a restored 18th-century house; endow year-long stipends and travel funds; and defray administrative and promotional costs. It would also significantly advance the College's and the Center's efforts to build a community of historians - from undergraduates to distinguished visiting Fellows - by providing new digital archives in American history for the college library and supplying the initial endowment for a new scholarship program for outstanding students in history and related fields.

Grant: 186883 / CZ-50181-08,   Division: Challenge Grants,   Program: Special Initiatives,   Year Awarded: 2008

Pennsylvania Digital Newspaper Project

Recipient: Kellerman, Suzanne (University Park, PA 16802-1812 USA) in affiliation with Pennsylvania State University, Main Campus (University Park, PA 16802 USA)

Goal: Digitization of 100,000 pages of Pennsylvania newspapers, dating from 1880 to 1922, as part of the state's participation in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP).

Description: On behalf of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania State University Libraries requests funding in the amount of $393,650 to support its participation in the National Endowment for the Humanities? National Digital Newspaper Program coordinated by the Library of Congress. In addition to the amount requested from NEH, the Pennsylvania State University Libraries will provide $150,146 in cost-share support for the project.

Grant: 191304 / PJ-50034-08,   Division: Preservation and Access,   Program: National Digital Newspaper Program,   Year Awarded: 2008

Becoming Modern: America, 1918-1929

Recipient: Schramm, Richard R (Research Triangle Park, NC 27709-2256 USA) in affiliation with National Humanities Center (Durham, NC 27709-2256 USA)

Goal: The creation of an educational "toolbox" for school teachers on American history, culture, and "modernity," 1918-1929.

Description: Under the direction of the National Humanities Center, this project will bring together outstanding scholars and master high school teachers of American history and literature to create a thematically organized online anthology of historical documents, literary texts, visual images, and audio material, contextualized and illuminated by notes, discussion questions, and links to supplemental sites. Entitled ?Becoming Modern: America, 1918-1929,? this resource toolbox will be available in 2010. It will be organized to enable educators to use it as the basis of teacher professional development seminars and classroom lesson plans. ?Becoming Modern? will be the eleventh volume in the Center?s Toolbox Library. The Center actively promotes the Library through a variety of means, including training programs that show educators how to use toolboxes to build professional development seminars and strengthen instruction.

Grant: 190012 / EE-50526-08,   Division: Education Programs,   Program: Teaching and Learning Resources and Curriculum Development,   Year Awarded: 2008

Picturing John James Audubon

Recipient: Irmscher, Christoph (Bloomington, IN 47405 USA) in affiliation with Indiana University, Bloomington

Goal: A four-week institute that gives twenty-five high school teachers of history, literature, and art an opportunity to study Audubon's art and literary works in context.

Description: John James Audubon was the first American painter of international stature. He was also one of America's first important nature writers. The purpose of the Institute, directed collaboratively by an art historian and a literary historian (and editor of Audubon's writings), is to give interested teachers an opportunity to study Audubon's art and literary work in a location close to key settings of Audubon's life. We also seek to rescue Audubon from the narrowly nationalist frameworks within which he has usually been studied and to represent his work in its full cosmopolitan splendor and complexity. The guest speakers are the foremost experts working on Audubon today, and the resources on the beautiful campus of Indiana University are unparalleled. By helping teachers acquire the tools they need to tell the story of the American nation through one of the masters of American art, "Picturing John James Audubon" directly supports the NEH's "Picturing America" initiative.

Grant: 192014 / ES-50252-08,   Division: Education Programs,   Program: Institutes for School Teachers,   Year Awarded: 2008

The American Lyceum: The Rhetoric of Idealism, Opportunity, and Abolition

Recipient: Katula, Richard A (Boston, MA 02115-5000 USA) in affiliation with Northeastern University (Boston, MA 02115 USA)

Description: The American Lyceum began in 1826. Organized by Josiah Holbrook, its goal was the spread of practical knowledge to the millions of Americans in the cities and small towns that dotted the landscape. The journey of the Lyceum Movement from a purely informational society to one that became engaged in the political struggles of its day is symbolic of this entire period when Americans began to discover the peculiar character of this new nation, but also to confront its demon: slavery. The workshop proposed here will introduce participants to the Lyceum through a study of its history and key texts (performed by interpreters) that formed its content. The workshops take place in actual Lyceum sites: Millbury, Worcester, Concord, and Salem, Massachusetts. Participants will listen to lectures on the history and oratory of the day, engage in discussions of the texts, and learn how to do research on this important period.

Grant: 192055 / BI-50081-08,   Division: Education Programs,   Program: Landmarks of American History for Community Colleges, WTP,   Year Awarded: 2008

Huckleberry Finn in Post-Reconstruction America: Mark Twain's Hartford Years, 1871-1891, a Workshop for Teachers

Recipient: Hotchkiss, Craig (Hartford, CT 06105 USA) in affiliation with Mark Twain House

Description: The Mark Twain House & Museum will present an educational workshop for teachers, "Huckleberry Finn in Post-Reconstruction America: Mark Twain's Hartford Years, 1871-1891," that will examine the cultural and historical significance of Mark Twain, his writings and his era. The workshop will provide historical context for Twain's masterpiece, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and will use Twain's life, works and landmark Hartford home, as tools for examining the post-Reconstruction period of American history. The museum will offer two week-long sessions of the workshop during July 2009; each session will accommodate forty teachers.

Grant: 192082 / BH-50271-08,   Division: Education Programs,   Program: Landmarks of American History,   Year Awarded: 2008

We the People 2008 Across Washington State

Recipient: Terry, Ellen E (Seattle, WA 98101-2825 USA) in affiliation with Humanities Washington

Goal: an expanded grantmaking program that will fund projects to help Washington State residents gain a deeper understanding of American culture, institutions, and our collective historical and contemporary democratic principles. In remote and rural areas, these project grants may fund the only humanities programs that take place in a town or county.

Description: Humanities Washington (HW) will use its We the People 2008 grant to provide funding for our re-grants program and to support Picturing America in Washington State.

Grant: 192479 / BC-50454-08,   Division: Federal/State Partnership,   Program: Grants for State Humanities Councils,   Year Awarded: 2008