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NEH & Alabama

Between 2006 and 2010, institutions and individuals in Alabama received $4.15 million from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Alabama Humanities Foundation for projects that explore the human endeavor and preserve our cultural heritage. Below are some examples.

 

  • More than 300 teachers from around the country studied the history and legacy of the civil rights movement in Alabama by participating in a workshop with the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, “Stony the Road We Trod,” which was supported by three grants totaling $547,000.
  • The University of South Alabama received two grants totaling $11,000 to support preservation of the Wilson C. Burton and Wilbur F. Palmer Studio photograph collections. The collections together contain 235,000 negatives documenting the history and culture of the Mobile region and Gulf Coast area from the 1930s to the 1980s and include images of the African-American experience.
  • To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Harper Lee’s classic American novel, the Alabama Humanities Foundation conceived and produced TKAM 2010: To Kill a Mockingbird—Awakening America’s Conscience, a statewide series of events recognizing the novel’s lasting significance.
  • Grants of $2,500 were awarded to the Birmingham Public Library and the Huntsville-Madison County Public Library to help them host the traveling exhibition “Pride of Passion: The African American Baseball Experience.”
  • The University of Montevallo’s Carmichael Library received $6,000 to complete a preservation assessment of the university archives and special collections, which include documentation of women’s education in Alabama and the Olmsted Brothers’ original designs for the campus, now designated a National Historic District.
  • The Alabama Humanities Foundation received four separate grants totaling $426,700 to support public programs such as the Road Scholars Speakers’ Bureau, statewide traveling exhibitions, and teacher institutes on topics such as civil rights and World War II.
  • A collaboration between the Alabama Humanities Foundation and Auburn University, the Encyclopedia of Alabama has more than 1,000 entries and covers topics from the Montgomery bus boycott and to the story of the Yuchi tribe that lived in Alabama until the 1830s.
  • School and University Partners for Educational Renewal (SUPER) Teacher Program provides graduate-level professional development annually to over three hundred 4th through 12th grade teachers, librarians, and administrators. Since the Alabama Humanities Foundation started the program in 1991, SUPER has served more than 4,000 teachers and reached 500,000 students.
  • Before she became famous as a writer of short stories, Eudora Welty carried an Eastman-Kodak six-16 and photographed scenes of the Great Depression for the WPA. “Eudora Welty: Exposures and Reflections,” an exhibition at the Museum of Mobile supported by a grant from the Alabama Humanities Foundation, showed her knack for intimate images of Americans who were more than victims of economic misfortune.