University of North Texas is the only school in the region to earn a National Endowment for the Humanities grant in the endowment’s latest awards announced on Friday.
The university’s digital libraries division has kept a brisk pace in putting materials online, and the $217,000 grant from the endowment will continue that work.
Mark Phillips, the UNT associate dean of Digital Libraries & External Relations, is the project director on an initiative to digitize 100,000 pages of newspapers published between 1690 and 1963 as a part of the National Digital Newspaper Program.
The program is a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress. In adding the historical newspapers to the program, Phillips and UNT further the long-term effort to develop an internet-based, searchable database of U.S. newspapers with descriptive information and select digitization of historic pages.
The recent round of grants saw $35 million in grants given to about 100 humanities projects across the country.
The grants will support projects that celebrate the nation’s 250th anniversary. They range in depth and breadth, and the projects ultimately connects Americans to their country, its history and identity, including the reinstallation of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston’s permanent galleries of 18th century art of the Americas, and a digital edition of more than 13,000 speeches, letters and other writings by Frederick Douglass.
The grants also feature other deeply cultural work connected to the country’s darker moments. A grant will help the 9/11 Memorial & Museum decontaminate, document and preserve plastic objects in its collection of items associated with the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
“The National Endowment for the Humanities is proud to support research, exhibitions, teacher training, and preservation projects that examine and illuminate our history, literature, and culture,” said NEH acting Chair Michael McDonald in a press release.
“These NEH grants will produce new resources and media that will help Americans meaningfully engage with the nation’s founding principles as we approach the U.S. Semiquincentennial and ensure that educators, students, and the public have access to accurate, informative materials that deepen our understanding of the American story.”