The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has announced the recipients of $29 million in grants across 215 projects relating to humanities research, education programs, cultural preservation, films, exhibitions, and virtual reality projects across the country. As part of this funding, the NEH also participated in several cooperative agreements, including a $500,000 matching grant with Washington, D.C.–based nonprofit the National Trust for Historic Preservation to protect historic buildings and sites on some of the country’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities. The NEH awarded these peer-reviewed grants in addition to $48 million “in annual operating support provided to the national network of state and territorial humanities councils during fiscal year 2019,” according to a press release.
Highlights of the grant recipients include the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation in Scottsdale, Ariz., which receives 50,000 to improve storage in Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West; the Chicago Architecture Foundation, which receives 170,000 to create K-12 workshops on the development and impact of the skyscraper; the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in Champaign, Ill., which receives 10,000 to preserve drawings from 19th and 20th century architecture students; Old Sturbridge Village in Sturbridge, Mass., which receives 9,794 for the preservation assessment of various structures; and the Lawrence Technological University in Southfield, Mich., which receives 7,000 for the preservation of German-American architect Albert Kahn’s personal library.
The NEH also awarded grants to cultural projects such as South by Somewhere, a television series created in Durham, N.C., on the culture of the American South, and to Louisiana State University and A&M College in Baton Rouge, La., for development of a VESPACE (Virtual Early-Modern Spectacles and Publics, Active and Collaborative Environment) project on the fair theater in 18th-century Paris.
Funding applications for Fellowship Programs at Independent Research Institutions and for the Humanities Connections Implementation Grants are due on Ag. 21and Spt. 19 respectively.