History and Structure
In 1971, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) contacted academic leaders in various states and asked them to form state committees to create a new form of adult education experience centered in humanities scholarship and related to public issues. The state committees were set up as grant-makers, similar to the NEH, and The Missouri Committee for the Humanities was among those first groups formed in 1971. Robert Walrond, a specialist in continuing education at St. Louis University, was among the group that founded the Missouri Committee, and he served as its executive director until 1986.
In 1976, Rhode Island Senator Claiborne Pell lead the revision of the federal statute that authorized the NEH to operate, naming the state councils as legitimate entities entitled to a portion of the NEH budget. This fundamental change led the state councils to formalize their incorporation in each state as tax-exempt, non-profit corporations, retaining their status as grantees of NEH.
The Missouri Humanities Council was formally incorporated as a non-profit organization in 1975 and received IRS 501(c)(3) status in April 1977. The office is currently located in St. Louis, Missouri. The board members of council, which include individuals nominated and elected by the council and members appointed by the governor of Missouri, are located across the state and come from diverse backgrounds including education, business, agriculture, museums and libraries, and law. The MH bylaws currently call for the council to include no fewer than 24 and no more than 30 total board members, of whom up to six may be gubernatorial appointees. The board members of MH hold three meetings per year at which the conduct business including review and voting on major grant applications.
Mission
MH is committed to "building a thoughtful, engaged and civil society" by providing and supporting programs and projects which promote humanities education, encourage family reading, and assist Missouri museums, libraries, and community organizations in offering humanities-based activities.
To accomplish its goals, the organization has always worked to "create bridges" between humanities scholars and general public audiences. In recent years, MH staff and board members also have come to place considerable emphasis on responding to what constituent and partner communities and organizations see as their needs and priorities, rather than from the "top down." Another equally important guiding principle is collaboration: in an era of diminishing resources, MH works to extend its impact and relevance by engaging as much as possible with partners in its initiatives and programs. Recent partners have included the Mark Twain Boyhood Home and Museum, the Missouri History Museum, the Missouri Association of Museums and Archives, and the State Historical Society of Missouri.
Ongoing Programs and Partnerships
MH offers a variety of programs. These include competitive grants to support humanities-related projects and programs around the state of Missouri, family reading initiatives, heritage tourism projects, and traveling exhibits. The council also collaborates in promoting and providing other public humanities programming. Ongoing programs include:
Traveling Exhibits
In collaboration with the Missouri History Museum, MH sends traveling exhibits to Missouri communities on subjects such as Missouri in the Civil War and helps develop programs and exhibits for the host communities to tell their own stories in the context of the larger statewide narrative.
Project and Program Grants
MH awards competitive grants to Missouri institutions, organizations, and communities to help them develop and present high-quality, humanities-based programs, events, exhibits, and publications. Missouri Humanities’ Mini Grants fund projects up to $2,500. Applications are considered two times each year with the following deadlines: MAY 1 & NOVEMBER 1. Missouri Humanities’ Major Grants fund projects up to $10,000. Applications are considered two times each year with the following deadlines: FEBRUARY 1 & AUGUST 1.
Missouri Speakers Bureau Services
In collaboration with the State Historical Society of Missouri, MH maintains a network of experts and scholars to provide affordable, high-quality programs and presentations for organizations and institutions around the state.
Veterans' Creative Writing Initiative
MH partners with organizations across the state to provide veterans and their families with an outlet for self-expression through writing. Our Veterans Programs offer support to new and experienced writers through workshops, readings, podcasts, and an annual publication, Proud to Be: Writing by American Warriors. Together, these programs encourage hundreds of veterans to tell their stories each year.
In collaboration with various partners, MH helps provide creative writing workshops for veterans. Other successful components of this program include an annual writing contest and the production of an anthology, "Proud to Be," which is published in partnership with Warriors Arts Alliance and Southeast Missouri State University Press.
Signature Series
Each year, MH presents a Signature Series highlighting a humanities theme significant to Missourians in the past, present, and future. Across all our core programs, MH staff plan events, workshops, presentations, and activities on the chosen theme to hold across the state throughout the calendar year.
Small Town Showcase
Each year, communities will be nominated and voted on by Missourians to become our annual “Featured Five” communities. Each of our Featured Five will work with Missouri Humanities on the following:
- A short video about their community
- An hour-long podcast, roundtable-style
- A feature in our bi-annual publication, MoHumanities
- A highlight reel, featuring all five communities, to be shown during our annual gala
Cultural Heritage Workshops
MH Cultural Heritage Workshops provide the tools and resources necessary for communities to re-evaluate their cultural heritage assets in an effort to begin or revive programming, tourism, and economic development opportunities in their area.
Library of Congress Center for the Book
The Missouri Center for the Book is a program of Missouri Humanities and the state affiliate of the Library of Congress Center for the Book. MH's mission is to commemorate and promote appreciation for and greater awareness of Missouri’s rich literary heritage. This includes hosting an annual regional Book Festival and selecting two books to represent the state at the National Book Festival in Washington D.C. every year. These titles are added to the Great Reads from Great Places book list. The list features books and authors representing the literary heritage of all 50 states and U.S. territories.
Since receiving Affiliate Center status in 2021, MH's work is guided by input from numerous literary and literacy-based organizations, authors, and educators from across the state of Missouri who serve on the Missouri Center for the Book (MOCFTB) Planning Team.
