NEW PALTZ, NY (April 20, 2021) –Historic Huguenot Street (HHS) is proud to announce the museum and historic site has been awarded a $349,999 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities’ Humanities Collections and References Resources program to preserve and digitize significant historical documents from its own archival collections, as well as portions from the Town of New Paltz, the Reformed Church of New Paltz, and the Haviland-Heidgerd Historical Collection at Elting Memorial Library. The project encompasses thousands of early-American documents ranging from the mid-1600s to 1830.
According Jon Butler, Yale Professor Emeritus and author of Becoming America: The Revolution Before 1776, “HHS’s New Paltz project illustrates the fascinating ways in which a small, astonishingly complex Hudson River town perhaps unexpectedly exemplified major features of America’s story, with distinctive and captivating local features,” namely “social life, economy, race, ethnic relations, and religion.”
This first phase of a larger, comprehensive project to digitize documents through the late 19th century is anticipated to take three years and covers preservation and digital imaging by a team of professionals from the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts (CCAHA) in Philadelphia, along with hiring a contract Digital Librarian/Project Manager to assist staff in coordinating the project and making these collections available online. Josephine Bloodgood, HHS Director of Curatorial and Preservation Affairs, will lead the project, coordinating closely with the three other partner organizations.
“Congratulations to Historic Huguenot Street and the New Paltz community for receiving this well-deserved grant award,” said Congressman Antonio Delgado (NY-19). “Historic Huguenot Street’s project will extend the life of nationally significant collections and make content more accessible to scholars, students, and upstate residents. We must continue to preserve the rich history of the mid-Hudson Valley.”
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency created in 1965. It is one of the largest funders of humanities programs in the United States. For more information about the NEH and the projects they are funding this year, visit www.neh.gov.
The project “Preserving and Digitizing the Historic Documents of a Colonial Hudson Valley community: New Paltz, New York” has been made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy demands wisdom.
Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this project do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
About Historic Huguenot Street
A National Historic Landmark District, Historic Huguenot Street is a 501(c)3 non-profit that encompasses 30 buildings across 10 acres comprising the heart of the original 1678 New Paltz settlement, including seven stone houses dating to the early eighteenth century. Historic Huguenot Street was founded in 1894 as the Huguenot Patriotic, Historical, and Monumental Society to preserve the nationally acclaimed collection of stone houses. Since then, Historic Huguenot Street has grown into an innovative museum, chartered as an educational corporation by the University of the State of New York Department of Education that is dedicated to preserving a unique Hudson Valley Huguenot settlement and engaging diverse audiences in the exploration of America's multicultural past in order to understand the historical forces that have shaped America.
