Skip to main content

Newsroom

NEH & Arkansas

Between 2006 and 2010, institutions and individuals in Arkansas received $5.5 million from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Arkansas Humanities Council for projects that explore the human endeavor and preserve our cultural heritage. Below are some examples.

  • Carden Bottoms, in the Central Arkansas River Valley, is noted for exquisite Native American pottery, although little is known about the people who produced it. The Arkansas Archaeological Survey has received a $240,000 grant to do research on artifacts removed during the last two centuries from Native American burial sites. Archaeologists and other specialists will collaborate with members of the Caddo, Osage, and Quapaw nations.
  • The Fayetteville Public Library Foundation has leveraged a $400,000 challenge grant to raise $854,320 in private funds to establish an endowment to support a humanities coordinator, library humanities programming, and humanities collection development. Serving urban and rural populations, the Fayetteville Public Library offers several special collections, including the Arkansas Collection, the Grace Keith Genealogical Collection, and the Roberta Fulbright Special Collection.
  • The African American Cemetery Preservation and Documentation grant program, administered by the Arkansas Humanities Council in collaboration with the Arkansas Archaeological Survey, supports efforts to research and preserve neglected African-American cemeteries. A recent grant supported a cell phone tour of these historic graveyards.
  • The University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, received a $249,885 grant to support its Digital Institute for Archaeology, a one-semester advanced training program on geospatial technologies critical to modern archaeological practice.
  • The Arts and Science Center for Southeast Arkansas, Pine Bluff, received a $4,150 grant to conduct a preservation assessment of its art collection, which includes 166 works by noted African-American artists including Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence, Benny Andrews, and Elizabeth Catlett.
  • The MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History, Little Rock, received a $1,000 grant to bring a NEH-sponsored traveling exhibition, “Lee and Grant,” to the museum and to support accompanying programs.
  • Arkansas libraries received $7,000 in grants for programming and exhibition expenses related to bringing NEH traveling exhibitions to their branches. The exhibitions included “Soul of a People: Voices from the Writers’ Project,” “Lincoln: The Constitution and the Civil War,” “Lewis and Clark and the Indian Country,” and “Forever Free: Abraham Lincoln’s Journey to Emancipation.”
  • The University of Arkansas, Monticello, received two grants of about $5,000 each for preservation and assessment training and supplies for the university library’s archives and special collections, which document the history of Southeast Arkansas, the university, and the Ashley, Drew, and Northern railroads.
  • The Arkansas Humanities Resource Center collection circulates exhibitions, film, video, audio, and curriculum guides to audiences statewide. The Resource Center is the only no-fee source in the state for traveling exhibitions.
  • The Arkansas Humanities Council, in a new partnership with the Department of Arkansas Heritage, has awarded nineteen Small Museum Grant Awards, totaling $50,000, to support exhibitions and other programming on state history.