Development of a website that makes accessible and interprets digitized recordings of non-commercial, independent radio station broadcasts providing local accounts of the civil rights and black power movements.

"Digital Civil Rights Radio" seeks to explore a digital project around a growing body of historic radio recordings from non-commercial, often black-owned, radio stations that operated in the 1970s and 1980s. These stations, founded by activists inspired by but unsatisfied with the gains of the civil rights movement, expanded upon and redirected the movement's energy in response to local needs and the politics of the Black Power movement. These recordings, not heard since they originally aired, require digitization. And moreover, they call out for a public re-airing. This project will take the initial steps toward developing a robust, public facing digital infrastructure around the recordings, making them visible, accessible, and crucially, hearable for the first time in decades. And it will integrate them into an immersive digital experience that when coupled with public programming will model a new style of effective, engaged humanities scholarship.

Development of a prototype of an interactive, web-based game on an early 19th-century smallpox outbreak in Philadelphia.

Stockton College is requesting $99,837 to develop a working prototype that demonstrates the humanities ideas, technology, and public outreach for "Pox in the City", a Unity 3D strategy game. "Pox in the City" draws upon a core interpretive framework for medical history, that beliefs, practices, and treatment are shaped by the interaction of the healer, the patient, and the disease entity. Players take on the role of a physician who has arrived in Philadelphia just as a smallpox outbreak erupts. Armed only with Edward Jenner’s new vaccination technique, players undertake the challenge of preventing the spread of the disease by persuading patients to be vaccinated. The interactive format will immerse players in the city’s rich history, as they experience the choices made by historical actors and constrained by scientific knowledge and cultural values. The prototype is being designed by Eduweb and developed in partnership with the Mütter Museum of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia.

The creation of a prototype for a first-person video game that allows players to engage with author Henry David Thoreau’s first year at Walden Pond.

Prototype for a unique video game based on the writings of the American author Henry David Thoreau at Walden Pond. Designed and directed by game designer Tracy Fullerton, "Walden, a game," will simulate the experiment in living made by Thoreau at Walden Pond in 1845-47, allowing players to walk in his virtual footsteps, attend to the tasks of living a self-reliant existence, discover in the beauty of a virtual landscape the ideas and writings of this unique philosopher, and cultivate through the game play their own thoughts and responses to the concepts discovered there. The humanities content of the game will focus on an interactive translation of Thoreau’s writings and will also include references to the historical context of those writings. The game takes place in the environment of 1845 New England, when new technologies such as the railroad, the telegraph were first being seen and were part of the changes to the pace of life that Thoreau so articulately resisted in his critiques of society.

Development of an interactive exhibition that explores the production and use of 12 books and manuscripts to illustrate how knowledge was transferred through books.

The New York Academy of Medicine Library, one of the most extensive rare book collections in in the country, has selected and digitized 12 items for our project, Biography of a Book. Through the stories that underpin each book we will show the context for production, collection, and use, all with their distinctive cultures, technologies, and structures, their institutional challenges and supports. The final goal of the project is to produce an innovative, interactive exhibit that will engage the public in a dialogue about how specialized knowledge was transferred over time through the medium of books. This grant will support an advisory panel in the areas of history of medicine, history of the book, digital humanities, user research and technology to aid our development by providing feedback on content and on user experience. The end product for the Discovery Grant will be a design document that supports the future implementation and production of our Biography of a Book project.

Development of an immersive digital platform for new exhibitions on ancient Egypt.

Carnegie Museum of Natural History is applying for an NEH Digital Projects for the Public Discovery grant to initiate first-stage research and planning and produce a design document for an immersive virtual experience that will be central to the museum’s future exhibition, Egypt on the Nile. Discovery grant funding will allow the museum to investigate best possible options for the content and digital platform for the exhibit, which will virtually simulate a journey on the Nile in the royal funerary boat of pharaoh Senwosret III (c. 1887-1848 BCE), which was excavated at Dahshur and is currently in the museum’s Egyptian collection. This rare boat is one of only four known in museum collections excavated at Dahshur, and its study is important for scholarship in Egyptology, maritime archaeology, and art history. We propose to virtually recreate the boat’s original construction, use, and appearance, so it can be an emotive vessel for virtual travel in an immersive museum experience.

Development of an interactive website that examines the impact of de-urbanization in the Rust Belt revealed by the changing racial and socioeconomic demographics of Gary, Indiana.