Literature Programs
MH's Literature Programs commemorate and promote appreciation for Missouri’s rich literary heritage. By creating programs that bring greater awareness to local literature, MH is encouraging reading for pleasure and expanding literary education for Missourians of all ages.
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965, dedicated to supporting research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities. The NEH is housed at 400 7th St SW, Washington, D.C. From 1979 to 2014, NEH was at 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C., in the Nancy Hanks Center at the Old Post Office.
The President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities (PCAH) is an advisory committee to the President of the United States on cultural issues. It works directly with the White House and the three primary cultural agencies: the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), as well as other federal partners and the private sector, to advance wide-ranging policy objectives in the arts and humanities. These include considerations for how the arts and humanities sectors can positively impact community well-being, economic development, public health, education, civic engagement, and climate change across the United States.
Appalshop is a media, arts, and education center located in Whitesburg, Kentucky, in the heart of the southern Appalachian region of the United States.
Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media (RRCHNM), formerly the Center for History and New Media (CHNM), is a research center specializing in digital history and information technology at George Mason University (GMU) in Fairfax County, Virginia. It was one of the first digital history centers in the world, established by Roy Rosenzweig in 1994 to use digital media and information technology to democratize history: to incorporate multiple voices, reach diverse audiences, and encourage popular participation in presenting and preserving the past. Its current director is T. Mills Kelly.
Public humanities is the work of engaging diverse publics in reflecting on heritage, traditions, and history, and the relevance of the humanities to the current conditions of civic and cultural life. Public humanities is often practiced within federal, state, nonprofit and community-based cultural organizations that engage people in conversations, facilitate and present lectures, exhibitions, performances and other programs for the general public on topics such as history, philosophy, popular culture and the arts. Public Humanities also exists within universities, as a collaborative enterprise between communities and faculty, staff, and students.
The study of the humanities in the United States includes the study of humanities disciplines such as literature, history, language, performing and visual arts or philosophy.
Arts Midwest is one of six not-for-profit regional arts organizations created to “encourage development of the arts and to support arts programs on a regional basis.” Arts Midwest's mission is to "build unprecedented opportunity across the Midwest by advancing creativity.” Its vision is that Midwestern creativity powers thriving, entrepreneurial, and welcoming communities. Arts Midwest is primarily funded by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), and is charged with supporting artists and arts organizations, and providing assistance to its nine member states of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.
Indiana Humanities is a nonprofit organization based in Indianapolis that funds and produces public humanities programming throughout the state of Indiana. It is one of 56 humanities councils in the United States and is affiliated with the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The Center for Public History and Digital Humanities is a digital humanities center in Cleveland, Ohio, based in the Department of History at Cleveland State University.
The Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library is dedicated to championing the literary, artistic, and cultural contributions of the late writer, artist, and Indianapolis native Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. It opened in January 2011 and was located in The Emelie, a structure on the National Register of Historic Places at 340 North Senate Avenue in Indianapolis, Indiana, until January 2019. Funding for a new building at 543 Indiana Avenue was secured, and the library reopened to the public on November 9, 2019.
Humanities Nebraska (HN) is a non-profit affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) based in Lincoln, Nebraska. HN creates and supports public humanities programs with the goal of engaging the public with history and culture.
The Mississippi Humanities Council is a private not-for-profit corporation funded by the United States Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Its mission is "to provide public programs in traditional liberal arts disciplines to serve nonprofit groups in Mississippi." The Mississippi Humanities Council belongs to a group of 55 other such state and territorial humanities councils that receive Federal support. The MHC was founded in 1972.
The Community College Humanities Association (CCHA) is a formal, non-profit association of faculty members from the nation's community colleges. The organization seeks to advocate for the humanities in the nation's two year colleges; although, it does also engage in work with four-year institutions, and much of the association's work is done through grants and affiliations with the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities is a nonprofit organization dedicated to furthering the education of residents of the state of Louisiana. In its mission, the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities pledges to provide access to and promote an appreciation of the history of Louisiana and its literary and cultural history. It was founded in 1972 as a result of initial funding by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Oregon Humanities, formerly known as the Oregon Council for the Humanities, is an independent, nonprofit affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities for the U.S. state of Oregon.
The Mississippi Arts Commission is an independent agency of the Mississippi state government and serves as the state's official grants-making and arts service agency. The Mississippi Arts Commission provides grant funding to both individual artists and organizations across the state. The agency was established by the Mississippi Legislature in 1968. The founding director, who was appointed by Governor John Bell Williams, was Lida Rogers. The current executive director is Malcolm White.
Jon Parrish Peede is an American book editor and literary review publisher, who served as the chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities from 2018 to 2021.
Pennsylvania Humanities Council (PHC) is a non-profit affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is one of 56 state humanities councils founded in the wake of the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities Act of 1965. The Executive Director is Laurie Zierer.
The Mississippi Writers Trail is a series of historical markers which celebrate the literary, social, historical, and cultural contributions of Mississippi's most acclaimed and influential writers. An advisory committee of state cultural agencies oversees the process of installing historical markers in places of significance to an author's life. To emphasize the literary focus of the trail, the markers are cast in the shape of an open book and display information about the author's life with the goal of educating the public about the legacy of Mississippi writers.
