Endowment leader finds his passion in humanities

While on a visit to The Newberry, a research library in Chicago, Jon Peede got an up-close look at Thomas Jefferson’s notated copy of the Federalist Papers, a group effort by several Founding Fathers to raise public support for the ratification of the U.S. Constitution after the Revolutionary War.

Viewing the relic might not seem enthralling to some, but to Peede, it counts as one of the highlights of his job.

Since 2017, he has been the chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, a federal program providing grants to cultural institutions such as museums and universities, as well as individuals, to do research, write or record important cultural works and create exhibitions. Over the past decade, the NEH has given more than $29 million to Ohio institutions such as Ohio State University and the Ohio History Connection.

Peede will be in Columbus Thursday and Friday to speak at the Society of Military History conference Downtown, and to meet with leaders at OSU, the Ohio History Center, the Columbus Metropolitan Library and Ohio Humanities (the NEH’s state partner).