What is the Humanities Council? The West Virginia Humanities Council, an independent nonpartisan nonprofit, is the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. We fund hundreds of educational programs each year in history, law, literature and language, and other fields of the humanities. With support from the State of West Virginia, we deliver and support programs in communities throughout West Virginia at schools and colleges, libraries, museums, senior centers, and other locations. The National Endowment for the Humanities is our primary partner and our largest source of funds.
What has the Humanities Council done lately? In the last year, the West Virginia Humanities Council delivered grants and programs directly to 49 counties, and digital programming in all 55 counties. In 2023, Council grants and programs served 192,000 audience members, and an additional 284,000 e-WV users.
2023 West Virginia Humanities Council Grant Awards
| Berkeley | Martinsburg Berkeley County NAACP, The Sumner-Ramer Memorial School: Preserving the History of Black American Education in Martinsburg, West Virginia, documentary film
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| Cabell | Mary Anna Ball, Giselle Our Contemporary: Reconstruction, Conservation, and Preservation, travel
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| Cabell | Marshall University Research Corp., Amicus Curiae Lecture Series on Constitutional Democracy
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| Cabell | Marshall University Research Corp., War Comes Home: Connecting Military Experiences across Time and Space, discussion groups and public presentation
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| Cabell | Heritage Farm Foundation, 50 Years on The Farm, exhibit
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| Cabell | Robin Riner, International Pragmatics Association Conference, travel
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| Cabell | Alchemy Theatre Troupe, 7th Annual WV Shakespeare Festival
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| Cabell | Marshall University Research Corp., Marshall University's A. E. Stringer Visiting Writers Series
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| Fayette | Harmony for Hope, Inc., Mount Hope Historic Walking Trail
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| Gilmer | Glenville State University Research Corp., The Glenville State Emeriti and Deans Acknowledgment Project, history project
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| Hampshire | Capon Bridge Ruritan Club, Focus on History, Capon Bridge Founders Day Festival, history presentations
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| Jackson | Faith Walker, American Association for State and Local History Annual Conference, travel
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| Jefferson | Shepherd University Foundation, Appalachia and the Natural World: The Writing of Ann Pancake, Appalachian Heritage Writer's Award, Writer-in-Residence Project, and West Virginia State Common Read Program
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| Jefferson | Contemporary American Theater Festival, Inc., 2023 Humanities at the Festival, discussions
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| Jefferson | Shepherd University Foundation, The Art of Storytelling: Teaching and Telling in the Classroom across the Curriculum, teacher institute
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| Kanawha | Gordon Simmons, Public Worker Organizing in West Virginia, 1969-2019, fellowship
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| Kanawha | West Virginia Public Broadcasting Foundation, Inc., Us & Them "Diminishing Trust" Live Event Project, presentations and discussions
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| Kanawha | Kanawha Salines Foundation Inc., Historical Archeology Field School at J.Q. Dickinson Salt Works
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| Kanawha | Friends of Blackwater, Moonshine Memories: Law, Land, Livelihood, and the Curious Case of Ab Crossland, research and presentations
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| Kanawha | Festiv-ALL Charleston, West Virginia, Inc., Author's Roundtable
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| Kanawha | Hallie Chillag, Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy’s Oxford Summer Institute for Curriculum Development in Critical Contemporary Antisemitism Studies, travel
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| Kanawha | West Virginia Public Broadcasting Foundation, Inc., Us & Them Season 10, podcast
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| Kanawha | West Virginia Symphony Orchestra, Inc., A Melding of Cultures: West Virginia Symphony Orchestra State Tour, presentations and discussions
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| Kanawha | Step by Step, Inc., Engaging West Virginians with Our Literary Heritage, promotion
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| Lincoln | Appalachian Arts Academy, Queer for Fear, screening and discussion
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| Marion | Jennifer Walker, Hector Berlioz's Requiem, fellowship
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| Lewis | The City of Weston Historic Landmark Commission, Weston African American Oral History Project
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| Marion | Jennifer Walker, Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society, travel grant
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| Marion | Lydia Warren, Appalachian Studies Association Conference, travel
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| Marion | Tiffany Martin, Appalachian Studies Association Conference, travel
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| Marshall | Basil Stewart, Society for American Archaeology Annual Meeting, travel
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| Mercer | Air Force Association, Chuck Yeager Chapter WV, Yeager Humanities Seminar
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| Mineral | Friends of Ashby's Fort, Inc., Events '23 Natural Philosophy
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| Mineral | Friends of Ashby's Fort, Inc., Jim Morris & the Critton Hollow String Band, presentation
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| Mingo | West Virginia Mine Wars Museum, Camp Solidarity, tours and panel discussions
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| Mingo | West Virginia Mine Wars Museum, A Window into History: Upgrading the Bloody Mingo Exhibit in the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum
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| Monongalia | Tania de Miguel Magro, The Renaissance Society of America San Juan 2023 Conference, travel
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| Monongalia | Sean Lawrence, Arcadia Lost: German Money and Ottoman Nature at the End of Empire (1870-1923), fellowship
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| Monongalia | Austin McCoy, The Quest for Democracy: Black Power, the New Left, and Progressive Politics in the Post-Industrial Midwest, fellowship
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| Monongalia | Mason Moseley, We Are the Water: Mobilizing the Masses for Environmental Justice, fellowship
