Library Announces Teaching with Primary Sources Regional Grant Awards
The Library of Congress recently awarded six Teaching with Primary Sources regional grants. Recipients of these regional grants will make subgrants on behalf of the Library to organizations that wish to integrate Library resources and Teaching with Primary Sources methods into their educational programming.
The recipients include Illinois State University, Metropolitan State University of Denver, Waynesburg University, Middle Tennessee State University, the National Council for History Education and the American Historical Association. They will award subgrants of up to $25,000 to school districts, colleges and universities, libraries, cultural institutions, state entities, professional associations, and nonprofits to reach hundreds of thousands of learners in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.
The regions each will serve include:
- Eastern Region - Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont; Grantee, Waynesburg University
- Great Plains Region - North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Oklahoma, Wyoming; Grantee, National Council for History Education
- Mid-Atlantic/U.S. Territories Region - Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, and American Samoa, Puerto Rico, Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, and U.S. Virgin Islands; Grantee, American Historical Association
- Midwest Region - Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, Wisconsin; Grantee, Illinois State University
- Southern Region - Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee; Grantee, Middle Tennessee State University
- Western Region - Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Washington; Grantee, Metropolitan State University of Denver
The Teaching with Primary Sources projects that subgrants will fund are wide-ranging and tailored to the unique needs of learners in specific communities. For example, in the past, subawards provided resources for nonprofits to reach teachers working in a remote part of their states. They have helped local cultural institutions connect items in their holdings with digitized primary sources from the Library to provide learners with both a local and national view of important historical events. Teaching with Primary Sources regional awards have guided students to use Library resources to delve into the histories of their communities. Project topics have included civics, economics, disability history, law, writing, local and place-based history, media literacy, data visualization, state archives holdings, Congressional center activities, supporting student inquiry, and many others. Regional grant periods last 18 months, with the possibility of two renewals based on the availability of funds and grantee performance.
For the first time, regional grantees will offer subgrants under the Lewis-Houghton Civics and Democracy Initiative, a Congressionally funded program named in honor of the late Congressmen John Lewis (D-GA) and Amo Houghton (R-NY). The initiative supports civics, history and democracy learning among secondary students, using creative arts-based primary sources. Educational organizations across the country can apply for subgrants to incorporate music, art, drama and literature primary sources from the Library’s collections into secondary social studies curricula.
To select the six regional grantees, panels comprising K-16 educators and staff from the Library and other federal agencies reviewed proposals and advised which applicants had the requisite networks, administrative capacity, understanding of the pedagogy of using primary sources, and knowledge of the educational landscapes of the regions they proposed managing.
For more information, visit the Teaching with Primary Sources Regional Grants Page on loc.gov. The grants are awarded by the Library’s Professional Learning and Outreach Initiatives Office, under the Center for Learning Literacy and Engagement.
About the Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the world’s largest library, offering access to the creative record of the United States – and extensive materials from around the world – both on-site and online. It is the main research arm of the U.S. Congress and the home of the U.S. Copyright Office. Explore collections, reference services and other programs and plan a visit at loc.gov; access the official site for U.S. federal legislative information at congress.gov; and register creative works of authorship at copyright.gov.
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Media Contact: Deb Fiscella, dfiscella@loc.gov
Public Contact: Vivian H. Awumey, vawu@loc.gov
PR 25-017
03-06-25
ISSN 0731-3527