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Fact Sheet: The National Historical Publications and Records Commission
The National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) promotes
the preservation and use of America's documentary heritage, which is essential
to understanding our democracy, history, and culture. Since 1964, NHPRC has
awarded $163 million to 4,100 projects in all 50 states and special jurisdictions.
NHPRC’s Publishing Program supports documentary editing,
training of editors, and publishing. The program has funded or endorsed 296
projects that have produced:
- 880 individual volumes of original documents,
- 9,100 reels of microfilm,
- 201 guides to collections.
These projects have helped facilitate use of original documents of the Founding
Era of the Republic, including the papers of George Washington, John Adams,
Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, the
first Federal Congress, the early Supreme Court, and the Ratification of the
U.S. Constitution.
NHPRC has funded publication of some or all of the works of 16 U.S. Presidents,
the records of U.S. territories before statehood, the history of Emancipation,
Women’s Suffrage, and the works of our greatest scientists, inventors,
and explorers. These original documents are the basis for telling America’s
story. Pulitzer Prizes for History have been awarded to documentary editors
C. Vann Woodward (for Mary Chestnut’s Civil War) and Steven
Hahn of the Freedom History Project (for A Nation Under Our Feet)
and documentary editions have been the foundation for such award-winning biographies
as David McCullough’s John Adams and Ron Chernow’s Alexander
Hamilton.
Just one project—The Freedom History Project—an edition
of documents pertaining to Black American life in the years between the beginning
of the Civil War and the advent of Reconstruction, has resulted in citations
in 23 reference works, 15 documentary editions, 130 monographs, 212 scholarly
essays, and 68 college-level textbooks and anthologies. At least 152 college
courses and eight publications for elementary and middle school teachers have
made use of the work. The documentary materials have been included in three
CDs, nine books for young readers, two dozen books for popular audiences, nine
exhibits, six films, 11 television programs—including Ken Burns’s “Civil
War” series—16 radio programs, 80 stage productions, and 176 Web
sites.
The NHPRC Records Program supports archival projects at state
and local government archives, colleges and universities, and other nonprofit
institutions. All of these projects facilitate use of public records and other
collections by scholars, family and local historians, journalists, documentary
film makers, and many others. The records in state and local historical records
repositories convey knowledge of a shared national experience from generation
to generation, assure continuity of operations, document personal rights and
entitlements, provide evidence needed to hold governments and other institutions
accountable for their actions, and document the effectiveness of government
programs. For example, grants have helped to:
- Reach all 50 states and territories with support for basic state archives
and re-granting programs for local archives. Often state archives are the
only place to find a detailed record of state-operated federal programs.
Since 1984, 51 re-grant projects totaling $5.6 million have been matched
by state funds of $8.1 million.
- Establish or modernize archival records programs in Seattle; Boston; San
Diego; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Grand Rapids, Michigan; Fairfax, Virginia;
Troup County, Georgia; Manchester, New Hampshire; Lauderdale County, Mississippi;
Somerville, Massachusetts; Rochester, New York; and Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania – among
others.
- Preserve and make accessible oral history and tribal records of American
Indian tribes—including the Seneca, Nooksack, Catawba, Pawnee Nation
of Oklahoma, Chickasaw, Lumbee, Cherokee, Miami Tribe of Oklahoma, Blackfeet,
Sisseton Wahpeton Sioux, Ramah Navajo, Oglala Sioux, Zuni Pueblo, Fort Sill
Apache, Suquamish, and dozens more. Grants also have provided educational
opportunities for tribal archivists through the Western Archives Institute.
- Preserve dozens of photographic and other special collections, including
the Archives of Industrial Society in Pittsburgh, images of southern life
at the University of South Alabama, the Center for American History at the
University of Texas, Harvard’s 19th century daguerreotypes, the Bancroft
Library collection at the University of California, architectural drawings
at the Chicago Historical Society, ship designs at the Mystic Seaport Museum
in Connecticut, and film footage for the documentary “Eyes on the Prize.”
- Create dozens of “cyber archives” which make massive amounts
of primary source material available via the Web. Photoswest.org,
for example, is an online database that contains selections from the Denver
Public Library Western History/Genealogy Department and the Colorado Historical
Society – bringing to viewers some 100,000 images from Colorado’s
history.
The NHPRC Electronic Records Program has supported research
and development into methods for preserving and making accessible those records
created or stored in digital formats. Since 1979, NHPRC has awarded 60 grants
totaling more than $6 million for basic research and implementation grants
in 17 states.
- NHPRC recognized early on the importance of electronic records, awarding
a grant in June 1979 to the University of Wisconsin–Madison for a project
in cooperation with the state historical society to develop procedures to
schedule, accession, and retrieve information from machine-readable records
of Wisconsin state agencies.
- A three-year grant was awarded to the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC)
to conduct research on long-term preservation of, and access to, software-dependent
electronic records. This project leverages the SDSC's research in this area,
which it has conducted for the National Archives and Records Administration
and other sponsors. The project is specifically looking at the scaleability
and usefulness of the technology in archives other than NARA.
- NHPRC also has provided grant support for non-NARA elements of the U.S.
research team participating in the International Research on Permanent Authentic
Records in Electronic Systems (InterPARES) Project. The InterPARES Project
is an international research initiative to develop the theoretical and methodological
knowledge required for the permanent preservation of authentic records created
in electronic systems.
For a list of NHPRC Grants by State and Territory, 1976-2005, see the NHPRC
Web site at:
http://www.archives.gov/grants/
funded_endorsed_projects/states_and_territories/
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