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NEH & Florida

Between 2006 and 2010, institutions and individuals in Florida received $11.3 million from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Florida Humanities Council for projects that explore the human endeavor and preserve our cultural heritage. Below are some examples.

  • The Florida Museum of Natural History, housed within the University of Florida, Gainesville, received a $285,000 grant for the rehabilitation of artifacts and records associated with the Pineland Site Complex in southwest Florida, once home to the Calusa Indian settlement.
  • One hundred art and history teachers participated in one-week workshops supported by a $148,000 grant and organized by the Wolfsonian-Florida International University and the Miami Design Preservation League. Participants explored the art and cultural history of the Miami Beach Art Deco District.
  • A study of public libraries in American life between 1850 and 2000 was the subject of a $50,400 fellowship awarded to Wayne Wiegand, a professor at Florida State University, Tallahassee. A comprehensive history of the American public library since 1850 is also planned.
  • The local history materials included in the Boynton Beach City Library Archives Collections offer a slice of Florida history through the stories of the pioneers, fishermen, and farmers of this seaside community. The City of Boynton Beach received a $6,000 grant to help preserve and maintain this collection.
  • Florida public and university libraries received a total of $23,500 in grants for expenses incurred in hosting NEH traveling exhibitions. The traveling exhibitions included: “Lincoln: the Constitution and the Civil War,” “John Adams Unbound,” “Pride and Passion: the African American Baseball Experience,” “Lewis and Clark and the Indian Country,” and “Soul of a People: Voices from the Writers’ Project.”
  • Stetson University’s Vera Bluemner Kouba Collection, featuring the modernist art of Oscar Bluemner, received a $6,000 conservation grant to preserve and protect Bluemner’s artworks based on the recommendations of a prior conservation assessment.
  • Florida Atlantic University’s Jack Miller Forum, Boca Raton, received a $30,000 grant to organize A Nation of Immigrants: American Democracy and Civics Education, a four-day conference aimed at scholars, private organizations, and individuals with expertise in civics education.
  • Come Back to the Fair, a project undertaken by researchers at the University of Central Florida, Orlando, received a start-up grant of $29,989 to develop an interactive 3-D recreation of the New York World’s Fair.
  • Since 2004, PrimeTime Reading, a six-week program of reading, discussion, and storytelling for families administered by the Florida Humanities Council, has served over 4,000 individuals using award-winning children’s books to stimulate discussions on humanities themes.
  • The Florida Humanities Council has produced a series of five-minute audio programs, available online, featuring interviews and information about people important to Florida history and culture, books that focus on Florida’s past and present, and issues and events of interest to Floridians. Episodes have covered topics such as the first public school founded in St. Augustine and five hundred years of Spain-Florida relations.