Flight Paths is a multi-media initiative where participants engage and analyze factors contributing to de-urbanization and the fracturing of neighborhoods in post-industrial America specifically Gary, Indiana. An interactive website will explore the impact of white and green flight in the region, and will include a rich array of historical material and first-person stories. Users will juxtapose the stories of “neighbors” and analyze the sociopolitical and economic factors of de-urbanization. Users will be able to upload mental maps,stories,photographs, and an innovative map interface where they will visually experience “flight” paths of residents from the 1960s to present. Public exhibitions and toolkits for community conversations will help participants more deeply understand the ongoing impact of de-urbanization and the interconnected nature of regional life in the presence of neighbors with whom new civic relationships can be forged, potentially catalyzing participants for civic change.

Development of a web experience and on-site interactives focused on the history of African American music at Carnegie Hall.

Carnegie Hall requests an NEH Digital Projects for the Public Discovery Grant of $30,000 to support the exploratory phase of an initiative to update and relaunch an existing interactive digital timeline of the history of African American music. The project seeks to modernize the timeline from several perspectives: design and technology, chronology, and thematic content. In its current form, the timeline’s technical infrastructure is outdated and has only limited multimedia functionality. Recognizing the enduring value of this resource and the importance of this area of American music history, Carnegie Hall is committed to redeveloping the timeline.The goal of the discovery phase work is to develop a design document that demonstrates the integration of humanities ideas, digital technology, and public outreach strategies for the updated interactive timeline.

Development of an interactive, multimedia atlas exploring the people, places, and events that shaped key moments in California agriculture.

The Animated Atlas of California Farming History will encourage public thought and dialogue around key historical moments in the development of an industry that has shaped the way America—and the world—eats. The atlas will create a series of online maps that deepen user engagement with an existing set of stories that dig into what may seem like a straightforward subject to uncover often surprising tales of human triumph, loss, ingenuity, abuse and connection. Discovery funding will focus a broad group of scholars on: 1) selecting the best digital platform, 2) designing an engaging user interface, 3) exploring the feasibility of illustrating “alternative” histories using digital mapping programs and 4) identifying digital team members who will build a prototype atlas. Our digital project team will craft a design plan for producing maps that reveal how stories affected the California landscape and spark vibrant public discussion about how that landscape might have looked differently.

Development of an online interactive exhibition of patient and medical practitioner testimonials from six to eight Central Texas communities.

Communities of Care: Documenting Voices of Healing and Endurance is a community-based multimedia storytelling project focusing on illness and healthcare narratives. This project will generate and curate its own archive by asking participants to produce narratives through writing, photography, video, and oral histories.

Development of a digital search tool connecting museum art object databases.

The proposed research group aims to build a digital platform that connects museum data internationally using the data provided by museums. Although in reality museums are connected through the exchange of their traveling works of art, until today, we do not have an interface that evidences a traceable art history of these exchanges. The digital platform that we are aiming to design will create a new kind of knowledge production for scholars, artists, curators, educators, and an interested public. We will be meeting for two 2-day workshops with a group of ten scholars, engineers, designers, and museum experts to collaboratively create a design document in order to implement and build the digital platform. The approach of this proposal has a clear design focus in data visualization and interactive usability of an interface that would create new scholarship in the digital humanities and a new understanding of a connected art history in the museum context.

Development of a virtual reality experience on the trials of Nazi leadership at Nuremberg, Germany (1945–49).

Courtroom 600, an educational virtual reality experience, will engage learners in historical thinking as they explore Holocaust history and its human rights legacies through the lens of the trials at Nuremberg, Germany (1945-49), which sought to hold the Nazi regime and colluders accountable and forge standards for international criminal law. The interactive, inquiry-based experience tasks learners, as members of the US prosecutorial team, with investigating documents, photographs, and other primary sources to piece together evidence. The project demonstrates how open-source game and library information systems platforms can connect to increase the discoverability and uses of digital collections, in this case executive trial counsel Thomas J. Dodd’s papers at the University of Connecticut. Courtroom 600’s capacity to provide emotionally-immersive experiences also suggests paths by which museums and archives might connect rising generations to the value of collections research.

Development of an interactive website and signage at ten sites in Boise, Idaho, to examine the impact of deindustrialization on the city.

“’This Ain’t No Lunch Bucket Town’: The Evolution of Urban Identity in Boise, Idaho” will explore deindustrialization in Boise, Idaho and its impact on equitable development. Studying this small western city offers a new perspective on the influence of deindustrialization where most humanities conversations favor Rust Belt and east coast cities. The project examines how the demolition of Boise’s industrial sites and their displaced communities contributed to the rise of the city’s urban green-over, creating a postmodern urban identity focused on the quality of life amenities, including green space, recreation, and public lands. Drawing on a public history framework, our team will assess how this change contributes to the sociological construction of whiteness in this racially homogenous city. We will deploy digital methods to animate former industrial uses, restore the memory of past historic uses, and foster diversity and a sense of place for long-time residents as well as newcomers.

