The National Endowment for the Humanities announced on Tuesday the 258 beneficiaries of its newest round of grants, the first of three rounds to be awarded this year. Among the projects will be restorations to the U.S.S. Intrepid, a historic aircraft carrier that is the centerpiece of the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in New York; a documentary exploring the legacy of the fictional sleuth Nancy Drew, whose books have been in print for nearly 100 years; and a book that traces the development of modern Egypt through the historical importance of the tomato.
The grants, which total $35.6 million, will support projects at museums, libraries, universities and historic sites in 44 states, as well as in Puerto Rico, Washington, D.C., and the United Arab Emirates.
Another of the projects is the restoration of a strawberry farm and processing facility established by Japanese immigrants on Vashon Island, Wash., in 1926. It will soon serve as a center for public programming on Japanese immigration and the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
At Vanderbilt University, oral histories from the descendants of 19th- and 20th-century residents of Nashville’s Bass Street neighborhood, which was founded by Black Civil War veterans, will be collected. Funding will also go toward research for a book chronicling the history of the Girl Scouts of the USA, and its issues around race and feminism, by Amy Farrell, a women’s studies professor at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania.
Shelly C. Lowe, the endowment’s chairwoman, said in a statement that the projects, which include curriculum development initiatives designed to improve college and career readiness among students, “demonstrate the vitality of the humanities across our nation” and “support humanities programs and opportunities for underserved students and communities.”
In New York, nearly $4.9 million in grants will be distributed among 27 projects. The money, in part, will support an exhibition on 100 years of New York City history at the Museum of the City of New York; a traveling exhibition on the art and culture of Byzantine-era North and East Africa at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; and research for a book about Latino monuments in the United States by Marisa Lerer, an associate professor of art history at Manhattan College.
Funding will also go to researchers at Virginia Tech for the creation of a database of 17th-century court cases relating to escape attempts by enslaved and indentured laborers in the Chesapeake Bay region, as well as a grant to support a monograph on the post-prison reintegration of people convicted of genocide in Rwanda, by Hollie Nyseth Nzitatira, an associate professor of sociology at Ohio State University.
