Lincoln Editor

              April - June 2007 Volume 7 Number 2
FEDERAL AGENCIES AWARD GRANTS
TWO INTERNS JOIN STAFF FOR THE SUMMER
Tara Hamlin and Stephanie Luke
are volunteering their time in June and July, assisting
the project with various tasks
while they learn about Abraham
Lincoln and the field of historical
documentary editing. They will
conduct some research on Civil
War governors, assist editorial
staff with various projects, and
perform clerical and technical
tasks throughout the summer.
The internships are a
part of a program through the
education department of the
Abraham Lincoln Presidential
Library and Museum. Luke and Hamlin are two of seventeen
interns working this summer from colleges throughout Illinois
and as far away as Pennsylvania.
Hamlin, a native of
Pleasant Plains, Illinois, is a senior
at Belmont University in Nashville,
Tennessee, where she is a history
major. She will receive three hours
of college credit for her work.
Luke, a native of
Springfield, Illinois, is a
sophomore at the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
where she is majoring in history
Tara Hamlin and English. Stephanie Luke
In May, the Papers of Abraham Lincoln received the
welcome news that the National Historical Publications
and Records Commission (NHPRC) had awarded the
project $75,000 for the upcoming fiscal year. The NHPRC
made the award specifically for the search and image
acquisition phase of the project, and the funds will support a
portion of the salaries of two editors who are among those
traveling to repositories throughout the nation to locate and
scan Lincoln documents.
This award marks the first NHPRC award for the
expanded Papers of Abraham Lincoln. However, the
Commission has supported the Lincoln Legal Papers for
each of the past seventeen years, with grants totaling over
$1 million. That support was crucial to the completion of
both the comprehensive electronic and selective print editions
of Lincoln’s legal papers.
Shortly after receiving notice of the NHPRC award,
the project received notification that the National Endowment
for the Humanities (NEH) had awarded a three-year grant
of $200,000 to the project. This award is the second from
the NEH for the Papers of Abraham Lincoln and comes in
the form of a matching grant. The NEH will provide the
project with support up to the total amount, if the project
can raise the same amount from private sources. Donations
from private sources will help us meet our matching
requirement.
In addition, the NEH again designated the Papers
of Abraham Lincoln a We the People project for “promoting
knowledge and understanding of American history and
culture.” We the People began in 2002 as an NEH initiative
to explore significant events and themes in our nation’s history
and to share them with all Americans. The Papers of
Abraham Lincoln is honored to be a part of this important
and historic effort.