Development of an interactive digital graphic work of non-fiction examining the 1741 New York Conspiracy through the trial of Cuffee, an enslaved man.

Historic Hudson Valley (HHV) requests discovery funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to fund the exploratory stages of the creation of a digital graphic novel provisionally titled Cuffee’s Trial. This product will depict the trial, and the historical circumstances surrounding the trial, of Cuffee, an enslaved man accused of conspiracy to commit insurrection in colonial New York. Cuffee, who was among the first of 37 men and women to be tried, convicted, and sentenced to death for what would come to be known as the New York Conspiracy, had a direct connection to Philipsburg Manor, HHV’s National Historic Landmark in Sleepy Hollow, New York. Cuffee’s Trial represents both HHV’s deep expertise in relaying the history of slavery in the north and our commitment to sharing this knowledge extensively through dynamic digital storytelling. The completed digital graphic novel will become part of our constellation of Slavery in the Colonial North digital products.

The discovery phase of a curated digital archive of materials relating to Japanese internment in Louisiana during World War II.

Identify and bring together collections on Camp Livingston and Camp Algiers

The discovery phase of an interactive VR project about the history of New York Harbor and the interrelationship between the harbor’s ecosystem and the city above.

Virtual Aquapolis, an interactive VR humanities project about the past, present and future of New York Harbor. Incorporating a combination of elements--archival photography, film and audio, animation, underwater video, expert interviews and narration-- this project will explore how human culture, values and practices have altered the harbor’s underwater ecosystems over time, and how the natural world has shaped the city above. Drawing on work from leading humanities scholars, Virtual Aquapolis examines how human culture informs the harbor’s past and present, and shapes collective visions for the harbor’s future. Virtual Aquapolis will be designed to engage the public in a variety of ways: through gallery and museum installations; as a teaching resource; and through a series of free public events on NYC’s Governors Island waterfront. An accompanying Virtual Aquapolis website will offer a free mobile phone and VR helmet-compatible download of the documentary.

Development of a digital map illuminating the dynamic relationships between the people, wildlife, and landscapes of the High Desert.

The High Desert Museum requests a $30,000 Discovery Grant to develop Remapping the High Desert—an online project that will connect broad audiences to the dynamic relationships between the people, wildlife and landscapes of the High Desert. Despite its significant size and importance to the nation, the High Desert is one of the least studied and understood aspects of the American West. Using innovative design, this project will uncover the many layers of stories and relationships embedded in the vast landscape of the High Desert. Drawing from remapping concepts, the content and approach will prioritize diverse perspectives, including recognizing the High Desert as the ancestral homeland of Indigenous people. Users will also be able to share their experiences. Through this Discovery Grant, we will implement the planning phase of Remapping the High Desert and bring together a wide range of humanities scholars and digital media experts to develop major concepts and design elements.

Development of a website addressing the experience of African Americans in Revolutionary-era New England.

Our project plans for a website to increase understanding of the lives of African Americans in early rural New England. Its narrative focus will be Lucy Terry Prince, the first documented African American poet. Her life, from birth and captivity in Africa c.1730 to enslavement in Deerfield, MA, to her death as a free woman in Vermont in 1821, encompasses signal events in the lives of enslaved people. Lucy’s life illuminates important aspects of the Revolutionary-era: a) how the slave trade and enslaved African American labor were instrumental in creating a thriving maritime economy in colonial New England; b) how desire for independence fueled by that economy gave rise to Revolutionary political principles that enslaved people seized upon to obtain their freedom; c) how African Americans struggled to enact those principles as free citizens after the Revolution; and d) how, in this context African Americans expressed their creativity and made important contributions to American culture.

Development of a 3D digital game based on paintings by Thomas Cole (1801–48) exploring early American history.

The Thomas Cole National Historic Site (TCNHS) will address an urgent need in our society to support K-6 schoolchildren in developing an understanding of the history of the United States from multiple viewpoints so they may better understand current events and the choices that impact our future. The proposed project is the Discovery Phase in the creation of a new digital learning experience that uses American art to teach American history and support curriculum standards. The TCNHS digital game will focus on the period in American History between the Revolutionary War and the Civil War when the artist and writer Thomas Cole was active and the nation was experiencing rapid cultural change not unlike today. This project addresses the “A More Perfect Union” initiative by using artwork as an entry point to consider how the first generation of American citizens grappled with the effects of the United States constitution and related humanities themes.

Development of an interactive website to put Jane Austen’s life and works in historical context.

