AMHERST — A number of Massachusetts groups will receive a portion of $41.3 million in grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The grants are disbursed across the country and support humanities education, preservation, research and public programs.
Organizations in three Western Massachusetts towns and cities are beneficiaries of these grants.
The trustees of Amherst College are receiving two separate grants, totaling $109,992. The smaller of the two grants will go to a preservation needs assessment and purchasing of supplies for the Amherst Center for Russian Culture. This $9,992 grant will help to rehouse and store archival materials and rare books. The project, run by center Director Erica Drennan, will help to preserve these materials for the future.
The $100,000 grant will go to the production of “Iapi Oaye — Unlocking a Hidden History of Dakota Language and Culture within The Word Carrier,” piloted by Kiara Vigil, associate professor of American studies. The project will go to the “preparation for print and digital publication of an annotated translation into English of Iapi Oaye: The Word Carrier.”
Iapi Oaye was a Dakota-language newspaper that was published monthly by Dakota missionaries, first in Greenwood, Dakota Territory, and later in Santee, Nebraska. Iapi Oaye was published from May 1871 to March 1939. The Word Carrier was an English-language companion to Iapi Oaye that was first published in 1884 and was also published by the Dakota missionaries.
The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown is receiving $100,000 for a new project called “Guillaume Lethiere and his Worlds.” The project, directed by Esther Bell, is the implementation of an exhibit about the life and legacy of Lethiere, who was a Guadeloupean-French neoclassical and romantic painter. Some of Lethiere’s most famous work include “The Death of Virginia,” which was completed in 1828, four years before his death.
The Worcester Historical Museum is receiving $7,900 in preservation assistance grants. Its project, called “General Preservation Assessment of Three-Dimensional Collection” and headed by Shelley Cathcart, will go to a preservation assessment of a collection on Worcester history. Staff workshops will be held on a range of topics, including temperature, relative humidity, light level readings and pest monitoring in collection spaces.