---------------FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Media Contacts:
Jessica Frankenfield
215-701-4427
[email protected]
The American Philosophical Society Receives Award from
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to Support Native American Scholars Initiative
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – January 24, 2017 – The American Philosophical Society (APS) is pleased to announce a
$949,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support research in the field of Native American studies.
Through the Native American Scholars Initiative (NASI), the American Philosophical Society, with its Center for Native
American and Indigenous Research (CNAIR), will use the funds to support undergraduate students, Native American
scholars, Tribal College faculty members, and researchers who work closely with archives and Native communities in
efforts to revitalize endangered languages and to strengthen and honor cultural traditions through the use of new
technologies.
“By developing an innovative program that harnesses the power of technology to facilitate connections between archives,
scholars, and indigenous groups, the APS believes that it can establish a model for supporting the academic success of
Native American graduate students, and assist Native American communities in their cultural revitalization efforts,” states
Executive Officer Keith S. Thomson.
Fellows and interns will receive travel funds under the NASI program to conduct fieldwork and remain connected to their
home or research communities. The grant also funds short-term Digital Knowledge Sharing fellowships to send scholars to
archives around the country in order to advance their collaborative work of cultural and linguistic revitalization projects
with Native communities. All recipients of support will have the opportunity to benefit from the APS Library’s technology
infrastructure and staff expertise to develop digital humanities projects based on their research that will hosted and
published by the APS.
“I am so excited about the Mellon Foundation’s grant for the Native American Scholars Initiative and the Center for
Native American and Indigenous Research. Providing this kind of crucial funding for undergraduate students, Native
American scholars, Tribal College faculty members, and researchers who work with Native communities has the potential
to create enormous benefits across Indian Country. I especially appreciate the support for Tribal College faculty because
they generally lack access to academic research resources,” Robert Miller, APS Member, Professor at the Sandra Day
O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University, and Chief Justice of the Grand Ronde Tribe Court of Appeals, said
of the grant.
The American Philosophical Society has previously been the recipient of numerous Mellon Foundation grants supporting
the development of essential programs and initiatives including grants in 2007 and 2011 to support the launch of the
Digital Knowledge Sharing initiative for the digital preservation of recordings of endangered Native American languages.
The American Philosophical Society’s Center for Native American and Indigenous Research
The Library of the American Philosophical Society has been collecting Native American materials since the late 18th
century. The impetus came from Thomas Jefferson, who served as President of the APS (1797-1814) before, during, and
after he was President of the United States. The linguist and philosopher Peter Stephen Du Ponceau, a later APS President
(1828-1844), expanded on Jefferson’s vision by initiating the first great wave of manuscript acquisitions documenting
Native American linguistics and culture from North, Central, and South America.
The second great wave came in the aftermath of World War II when the Library received, through the American Council
of Learned Societies Committee on Native American Languages, some 80 linear feet of primary materials. The ACLS
collection, in its time, was one of the largest and most significant collections of primary resources for the study of Native
American languages. Collected from the 1880s through the 1950s, the materials were first assembled in 1927 under the
initiative of Franz Boas, Edward Sapir, and other linguists. It is an irreplaceable textual record of more than 170 Native
American languages and cultures, including traditional stories, histories, dictionaries, word lists, grammars, and
ethnographic analyses. This collection was augmented in 1945 by the acquisition of Franz Boas’s personal and
professional papers. In the modern era, the APS has focused on accruing the papers of noted anthropologists, with
particular emphasis on the intellectual descendants of Boas, considered the “Father of American Anthropology.” Among
them are Frank Speck, Ella Deloria, and Paul Radin, to name a few.
Collection holdings include:
 Papers: Nearly 300 collections of the papers of leading anthropologists of Native America, including the
aforementioned ACLS Committee on Native American Languages collection.
 Recordings: More than 3,100 hours incorporating 162 Native American languages (not including dialects),
largely from the United States, Canada, and Mexico with some from Central and South America. A Digital
Audio Archive has been created for the purposes of preservation and accessibility of the stories, songs, and
oral histories which are now described at the item level.
 Images: More than 130,000 images ranging from 18th-century drawings and watercolors through the entire
history of photographic images to the present.
Recent research activity with the APS's Native American and Indigenous collections includes the 2016 APS Museum
exhibition, Gathering Voices: Thomas Jefferson and Native America, which showcases the APS's work in Native
American language collection and revitalization from Jefferson to today. Over 69,000 visitors attended the exhibition from
April through December 2016. A scholarly conference inspired by the exhibition's themes, "Translating Across Time and
Space: Endangered Languages, Cultural Revitalization, and the Work of History," drew over 100 in-person attendees and
over 100 more via live web stream. Panelists from across the United States and Canada presented 21 papers on topics
related to endangered languages, translation, and language revitalization projects in Native American and Indigenous
communities.
The American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society, the oldest learned society in the United States, was founded in 1743 by Benjamin
Franklin for the purpose of “promoting useful knowledge.” In the 21st century the Society sustains this mission in three
principal ways. It honors and engages distinguished scientists, humanists, social scientists, and leaders in civic and cultural
affairs through elected membership and opportunities for interdisciplinary, intellectual fellowship, particularly in the semiannual Meetings in Philadelphia. It supports research and discovery through grants and fellowships, lectures, publications,
prizes, exhibitions, and public education. It serves scholars through a research library of manuscripts and other collections
internationally recognized for their enduring historic value. The American Philosophical Society’s current activities reflect
the founder’s spirit of inquiry, provide a forum for the free exchange of ideas, and convey the conviction of its members
that intellectual dialogue and critical thought are inherently in the public interest. In November 2016, the Society elected
APS Member Linda Greenhouse, the Knight Distinguished Journalist in Residence and Joseph Goldstein Lecturer in Law
at Yale Law School, the first female President in its 273-year history.
-Jessica Frankenfield
Programs & Communications Associate
American Philosophical Society
431 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106
[email protected]
215-701-4427