National Endowment for the Humanities awards Alabama projects over $300,000 in grants

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Helen Keller

The National Endowment for the Humanities announced $18.6 million in grants on Monday, several thousands of dollars will be headed to Alabama to fund two projects; and nearly 300,000 will be sent to New York to fund a project close the the Yellowhammer state’s heart.

“These new NEH-supported projects deepen our understanding and appreciation of the traditions, values, and historical figures who have shaped our country,” said NEH Senior Deputy Chairman Jon Parrish Peede.

The American Foundation for the Blind Inc. will receive $295,000 for a project to digitize scrapbooks and news clippings of Helen Keller. The project, titled “Digitization and Metadata Creation for the Helen Keller Archive Press Clippings and Scrapbooks,” is being directed by Helen Selsdon, an archivist for the American Foundation for the Blind.

The project has “digitized a vast portion of the over 80,000 items in Helen Keller’s unique and irreplaceable archive. 160,000 digital images have been created, and by December of this year will be accessible online to blind, deaf, deafblind, sighted, and hearing audiences around the globe,” wrote Selson.

Florence Ala. will receive $1,000 which will allow the “NEH on the Road: House and Home” exhibition to visit the Kennedy-Douglass Center for the Arts. The exhibition seeks to allow visitors to explore how the ideal house and the experience of what it means to “be at home” have changed over time.

Mobile, Ala. will receive a $6,000 summer stipends for a project at the University of South Alabama. The funds will allow University professor Claire Cage to continue the “The Science of Proof: Forensic Medicine in 19th-Century France,” project consisting of a book-length study on the relationship between forensic science and law in 19th-century France.

These are just three examples of the 199 projects, and $18.6 million the National Endowment for the Humanities, a full list of which can be found here.