Small Grants to Libraries
This program brings humanities public programming to libraries throughout the country, offering successful applicants a $2,500 grant for expenses related to hosting traveling exhibitions or other national humanities projects developed with NEH support.
Guidelines URL (for Lincoln: The Constitution and the Civil War): www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/SGL_Lincoln.html

GL-50153, Huntington Library:
Forever Free: Abraham Lincoln's Journey to Emancipation.
In conjunction with the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and the American Library Association, the Huntington Library received a 2003 grant for a traveling panel exhibition, Forever Free: Abraham Lincoln's Journey to Emancipation. Because of its great success, the Huntington applied for and received a supplement to create two additional versions of the exhibition. Thirty-nine libraries hosted the first round; the supplement will allow an additional sixty-three libraries to receive the exhibition. In addition to school programs and scholar-led lecture and discussion series, libraries have presented Civil War re-enactors; Lincoln, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Martin Luther King, Jr. impersonators; Civil War-themed film series; craft activities for young children; and many other creative programs. One library developed its own Forever Free: Mississippi exhibition, which displayed photographs along with the words of local slaves. The show travels through 2011.
Project URL: www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/ppo/programming/foreverfree/foreverfreeabraham.cfm

GL-21637, American Library Association:
Frankenstein: Penetrating the Secrets of Nature.
The American Library Association (ALA) received a 2001 grant to develop a traveling exhibition, Frankenstein: Penetrating the Secrets of Nature, exploring Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel. NEH awarded grants to thirty-nine libraries, and, with additional funding from the National Library of Medicine, ALA was able to add forty-two more libraries to the exhibition tour. ALA estimates that close to 1.2 million people visited the exhibition and that approximately 85,000 people attended related public programs. Because of the appeal of the topic to youth, almost all of the host libraries included programming specifically for younger audiences. Close to two thousand school groups—consisting of more than 54,000 elementary and high school students—visited the exhibition. Comments from visitors consistently mentioned their surprise that a novel written by a young woman nearly two hundred years ago could address so many ethical, medical, and scientific issues that still confront us today.
Project URL: www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/ppo/programming/pastprograms/frankenstein/frankensteinpenetrating.cfm