National Archives Grants - November 2018
Access to Historical Records: Major Initiatives
For major collaborative initiatives that promote the preservation and use of historical records collections to broaden understanding of our democracy, history, and culture.
Coastal Carolina University
Conway, SC $270,237
To support the Gullah Geechee Digital Project, an archival collection drawn from three partner institutions that document the history and culture of the Gullah Geechee people, descendants of West and Central Africa, who settled after emancipation in the Sea Islands and coastal plains regions of the southeastern United States. The project will digitize approximately 6,900 pages of text, 90 hours of audio, and 6 hours of film, virtually uniting collections from the South Carolina Historical Society, recordings from the Association for Cultural Equity now housed at the Library of Congress, and Coastal Carolina University.
Country Music Foundation
Nashville, TN $288,860
To support the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s (CMHFM) Music Row Experience Project. Music Row in Nashville provides every service needed for creating recordings, from songwriting to radio play. The project will develop free publicly accessible online experiences that explore place, space, and time relationships to Music Row’s role in American culture and history. Using the documents, recordings, and other media of the CMHFM, the project will digitize and prepare collections to populate interactive learning apps and website for the history of Nashville’s Music Row.
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth, NH $319,964
To support the development of a suite of digital tools to use with oral history collections to aid researchers to accurately discover and use these records. Using the Dartmouth Vietnam Project archive of 133 interviews, a project will devise new methods for adding metadata to digital oral history interviews, including a TEI-conformant tag library, as well as techniques for adding geospatial data to the interviews. The project will then test the methodology by encoding 100 selected interviews held by the online archive of the Oral History Project at the Vietnam Center and Archive at Texas Tech University, and developing open-source plugs-ins for content management systems using this technology.
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe
Fort Yates, ND $325,152
To support a project at the tribe’s Language and Culture Institute to create an online platform that will make available historical records in the Dakota/Lakota languages and provide English translations of at least 10 percent of the materials. The Institute will partner with the University of North Dakota, the Santee Normal Training School, the American Philosophical Society, the Minnesota Historical Society, Black Hills State University, and Sitting Bull College, as well as private individuals to digitize holdings, both in print and recorded, in the Dakota/Lakota language. The project then plans on building a website to bring together these resources and make them available online.
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM $349,988
To support a project to digitize and create metadata for 30,000 aerial photographs of the Grants Mineral Belt taken between 1934 and 1987. Managed by the Earth Data Analysis Center, these photographs document the changing landscape in the northwest region of New Mexico, the site of uranium extraction and production from the 1930s until 1998. The records demonstrate the impact of uranium mining on the ecology of the area. The project will then develop a web application and tools to enable researchers to accurately discover and use data from the photographs.
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA $278,791
To support Invisible L.A., a collection of images drawn from the Dick Whittington Studio collection at the University of Southern California. The Whittington Studio documented the historic growth and commercial development of Los Angeles in the 1930s and ‘40s. The project twill digitize approximately 37,000 photograph negatives that document Los Angeles from the late 1930s through the end of World War II and publish a portion on the USC Digital Library and the Digital Public Library of America. In addition, the project will document procedures for a mass digitization technique suitable for damaged photo negatives that can serve as a model for other institutions with large photographic holdings.
Publishing Historical Records
For projects that document major historical figures, and important eras and social movements in the history of the nation.
Massachusetts Historical Society
Boston, MA $187,518
To support a project to edit the papers of John Adams and the Adams Family, including editorial work on volume 15 of the Adams Family Correspondence and volumes 20 and 21 of the Papers of John Adams; and to expand the Adams Papers Digital Edition.
University of Wisconsin
Madison, WI $200,000
To support a project to edit and publish The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution and the Adoption of the Bill of Rights, including publication of the final two volumes in the States Series on North Carolina and completion of all editorial work on Volume 1 of the Bill of Rights Series.
