© 2024 NPR Illinois
The Capital's Community & News Service
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Here you will find a variety of reports filed annually regarding the mission of WUIS/Illinois Issues.

Grant Will Help With Researching Lincoln's Time In Congress

cspl

The Papers of Abraham Lincoln has received a $400,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities that will allow more documents about Lincoln’s congressional career to be placed online.

The new three-year grant is the largest the Papers of Abraham Lincoln has received from the NEH. It comes in the form of $100,000 in outright funds and $300,000 in matching funds.

“NEH is proud to support programs that illuminate the great ideas and events of our past, broaden access to our nation’s many cultural resources, and open up for us new ways of understanding the world in which we live,” said William Adams, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The grant covers the period from July 1, 2016, to June 30, 2019. It will support the salaries of editors who are working through the documentation of Abraham Lincoln’s early life and career. These staff members, along with other editors, will focus on the markup, annotation and review of Lincoln's legislation, correspondence and speeches during his single term in Congress (1847-1849).

Because most of this offer comes in the form of a matching grant, the Papers of Abraham Lincoln must raise at least $100,000 a year from private sources to match the amount offered by the NEH. Thus, the NEH award effectively doubles each private donation from friends and supporters of the Papers of Abraham Lincoln. 

“This grant represents an affirmation of the importance of our project,” said Director and Editor Daniel W. Stowell.“NEH support validates the progress we have made thus far and encourages private support of the exciting work remaining before us.”

Stowell noted that congressional support makes it possible for the National Endowment for the Humanities to assist research like the Papers of Abraham Lincoln. He thanked members of Congress from Illinois.

The Papers of Abraham Lincoln is a long-term project dedicated to finding, imaging, transcribing, annotating and publishing all documents written by or to Lincoln during his lifetime (1809-1865). The project is administered by the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum (www.illinois.gov/alplm) and is cosponsored by the Center for State Policy and Leadership at the University of Illinois and the Abraham Lincoln Association.

Created in 1965 as an independent federal agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities supports research and learning in history, literature, philosophy and other areas of the humanities by funding selected, peer-reviewed proposals from around the nation. Additional information about the National Endowment for the Humanities and its grant programs is available at: www.neh.gov.

-- News release courtesy of Illinois Historic Preservation Agency

Related Stories