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NEH & Oklahoma

Between 2008 and 2012, institutions and individuals in Oklahoma received $5.5 million from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Oklahoma Humanities Council for projects that explore the human endeavor and preserve our cultural heritage. Below are some examples of projects since 2006.

  • The Oklahoma Historical Society received a $308,200 grant to support the digitization of 100,000 pages of Oklahoma newspapers such as the Muskogee Cimeter and the Cheyenne Transporter from 1860 to 1922. This work is part of the National Digital Newspaper Program, which NEH conducts in partnership with the Library of Congress.
  • Ten years after the 1921 race riot in Tulsa, which left 39 people dead and 35 city blocks destroyed, the city was still rebuilding. A $15,000 grant from the Oklahoma Humanities Council to the John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation helped bring scholars from around the country to discuss this important but neglected event.
  • A $7,000 grant from the Oklahoma Humanities Council to the Guymon Community Enrichment Foundation supported “Drought, Displacement, and Determination: A Dust Bowl Symposium,” a two-day film festival and discussion program commemorating the 75th anniversary of Black Sunday, the worst single day of the Dust Bowl years.
  • At the University of Oklahoma, Norman, David Chappell is writing a book about white segregationist organizations in the American South from 1945 to 1965. With the help of a $40,000 research grant, he is filling out this under-researched story of opposition to the Civil Rights Movement.
  • The Greater Southwest Historical Museum in Ardmore and the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond both received $6,000 grants to assess disaster preparedness and recovery plans to protect their valuable collections.
  • The endangered language and traditional stories of the Plains Apache are being documented and digitized at the University of Oklahoma, Norman. The resulting database, dictionary, and other texts are supported by a $348,800 grant.
  • Paul A. Rahe of the University of Tulsa received a $24,000 fellowship to support work on his book about the political psychology of republics, as seen through the writings of Montesquieu in Europe and Tocqueville in the United States.
  • During the golden age of magazines, James Joyce, Edith Wharton, William Faulkner, and many other major writers debuted before an appreciative reading public. Sixteen college instructors attended an intensive four-week conference at the University of Tulsa, supported by an $87,000 grant, to reexamine this great literary outpouring.
  • In 2010, three thousand Oklahomans participated in Let’s Talk About It, Oklahoma!, a reading and discussion program sponsored by the Oklahoma Humanities Council, which for more than 25 years has brought books and scholars to libraries and reading groups across the state.
  • With a $96,000 grant, fifteen college instructors attended a five-week seminar at the University of Oklahoma, Norman, entitled The American Indian and Ethnohistory. Participants examined new scholarship on Native American history from the precontact era through the 1830s.