Between 2008 and 2012, institutions and individuals in Texas received $19.4 million from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Humanities Texas 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 Chronicling America, 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. His papers from 1916 to 1976 were arranged and cataloged, with the help of 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 to 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 $50,400 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.
- Humanities Texas, 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 Humanities Texas, 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 and 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.