This week, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) recommended to the Archivist of the United States 78 grants of $4.66 million for projects across the nation. These recommendations include 32 grants through the new State and National Archival Partnership grants, totaling just over $1 million, that will enable archives in the states to expand programming.

A new program for Archival projects resulted in 19 archives and records projects, including grants for the Child Drama Collection at Arizona State University, an archival program for the City of San Antonio and for the Wiyot, Sitka, and Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa, the processing of Cold War Era documents at Princeton, and digitization of audio tapes that document Hawaiian cultural traditions, language and history at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu. A grant to New York University will enable the development of its new Digital History Across the Curriculum project.

Grants totaling $2.3 million were recommended for 24 documentary editing projects-from the Frederick Douglass Papers to the Papers of John Jay. Two new projects were also included: The St. George Tucker Law Papers, detailing the career of this 18th century jurist who advocated states’ rights and a strict interpretation of the Constitution, and “Walt Whitman and the Civil War,” a selected edition of the poet’s papers to be published through the University of Nebraska. Two subventions were awarded to university presses to defray the cost of publishing new volumes, including volume 14 of the Presidential Series of George Washington and the first volume of the Civil Rights leader Howard Thurman, entitled The Sound of the Genuine. A complete list of all grants is attached.

Kathleen Williams, the new Executive Director of the NHPRC, presented the applications and policy issues to the full Commission, which also welcomed its newest member, Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD), who represents the U.S. Senate. Following the National Archives’ recently issued report, The Founders Online: A Report to Congress, the Commission also agreed to consider a proposal for a pilot project to prepare unannotated documents from America’s Founding Era for publication on the Web.