Kentucky Historical Society
KHS Receives NEH Grant

FRANKFORT, Ky. (Aug. 6, 2012) — The Kentucky Historical Society (KHS) has received a $178,000 Landmarks of American History and Culture grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The funds will be used by KHS to host two weeklong teacher workshops called “Torn Within, Threatened Without: Kentucky and the Border States in Civil War America,” in the summer of 2013.

These workshops will enable teachers to better understand the complexities of the Civil War and what occurred in Kentucky and other border states through the use of primary sources. Participants will gain the experience necessary to use those primary sources such as documents and Kentucky’s historic sites in the classroom, creating an artistic, historical and cultural environment. Participants will study and interpret the border states region before, during and after the Civil War, becoming more familiar with the history and culture of the region through interactions with accomplished academics. The workshops will also provide connections between Civil War history and present-day society.

“One of the main goals of the grant is to expose the teacher-participants to the key role that Kentucky and the border states played in America’s most tragic event,” says Tim Talbott, KHS’s teacher professional development coordinator and the grant’s project director. “By viewing the war through numerous and diverse perspectives, these teachers will have a much better understanding of how that conflict was experienced by border states’ citizens.”   

Created in 1965 as an independent federal agency, the NEH supports research and learning in history, literature, philosophy and other areas of the humanities by funding selected peer-reviewed proposals from around the nation. Their Landmarks of American History and Culture grants support a series of one-week workshops for K-12 educators that address central themes and topics in American history, government, literature, art history and other humanities fields related to historic landmarks. Additional information about the NEH and its grant programs is available at www.neh.gov.

For more information about KHS’s “Torn Within, Threatened Without: Kentucky and the Border States in Civil War America” workshops for teachers, contact Tim Talbott at 502-564-1792, ext. 4428 or tim.talbott@ky.gov. For more about KHS and its educational programs, visit www.history.ky.gov.

-30-