George Washington University
Washington, DC $196,661
To support the Eleanor Roosevelt Papers project, including completion of Volume 3 of the print edition (The Cold War Years, 1953-1955). The project will also publish 66 audio programs and radio scripts to the Eleanor Roosevelt Digital Edition, and collect and process another 42 sound recordings from the Marr Sound Archives at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA $83,912
To support the Presidential Recordings project, including work to complete the program’s two-part project focusing on U.S. involvement in Vietnam, for a total of 24 conversations selected from Kennedy’s secretly recorded audio files for 1963.
Kentucky Historical Society
Lexington, KY $78,800
To support the Civil War Governors of Kentucky Digital Documentary Edition, an annotated, searchable, and freely accessible online edition of documents associated with the governors of the commonwealth for the period 1860-1865. During the proposed grant period, project staff will double proof transcriptions for an additional 1,000 documents, and publish an additional 800 fully-annotated documents in the digital edition.
Massachusetts Historical Society
Boston, MA $39,065
To support a grant to edit The 17th-Century Wôpanâak Vocabulary from the Notebooks of John Cotton Jr. Digital Edition, a compendium of words and phrases spoken by the Wampanoag who lived on Martha’s Vineyard during the late-17th Century. The vocabulary was gathered by New England minister John Cotton, Jr. during the first two years of his mission to Native communities on Cape Cod (1666-78).
State Board Programming Grants
Grants to strengthen archives and historical records programs in each of the states and build a national archival network.
Arizona State Library, Archives, and Public Records
Phoenix, AZ $64,624
To support the work of the Arizona State Historical Records Advisory Board, including a regrants program focused on enhanced professional development, records preservation, and increased online access to collections; the statewide Arizona Archives Summit that brings archivists together to discuss critical archival issues; promotion of Archives Month and National History Day; and series of Archives 101 workshops and emergency and disaster planning workshops.
Colorado State Library
Denver, CO $40,000
To support the work of the Colorado State Historical Records Advisory Board, including a regrants program to assist repositories with their efforts to preserve, digitize, and provide access to historical records, a site visit or coaching session for each regrants project, a workshop directed toward those in need of training in basic archival theory and best practices, and scholarships for workshops and other training programs related to processing, preserving, and providing access to digital records.
University of Georgia
Athens, GA $40,000
To support the work of the Georgia Historical Records Advisory Council, including a regrants program to support activities that identify, preserve, and provide access to the state’s documentary heritage; providing two scholarships for the Georgia Archives Institute; , awards recognizing outstanding work in the preservation and use of historical records; and the production and distribution of materials for Archives Month that raise awareness of archival issues and the importance of archives to society.
Illinois Secretary of State-Illinois State Archives
Springfield, IL $80,000
To support work of the Illinois State Historical Records Advisory Board, including a regrants program to fund projects that increase access to collections by placing digital images or finding aids online, scholarships to records custodians to attend any electronic records workshop that best fits their knowledge and skill level, and scholarships that will allow archivists to participate in two live webinars focused on the basics of digitization, “Digitization for Small Institutions” and “Workflow and Project Management for Digitization.”
State Historical Society of Iowa
Des Moines, IA $9,727
To support the work of the Iowa State Historical Records Advisory Board, including review of grant applications for the state’s Historical Resource Development Program (HRDP), offer up to five HRDP grant application information and training sessions, and develop a strategic plan for 2019-2022.
Maine State Archives
Augusta, ME $35,500
To support the work of the Maine State Historical Records Advisory Board, including promotion of digitization projects that will result in online access to records, a regrants program with an emphasis on Maine’s bicentennial in 2020, and workshops about the basics of archives and digitization.
Maryland State Archives
Annapolis, MD $20,205
To support the work of the Maryland State Historical Records Advisory Board, including four records management and archives workshops for the state government’s Records Officers, three archives awareness events to engage the public and educate them about the importance of archives, four Digitization Days for family records, a public moving image and video conversion workshop, and two summits that will help the board discover the needs of researchers and learn about barriers that limit access to records.
Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth
Boston, MA $80,000
To support the work of the Massachusetts State Historical Records Advisory Board, including the Roving Archivist program, which will provide initial assessments to 50 new institutions and continuing assistance to 80 institutions; award regrants to support both the purchase of archival supplies and hands-on assistance to process collections; participate in the Massachusetts History Conference; offer online grant-writing and personal digital archiving workshops; and review and enhance the Commonwealth Historical Collaborative directory of cultural institutions in the state.
Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment
Lansing, MI $30,000
To support the work of the Michigan State Historical Records Advisory Board, including 20 on-site institutional assessments that will pair professional archivists with interested repositories, two Basics of Archives workshops, and a regrants program that will allow institutions to apply the lessons learned from the workshops and assessments to their efforts to preserve and improve access to historical records.
Missouri Office of the Secretary of State
Jefferson City, MO $9,372
To support the work of the Missouri State Historical Records Advisory Board, including 14 on-demand workshops covering a wide range of topics that will be offered at locations across the state; the creation of a fillable, six-generation genealogical chart that will be distributed at a variety of conferences, workshops, and other events; and develop a plan of work for the period 2020-2022.
Montana Historical Society
Helena, MT $15,321
To support the work of the Montana State Historical Records Advisory Board, including scholarships for training, a one-day workshop at the Montana History Conference, an electronic newsletter distributed to institutions with archival holdings, an Archives Month poster, an Archives Blitz that will bring together several archivists to help process collections at a small and underserved repository, and the Student Traveling Archivist program to provide several weeks of on-site assistance to underserved archival repositories.
New Mexico Commission of Public Records
Albuquerque, NM $65,000
To support work of the New Mexico State Historical Records Advisory Board, including regrants for implementing professional archival standards, rehousing collections, creating online content, and other activities; regrant application workshops and site visits to monitor regrant projects; workshops that increase the skills of archivists and the level of public awareness about how to care for historical records; and to continue to update its database of the state’s archival, historical, and cultural institutions.
Ohio Historical Society
Columbus, OH $31,670
To support work of the Ohio State Historical Records Advisory Board, including regrants for projects related to institutional development, records preservation, and digital access to records; the presentation of awards for History Day projects and significant achievements related to historical records; the distribution of information about the preservation of electronic records; and to collaborate with the Ohio Electronic Records Committee to develop online training focusing on the management and preservation of social media records.
Pennsylvania Heritage Foundation
Harrisburg, PA $19,567
To support the work of the Pennsylvania State Historical Records Advisory Board, including the annual Archives and Records Management Seminar, the development of six to eight YouTube videos designed to increase public support for and awareness of historical records programs, creating and distributing 10,000 bookmarks advocating for the importance of preserving electronic records, and the Archives Without Tears (AWOT) workshops, which will be offered throughout the state.
Tennessee State Library and Archives
Nashville, TN $38,500
To support the work of the Tennessee State Historical Records Advisory Board, including a regrants program that will offer funding for both basic archival assistance and for digitization projects that enhance online access to records, the Tennessee Archives Institute for training archivists from across the state, and free access to online workshops that provide basic information about digitization.
Texas State Library and Archives
Austin, TX $25,480
To support the work of the Texas State Historical Records Advisory Board, including two Digital Archives Specialist workshops, a series of webinars and workshops on emergency preparedness and response, , a digital Archives Month poster, sponsor and participate in the Houston and Dallas Archives Bazaars and a session on archival records at the Texas State Historical Association meeting, and present awards for achievements related to preserving and providing access to historical records and the use of primary sources in History Day projects.
Utah State Archives and Records Service
Salt Lake City, UT $40,000
To support the work of the Utah State Historical Records Advisory Board, including a regrants program focusing on projects that increase access to historical records, ten site visits to provide direct assistance to repositories in the use of archival best practices, four training sessions on the care and management of historical records and digitization., and weekly activities during Archives Month.
Vermont State Archives and Records Administration
Montpelier, VT $80,000
To support the work of the Vermont State Historical Records Advisory Board, including 40 site visits to historical societies and museums in order to create communities that share best practices, 24 workshops and training sessions at locations across the state to share knowledge and encourage the development of regional networks that will offer continuing support, updating the state’s online directory of non-profit historical societies and museums to include more finding aids and digital objects, work with archivists and educators to develop curriculum and outreach programs that enhance student and citizen engagement with primary sources, and assist archival repositories with the conceptualization and development of grant applications.