| PW-228188-15 | Preservation and Access: Humanities Collections and Reference Resources | American Congregational Association | New England's Hidden Histories: Providing Public Access to the Records of America's First Founders | 9/1/2015 - 11/30/2018 | $300,000.00 | Margaret | L. | Bendroth | | | | American Congregational Association | Boston | MA | 02108-3704 | USA | 2015 | U.S. History | Humanities Collections and Reference Resources | Preservation and Access | 300000 | 0 | 300000 | 0 | Creation of an online, searchable database of 18,000 pages of digitized Congregational Church documents and selected transcriptions from colonial times and the early American republic.
New England’s Hidden Histories is a program aimed at providing wide access to some of the most important early American documents, the records maintained by nearly every local church during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The project, which serves both scholars and the general public, is administered by the non-profit Congregational Library in Boston, a historic, 150-year-old institution with a distinguished record of preserving historic records and providing public access to them. This proposal concerns records in the Library's collection, roughly half of which are newly obtained from local churches and never before accessible to researchers. The digital images, with transcriptions, will be available free of charge on the Library's website. |
| PW-259029-18 | Preservation and Access: Humanities Collections and Reference Resources | American Congregational Association | New England's Hidden Histories: Providing Access to Founding Documents of American Democracy | 9/1/2018 - 8/31/2021 | $308,000.00 | James | F. | Cooper | | | | American Congregational Association | Boston | MA | 02108-3704 | USA | 2018 | U.S. History | Humanities Collections and Reference Resources | Preservation and Access | 308000 | 0 | 307900 | 0 | The addition of at least 18,000 pages, finding aids, and select transcriptions to the New England’s Hidden Histories collection of early New England church records.
New England's Hidden Histories is a program, sponsored by the Congregational Library and Archives, to collect and display on its website all extant seventeenth- and eighteenth-century church records of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Maine as well as supporting ecclesiastical papers—diaries, synod records, sermons, etc. We propose to continue and expand ongoing efforts (funded by NEH in 2015) to create a minimum of 18,000 new digital scans over the course of three years, along with finding aids and other tools (including transcriptions). We intend to expand our geographic scope to regions, like Maine, that are historically under-documented, and to strategically extend partnerships with like-minded institutions that embrace our mission and are eager to do their part to move it forward. |
| PW-277535-21 | Preservation and Access: Humanities Collections and Reference Resources | American Congregational Association | New England's Hidden Histories: Providing Access to Founding Documents of American Democracy | 9/1/2021 - 8/31/2024 | $289,300.00 | Tricia | | Peone | | | | American Congregational Association | Boston | MA | 02108-3704 | USA | 2021 | U.S. History | Humanities Collections and Reference Resources | Preservation and Access | 289300 | 0 | 289300 | 0 | Digitization of approximately 18,000 pages of early American church records and associated documents from five institutions in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, as well as the development of transcription technologies and workflows.
New England's Hidden Histories is a program, sponsored by the Congregational Library and Archives, to collect and display on its website all extant seventeenth- and eighteenth-century church records of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Maine as well as supporting ecclesiastical papers—diaries, synod records, sermons, etc. We propose to continue and expand ongoing efforts (funded by NEH in 2015 and 2018) to create a minimum of 18,000 new digital scans over the course of three years, along with finding aids and other tools (including transcriptions). We intend to expand our geographic scope to regions, like Maine, that are historically under-documented, and to strategically extend partnerships with like-minded institutions that embrace our mission and are eager to do their part to move it forward. |
| PW-304329-25 | Preservation and Access: Humanities Collections and Reference Resources | American Congregational Association | NEHH: Recovering Untold Stories From Revolutionary New England | 9/1/2025 - 8/31/2028 | $348,758.00 | Tricia | | Peone | | | | American Congregational Association | Boston | MA | 02108-3704 | USA | 2025 | American Studies | Humanities Collections and Reference Resources | Preservation and Access | 348758 | 0 | 348758 | 0 | The inclusion of 22,000 pages of Congregational Church records revealing Black and Indigenous histories from the Revolutionary War period into New England’s Hidden Histories, a digital project that makes accessible early American church records. The new material would come from six institutions in Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Vermont, and these partners would also participate in outreach activities to share the project with scholars and local communities.
New England’s Hidden Histories is a project sponsored by the Congregational Library & Archives which seeks to digitize, describe, transcribe, and make accessible early church records from the New England region for the use of scholars, educators, students, and community members. The project proposes to digitize 22,000 pages of records from six partner institutions, as well as to transcribe 7,500 pages of records, and make these resources available online for free to the public. Project activities will focus on recovering untold stories, especially of the experiences of African American and Indigenous people, from Congregational church materials during the Revolutionary War and its aftermath. As the nation begins to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the outbreak of the American Revolution, these primary sources provide material for new histories of this formative period, drawn from the communities where the Revolution began. |