Between 2006 and 2010, institutions and individuals in Texas received $18.5 million from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Texas Humanities for projects that explore the human endeavor and preserve our cultural heritage. Below are some examples.
- Two hundred thousand pages of historic Texas newspapers such as the Fort Worth Daily Gazette and the Jefferson Jimplecute from 1880 to 1910 are being digitized with a $797,000 grant to the University of North Texas, Denton. This work is part of the National Digital Newspaper Program, an NEH–Library of Congress collaboration.
- From 1845 to 1924, about one hundred thousand immigrants entered the United States through the port of Galveston. The Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum, Austin, received a $392,000 grant for a large exhibition and a smaller traveling exhibition telling this little known story.
- In 1933, Morris Ernst defended James Joyce’s Ulysses against a ban that had kept the novel out of the United States for eleven years. It was the first of many storied cases and causes taken on by Ernst, cofounder of what eventually became the American Civil Liberties Union. Arranging and cataloging his papers from 1916 to 1976 is the goal of an ongoing two-year project, funded by a $196,000 grant, at the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas, Austin.
- The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, received a $40,000 grant to plan an exhibition of history paintings by American innovators Benjamin West, John Singleton Copley, and John Trumbull that will reconsider these important artists relative to their international peers.
- For an upcoming book, C. Jan Swearingen, a professor at Texas A & M University, College Station, is tracking the Scottish Enlightenment’s influence on the language of the Declaration of Independence. She has received a $50,000 research grant.
- Volumes 12–14 of the Papers of Jefferson Davis follow the Confederate president into Reconstruction and the final stage of his life. During these years Davis served federal prison time under indictment for treason and gathered material for his memoirs. Preparation for publication was aided by a $125,000 grant.
- Research for Texas A & M University professor Jerome M. Loving’s biography Mark Twain: The Adventures of Samuel L. Clemens was supported by a $40,000 fellowship.
- Texas Humanities, which supports many cultural preservation projects, undertook a project of its own in 2006 when it purchased the century-old Byrne-Reed House in Austin, and restored the building to its original elegance.
- In 1874 and 1875, U.S. Army troops clashed with the Arapaho, Kiowa, and Southern Cheyenne in what became known as the Red River War. With a $7,000 grant from Texas Humanities, the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, convened a public symposium of scholars, curators, and tribal representatives to consider the war’s history and remembrance.
- Forty schoolteachers participated in a pair of four-day institutes exploring the U.S. Constitution in American History, led by historians such as H.W. Brands and Jack Rackove. This and numerous other public programs in Texas were supported by a $284,000 grant.