Can I rant for a minute?

[Rob Wick]

Well, not really a rant...just a heavy sigh.

I think I might have mentioned that I was turned down for a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend program which would have provided $6,000 to help defray research costs. My biggest need is for money to pay researchers, or repositories, for material.

I got an e-mail today from the Newberry Library in Chicago which holds correspondence between Sandburg and Oliver Barrett. There are almost 400 pieces in this collection, which will cost just over $360 to get copied. Now that is NOT unreasonable, especially given that I can't go to Chicago for that amount, and hiring a researcher would only add their fees to the copying charges which the library collects.

Knox College in Galesburg will provide material for me for about $200, which again is not unreasonable. But I imagine you can smell a trend here. $300 here and $200 there (and one can only guess what else will pop up in the future) and all of a sudden, as Everett McKinley Dirksen once said, you're talking about real money.

My rant (or sigh) comes in what was funded by the NEH. Now, to be fair, the NEH got about 1,000 applications and was only able to fund 89. Why we in this country cannot provide more help to our artists and writers bugs the heck out of me, but that's a rant for another day.

So, what was funded? Take a gander.

Citizenship and Street Vendors' Associations in Post-Abolition Rio de Janeiro, 1889-1930

Vinculum societatis, or, The tie of good company: Keyboard Instruments in Restoration Cultural Practice

Visual Fieldnotes from Fort Rupert: Studies of Kwakiutl Dance and Movement by Franz Boas

Polemical Humor at the Start of the French Wars of Religion

The World Dances Through Manhattan: International Influences on American Concert Dance, 1943-1960

Now, please don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that these aren't necessarily worthy of further study, but the majority of these are so esoteric that they will never be known outside of their author and maybe one or two others. And, to be fair, there were some projects funded that definitely are worthy, such as Understanding the Emotional and Spiritual Journeys of Hospice Volunteers: A Humanistic Inquiry. Speaking as one who lost my mother to cancer, I think such a study has great merit.

But what makes these more worthy than my study, or the other 908 that were rejected?

The NEH sends all grant applications to outside referees for comments. Let me close with the comments I received on my application, including one that was arrogant and just plain rude.

First the positive ones. The rankings are Excellent, Very Good, Good, Some Merit and Not Competitive.

Panelist 1

A very well chosen subject, of appeal to several constituencies, as the applicant points out. He clearly uinderstands Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln, academic historians, and the American public all very well. This work can make a significant contribution to assessing the relationship between academic and popular history.

Rating: E

Panelist 2

This exploration of poet Carl Sandburg's multi-volume biography of Abraham Lincoln and the conflicted relationship Sandburg had with professional historians explores the controversies surrounding Sandburg's role as an amateur historian and public intellectual who sought to document and commemorate Lincoln's life. The projects pivots on historian James G. Randall's public reversal of judgement about the Sandburg biography. Yet, it is not completely clear, given the quotations cited, that Randal fully reversed his judgement of Sandburg's work. Nor is it clear why this should be the focus of the analysis. The tension between professional historians and popular writers seems to offer a more interesting perspectives on the challenges of public humanities as raised by Sandburg's work.

Rating: SM

Panelist 3

This is a compelling proposal on many levels. Aside from the wide interest in Lincoln and Sandburg themselves, Wick's project of exploring the divide between professional historians and the perception of history written and produced by non-professional historians is important and well-framed in the proposal. I also find the work plan focused and compelling, recognizing the importance of hiring researchers at multiple smaller archives traveling to each of these sites would be prohibitive.

Rating: VG

Now the less positive one.

This project raises interesting questions about the relationship between popular history and academic history, and it will undoubtedly hold some interest for Lincoln scholars. However, the questions of Sandburg’s approach and process seem limited in their significance. Although Mr. Wick has published in small scholarly journals, I am concerned that he has only a BA in History, and I question whether he is qualified to offer a fair evaluation of the approaches and standards of academic historians given his limited professional training.

Rating: SM

Sigh.

Best
Rob