Between 2008 and 2012, institutions and individuals in Pennsylvania received $31.1 million from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Pennsylvania Humanities Council for projects that explore the human endeavor and preserve our cultural heritage. Below are some examples of projects since 2006.
- Pennsylvania Civil War Muster Rolls from 1861–1865 include acidic and brittle service records for every soldier who served in the 215 regiments and battalions raised by the commonwealth. They are being preserved, stored, and archived with the help of a $375,000 Save America’s Treasures grant to the Pennsylvania Heritage Society.
- With two grants totaling $282,000, the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic arranged two workshops in Philadelphia, the nation’s capital from 1790 to 1800, for one hundred community college teachers to study political issues of the late eighteenth century from immigration to economic development and, finally, the meaning of revolution in the American context.
- One hundred thousand pages of historic newspapers such as the Philadelphia Evening Item and the Scranton Tribune from 1880 to 1922 were digitized by Pennsylvania State University with the support of a $394,000 grant. This work is part of the National Digital Newspaper Program, which NEH is conducting in partnership with the Library of Congress.
- Anthony Edward Kaye at Pennsylvania State University received a $50,400 research fellowship to support work on his book about Nat Turner, reconsidering the well-known slave rebellion leader in relationship to his neighborhood and his slave neighbors.
- Haverford College has been awarded a $31,000 Save America’s Treasures grant for preserving and digitizing the Friendly Association Papers. Founded in 1756, this Quaker group sought peaceful relations between Pennsylvania and the Delaware Indians and helped bring about several treaties in the 1760s.
- The David Library of the American Revolution in Washington Crossing received a $60,000 preservation grant to house some 2,500 letters, journals, and manuscripts that once belonged to George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and other Founding Fathers. The documents were collected by Sol Feinstone, a Lithuanian immigrant who worked his way up from sweatshop laborer to real estate whiz and philanthropist.
- Work on the first four volumes of the Letters of Ernest Hemingway was supported by a $200,000 grant to Pennsylvania State University. The years covered are 1908 to 1939, from his youth to his debut novel, In Our Time, and up to the writing of For Whom the Bell Tolls.
- The Ida M. Tarbell Papers at Allegheny College in Meadville, including research the famous muckraking journalist did for her pioneering life of Abraham Lincoln, are being digitized and made publicly available with the support of a $30,000 grant.
- Pennsylvania Humanities Council, working with the Pennsylvania Cable Network, is broadcasting Humanities on the Road, a live-audience cable show, to 132,000 individuals per airing. Topics include Pennsylvania German Culture and native novelist John Updike.
- For the Civil War Sesquicentennial, the Pennsylvania Humanities Council supported programming in every corner of the state, with reading and discussion weekends in five cities, a Civil War road show in six counties, three original lectures, and grants to numerous local historical societies.