Four months after the Trump administration slashed National Endowment for the Humanities grants that had already been awarded by Congress, St. Joseph County will seek money from the federal agency to preserve their oldest records.
In April universities and nonprofits across Indiana were stunned to learn the new administration had cut over $7.3 million in research and preservation grants.
But in June the federal agency announced new grants. These respond to a Trump executive order to celebrate next year marking 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. The grants will help organizations to preserve and digitize local records from that time and the decades after as the young nation grew.
County commissioners Tuesday approved a request from county Recorder Candace Brown to apply for a grant of up to $350,000.
”It’s about the expansion going westward and the history of the United States, like how we fit into that," Abby Dylewski, bookkeeper and historian in the recorder’s office, told commissioners. “So we’ve tried to make a case based on like the Studebaker car company and the things that they did, and a few other things. Our oldest records are from when the county was founded in 1830 so we have a really big wealth of information in our office.”
