NEH Approves 2008 Landmarks of American History and Culture Workshops for School Teachers and Community College Faculty

Over $26 million in Total Awards and Offers Approved for 159 Humanities Projects

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) today announced the 26 successful applicants to host the We the People 2008 Landmarks of American History and Culture workshops for school teachers and community college faculty. Next summer will be the fifth year NEH has offered the program, which has already allowed over 7,500 educators from across the United States to travel to historic landmarks for intensive, week-long workshops to deepen their knowledge—and their students' knowledge—of the nation's history.

The approval of the 2008 Landmarks sites was part of more than $26 million in total grants and offers of matching funds announced today. The 159 projects funded are designed to advance humanities research and prepare scholarly editions, provide high quality public programming on television and in libraries, support projects in U.S. history and culture offered by state humanities councils, preserve significant humanities collections, and support long-term plans for strengthening humanities programming at cultural institutions.

Among the 26 Landmarks workshops, 20 have been developed for K-12 teachers and an additional six have been designed for community college faculty. Held at sites such as Pearl Harbor and James Madison’s Montpelier, and led by some of the nation's most prominent scholars, these workshops offer thoughtful investigations of crucial periods and events in American history and challenge educators to make connections between what they learn and what they teach. By broadening the experience and knowledge of our nation's teachers, the Landmarks workshops seek ultimately to deepen students' understanding of American history and the Americans who lived and made that history.

“The announcement of the next year’s Landmarks of American History and Culture workshops is always an exciting time for the Endowment, and we hope educators across the country will be inspired by the 2008 selections,” said NEH Chairman Bruce Cole. “We hope these teachers will apply to encounter our nation’s history at the places where it was made, and then, they will take these experiences back to their classrooms — where they will make American history come alive for generations of students.”

The grantees for the 2008 Landmarks of American History and Culture for school teachers are:

• “Eudora Welty's Secret Sharer: The Outside World and the Writer's Imagination,” Millsaps College, Jackson, MS
• “The Problem of the Color Line: Atlanta Landmarks and Civil Rights History,” Georgia State University Research Foundation, Inc., Atlanta, GA
• “Ellis Island and Immigration to America, 1892‑1924,” Save Ellis Island, Mt. Olive, NJ
• “The Hermitage, Andrew Jackson, and America 1801‑1861,” Middle Tennessee State University , Murfreesboro, TN
• “Identity and Adaptation: Immigration, Ethnicity, Religion, and Culture in the Lower East Side of New York City,” Eldridge Street Project, New York, NY
• “Abraham Lincoln and the Forging of Modern America,” Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, Edwardsville , IL
• “Inventing America: Lowell and the Industrial Revolution,” University of Massachusetts, Lowell, Lowell, MA
• “Benjamin Franklin and the Invention of America,” Villanova University, Villanova, PA
• “Not Just a Scenic Road: The Blue Ridge Parkway and its History,” Appalachian State University, Boone, NC
• “Building America: Minnesota's Iron Range, U.S. Industrialization, and the Creation of a World Power,” Minnesota Humanities Center, St. Paul, MN
• “Shaping the Constitution: A View from Mount Vernon , 1783‑1789,” Bill of Rights Institute, Arlington, VA
• “Women's Suffrage on the Western Frontier,” Wyoming Humanities Council, Laramie, WY
• “James Madison and Constitutional Citizenship,” Montpelier Foundation, Orange, VA
• “FDR and the World Crisis, 1933‑1945: Understanding Roosevelt's World through the Prism of Hyde Park,” Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, Hyde Park, NY
• “Jump at the Sun: Zora Neale Hurston and Her Eatonville Roots,” Florida Humanities Council, St. Petersburg, FL
• “Pearl Harbor: History, Memory, Memorial,” East‑West Center, Honolulu, HI
• “Landmarks of the Underground Railroad: From Christiana to Harpers Ferry,” Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA
• “A Revolution in Government: Philadelphia, American Independence, and the Constitution, 1765‑1791,” National Constitution Center, Philadelphia , PA
• “Crossroads of Conflict: Contested Visions of Freedom and the Missouri‑Kansas Border Wars,”University of Missouri, Kansas City, Kansas City, MO
• “Race and Place: An Examination of African Americans in Washington, DC from 1800‑1954,”National Trust for Historic Preservation, Washington, DC

The grantees for the 2008 Landmarks of American History and Culture for community college faculty are:

• “Concord Massachusetts: A Center of Transcendentalism and Social Reform in the 19th Century,”Community College Humanities Association, Newark, NJ
• “Landmarks of American Democracy: From Freedom Summer to the Memphis Sanitation Workers' Strike,” Jackson State University, Jackson, MS
• “The Power of Place: Teaching American History and Culture through Philadelphia's Historic Sites” Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, Philadelphia, PA
• “Illustrating the Gilded Age: American Politics and Culture, 1877‑1901,” Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center, Fremont, OH
• “Henry Ford and the History of American Industry, Labor, and Culture,” Henry Ford Community College, Dearborn, MI
• “African‑American History & Culture in the Georgia Lowcountry: Savannah & The Coastal Islands, 1750 – 1950,” Georgia Historical Society, Savannah, GA

The NEH grants and matching offers announced today come from six of the Endowment’s major program areas—challenge grants, education programs, federal/state partnership, preservation and access, public programs, and digital humanities. Scholars and institutions in 44 states, the District of Columbia and 5 U.S. territories received support from the NEH. A complete state-by-state listing of grants can be found at www.neh.gov/files/press-release/national_humanities_quarterly_awards_july_2007.pdf.

Some of the projects cited in this release and included in the online files have received an offer of an award; in such cases, the exact dollar amount and duration may be subject to change:

Programs, total number of projects, and total dollar amounts for grants and offers of matching funds included in this announcement are as follows:

Challenge Grants (5) $3,510,000 in matching offers

• We the People Challenge Grants (5) $3,510,000 in matching offers that must be matched by non-federal funds to be raised by the grant recipients on a 3-to-1 basis.

Education Programs (69) $10,307,526 (plus $10,000 in matching offers)

• Landmarks of American History for School Teachers (20) $3,115,577.
• Landmarks of American History for Community College Faculty (6) $691,159.
• Institutes for College and University Teachers (12) $2,127,908.
• Institutes for School Teachers (12) $2,116,160.
• Seminars for College Teachers (4) $54,984 (plus $10,000 in matching offers).
• Seminars for School Teachers (15) $1,715,738.

Federal/State Partnership (35) $2,989,410 (plus $350,000 in matching offers)

• We the People grants for State Humanities Councils (35) $2,989,410 (plus $350,000 in matching offers).

Preservation and Access (1) $692,222

• Humanities Collections & Resources (1) $692,222.

Public Programs (35) $7,668,753

• Interpreting America's Historic Places Implementation (4) $1,004,045 (plus $275,000 in matching offers)
• Libraries Implementation (4) $1,093,159
• Museums Implementation, including the Chairman’s Special Grants (13) $4,907,539 (plus $500,000 in matching offers).
• NEH On the Road (10) $10,000.
• Special Projects Implementation (2) $354,010 (plus $105,000 in matching offers).
• NEH On the Road (10) $10,000.
• Media Radio Production (2) $300,000.

Digital Humanities (14) $418,220

• Digital Humanities Start-Up Grants (14) $418,220

NEH grants are awarded on a competitive basis. Throughout the year, humanities experts outside of the Endowment and members of the National Council on the Humanities consider all applications and advise NEH on the quality and significance of each proposed project.