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Agency overview | |
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Formed | September 29, 1965 |
Jurisdiction | Federal government of the United States |
Headquarters | 400 7th Street SW, Washington, D.C. |
Employees | 159 (2010) |
Annual budget | $167,500,000 USD (2010) |
Agency executives |
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Website | www.neh.gov |
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 (Pub.L. 89–209), 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 located at 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. in the Nancy Hanks Center at the Old Post Office.
The NEH provides grants for high-quality humanities projects to cultural institutions such as museums, archives, libraries, colleges, universities, public television, and radio stations, and to individual scholars. NEH was created in 1965 under the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities, which also included the National Endowment for the Arts and later the Institute for Museum Services, as a move to provide greater investment in culture by the federal government. NEH was based upon recommendation of the National Commission on the Humanities, convened in 1963 with representatives from three US scholarly and educational associations. The agency creates incentives for excellent work in the humanities by awarding grants that strengthen teaching and learning in the humanities in schools and colleges across the nation, facilitate research and original scholarship, provide opportunities for lifelong learning, preserve and provide access to cultural and educational resources and to strengthen the institutional base of the humanities. As part of its mandate to support humanities programs in every US state and territory, the agency supports a network of private, nonprofit affiliates, the 56 humanities councils in the states and territories of the United States.
The tenth Chair of the NEH is William 'Bro' Adams, formerly president of Colby College in Maine. President Obama nominated Adams on April 4, 2014; Adams was confirmed by the Senate in a voice vote on July 9, 2014. Adams appointed Margaret (Peggy) Plympton as the Deputy NEH Chair in January 2015. Prior to Adams's appointment, the NEH was headed by Acting Chair Carole M. Watson.