We are requesting funding to lay the groundwork for “Jane Austen’s Desk” (JAD), a public-facing website that will provide users with a window into Austen’s world and become a space for general readers and scholars around the world to explore and learn, as well as connect and collaborate. An easily accessible, attractive digital space dedicated to a widely popular author may have the best chance of reaching the widest audience and of engaging those audiences with the historical past, no longer routinely taught in high school English classes. This digital humanities project is cross-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary, integrating sources hosted by a variety of institutions around the world. JAD will be designed by a team of prominent Austen scholars and digital humanities experts and will simulate Jane Austen’s historical workspace circa January 1813, from a first-person perspective, in order to generate new understanding of her place in that historical moment.

Development of a digital platform exploring histories of people who have lived along the Children of the Sun Trail in Spokane, Washington.

Finding Our Way: Fostering a Sense of Place for Underrepresented Communities responds to construction of a highway in Spokane, WA that bisects low-income neighborhoods, severing residential areas from schools and businesses. Construction includes the “Children of the Sun Trail” pedestrian trail that parallels the highway, for residents to navigate the highway fragmenting their neighborhoods. Ethnobotanical plantings will ground stories about the role native plants have had and continue to have in the Spokane Tribe, who have been displaced from the land the trail occupies. Finding Our Way brings together community stakeholders and the Spokane Tribe to design a website for several marginalized communities to tell stories about their community culture and identity through collaborative geography, community dialogue, and place making that renders otherwise invisible communities visible via interwoven digital narratives that center the interrelations between diverse geo-cultural narratives.

Development of an interactive website exploring the settlement of Nicodemus, Kansas, through the route taken by early African American settlers.

The goal of this Discovery level project is to create a detailed Design Plan for an interactive website to interpret the Ellis Trail to Nicodemus within broader humanities themes of black westward settlement in the United States.

Research and consultations with scholarly and educational advisers to create a role-playing game about New York City during and after the American Revolution.

We seek to develop The People Who Created "America''s City" (New York 1770-1800)-as a special edition of the award-winning History Adventures: World of Characters digital learning series-to teach middle and high school students, as well as museum attendees, to think historically by immersing them in the world of revolutionary-era New York City. Building on History Adventures'' digital learning model, (winner of the inaugural Anthem Awards celebrating purpose-driven work), which illuminates vital aspects of world history, The People Who Created "America''s City" will offer a dynamic, immersive, and complex way for students to understand that making choices was often fraught for real people during this era of Revolutionary War. The final product will be available for free to the public on the web, iOS, Android, and Kindle Interactive; available to the public in NYC-based museums; and will pilot as part of the core curriculum in classrooms across the U.S.

Historical and technical research for an app-based mobile walking tour about the diverse religious traditions in colonial and Revolutionary-era Philadelphia.

The Dialogue Institute is requesting a $30,000 Digital Projects for the Humanities Discovery grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for the research phase of the “Diversity in Early America Tour App” that will guide visitors through uniquely historic religious and cultural sites that are connected to Independence National Historical Park and the broader historic district in Philadelphia. The completed app will be available for download onto a user’s phone or other mobile device. The content will tell the story of the unique religious diversity found in Philadelphia during the colonial and Revolutionary eras and how it is tied together with the more famous sites of early American history found in and around the park. The project aims to promote the virtues of religiously-diverse democracies and use history to stimulate dialogue about the challenges of majority-minority relations, racial justice, and the rise of Christian nationalism in the contemporary U.S.

Planning an immersive virtual reality experience and a website examining the history of vanished African American neighborhoods of Miami. 

"Going Overtown" is a digital humanities project to engage the public with the African American cultural landscapes of South Florida through a virtual reality experience and a multi-modal digital application. The project will focus on historic neighborhoods affected by segregation and gentrification in Miami since the late 1800s.

Development of an immersive, digital experience examining the story of five enslaved women at Van Cortlandt estate and their quest for freedom.  

Historic Hudson Valley (HHV) seeks funding to support the exploratory stages of an immersive digital multimedia project that invites visitors into a specific place and time – New York’s Van Cortlandt Manor during the Revolutionary War – and introduces them to Bridget and Jin, two enslaved women who planned to use the chaos of wartime as an opportunity to self-liberate to British lines. Their story, which is grounded in primary documents from HHV’s archives, will serve as the jumping-off point for an exploration of domestic enslavement and resistance at Van Cortlandt Manor from the American Revolution through gradual emancipation acts to the legal abolition of slavery in New York in 1827, using the interior spaces of the manor as its design framework. Through the individual stories of enslaved women, HHV will call attention to the drawn-out process of gradual emancipation in the North and contribute to a greater public understanding of the complicated history of slavery in America.