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| Monongalia | Enkeshi El-Amin, Remembering the Bottom Through The Street and Feets of The Neighborhood: How Former Residents of Knoxville's Destroyed Black Neighborhood Remember Their Place, fellowship
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| Monongalia | Rhonda L. Reymond, Joseph E. Dodd and the state of West Virginia's participation in the American Negro Exposition of 1940 in Chicago, fellowship
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| Monongalia | Brooke Durham, Suspicious Friendships: The 1957 Sensational Trial of Welfare and Development Workers in Revolutionary Algeria, fellowship
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| Monongalia | West Virginia University Research Corp., That Dark and Vast Sea: A Clandestine History of Race, Capitalism and Rebel Sailors in the Afro-European Maritime World, presenatation and discussion
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| Monongalia | West Virginia University Research Corp., This Land was Already Loved: Native Leaders discuss their Nation's Connection to Place, public forum
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| Monongalia | Emily Morrell, Appalachian Studies Association Conference, travel
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| Monongalia | Montana Williamson, John Nau Conference on Texas History, travel
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| Monongalia | Nancy Caronia, American Archives: Virtuality, Memory, Media Archaeology, V Crisa International Conference, travel
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| Monongalia | Crystal Wimer, Truth Builds Community, travel
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| Ohio | Grow Ohio Valley, Wheeling Community Cookbook Project, folklife book
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| Pocahontas | West Virginia Foreign Language Teachers Association, Interculturality: The Heart of Language Learning, conference
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| Preston | Arthurdale Heritage, Inc., Agriculture and Industry Exhibition
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| Preston | Elizabeth Satterfield, AASLH 2023 Annual Conference 'I, too, am America', travel
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| Preston | Katharine Donnelly, American Association for State and Local History, travel
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| Randolph | Kump Education Center, Wild, Wonderful Woods: Celebrating our Forest Heritage, exhibit
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| Randolph | Preservation Alliance of West Virginia, Inc., West Virginia Cemetery Preservation Workshop Series
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| Randolph | Appalachian Forest Heritage Area, Discover the Appalachian Forest, exhibit plan
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| Summers | Rae Garringer, Country Queers: The Story of a DIY Rural Queer Oral History Project, fellowship
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| Wayne | Marie Cummings, Archaeological Institute of America Annual Meeting, travel
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| Wood | Civil War Roundtable of the Mid-Ohio Valley, Unthinkable Outcomes From the Battle of Port Royal, presentation
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Other Council-Funded Programs
Grants
Council grants funded the Indigenous Appalachia exhibit at WVU Libraries and a seminar featuring native leaders discussing their Nations' connection to place.
With a grant to Marshall University, the Council supported veteran discussion groups at veteran centers throughout West Virginia.
Council grants supported lectures by authors John Stauffer, Ann Pancake, Neema Avashia, Sonali Chakravarti, and others.
The Council awarded 15 travel grants to representatives at Arthurdale, the Frank and Jane Gabor West Virginia Folklife Center, the Great Bend Museum, Grave Creek Mound Archaeological Complex, and elsewhere to attend conferences and seminars.
Council grants supported humanities programming throughout the state at venues including the Yew Mountain Center in Hillsboro, Wayne High School, Canaan Valley State Park, the Kump Education Center in Elkins, Ashby’s Fort Museum, Blennerhassett Museum, and elsewhere.
Programs
The Council concluded the second year of our West Virginia National Cemeteries Project by developing a curriculum guide (available on our website).
Our annual McCreight Lecture in the Humanities featured author, journalist, and tech humanist Cory Doctorow.
The Council added three new characters to the History Alive! roster: frontiersman Thomas Ingles, workers’ rights advocate and the first woman presidential cabinet member Frances Perkins, and Minnie Reed, a “composite” of several 20th-century West Virginia folk singers.
The Council’s revised and redesigned Born of Rebellion: West Virginia Statehood and the Civil War traveling exhibit debuted at West Virginia Wesleyan as part of a statewide tour.
Our Little Lectures series featured presenters Ilene Evans, Rose Agnes Rolls Cousins: Black Dreams in Blue Skies; Scott MacKenzie, The Fifth Border State: Slavery, Emancipation, and the Formation of West Virginia; Mary Beth Brown, Creating a Path towards Equal Education: The Role of Border States in Desegregation; and Steven Cody Straley, A Union State’s Confederate Idol: Stonewall Jackson, Confederate Monuments, and the Lost Cause in West Virginia.
West Virginia Folklife Program
The Council maintained its partnership with the Mid Atlantic Arts’ Central Appalachian Living Traditions program to help promote grant opportunities and to help facilitate the CALT Folk Arts and Culture Community Anchors Initiative in Scotts Run, WV. This included interviews with community members through the Scotts Run Resonance Project.
The Council supported seven pairs of the 2022-2023 West Virginia Folklife Apprenticeship Program, including well-attended showcases in Elkins, Fairmont, and Clarksburg.
Vanessa Peña served as our AmeriCorps member to support the Council and the West Virginia Folklife Program.
Current staff conducted interviews with previous staff for the Council’s 50th oral history project, coordinated by AmeriCorps members.
The staff documented the dedication of a William G. Pomeroy Foundation Legends and Lore roadside marker at Chief Logan State Park celebrating banjo player Aunt Jennie Wilson (1900-1992).
The State Folklorist participated in the panel “Call Your Local Folklorist” at the National Humanities Conference; served as a consulting scholar on A Little of This, A Little of That: A Wheeling Community Cookbook; and co-wrote, with Emily Hilliard, “Connecting Themes and Stories: How to Use the West Virginia Folklife Collection in the Classroom,” in the Journal of Folklore and Education: https://jfepublications.org/journal/vol-10-1/
Visit e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia
View our 2022 Activities Report here.
Grants
Grant recipient Us & Them "Diminishing Trust" event at Marshall University (photo by Julie Blackwood)
Direct Programs
Born of Rebellion exhibit on display in Morgantown (photo by Kyle Warmack)
West Virginia Folklife Program
Fiddle repair folklife apprentice Mary Linscheid and her mentor Chris Haddox (photo by Jennie Williams)
