Center for Digital Editing Receives $10 Million NEH Grant to Preserve Founding-Era History

The University of Virginia’s Center for Digital Editing has received one of the largest grants in the history of the National Endowment for the Humanities — a $10 million award that will secure and expand public access to the documentary record of the nation’s Founding Era.

The five-year grant will accelerate the work of major editorial projects including the Papers of George Washington, the Papers of James Madison and other collections central to understanding the Revolutionary and Early Republic periods. It will also expand public access to those sources, laying the groundwork for new ways to engage with the ideas and debates that shaped the United States.

“This grant ensures that decades of painstaking editorial work remain not only preserved but accessible and relevant for generations to come,” said Jennifer Stertzer, director of the Center for Digital Editing and the Washington Papers. “As we approach the nation’s 250th anniversary, Americans will be able to connect with the founders’ words directly — discovering how they wrestled with questions we are still asking today.”

Expanding Access, Deepening Engagement

The funding will allow UVA and its partners to complete and publish foundational editions of George Washington’s and James Madison’s papers, the Naval Documents of the American Revolution and the writings of figures such as Gouverneur Morris and William Short. Each project will continue the careful transcription, annotation and contextualization that make these materials usable by both scholars and the public.

At the same time, the Center will launch IndependenceHub, a freely accessible online platform designed to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The site will feature curated document collections, interactive maps, timelines, exhibits and other tools that bring the history of the nation’s founding into classrooms, communities and homes.

The initiative also invests in the future of the field. Through workshops, conferences and UVA’s innovative eLaboratories training program, the grant will support the next generation of documentary editors, scholars and digital humanists.

A Tradition of Leadership at UVA

The Center for Digital Editing is one of several UVA entities playing key roles in the initiative. Rotunda, the digital imprint of the University of Virginia Press, will build on its American History Collection of more than 300,000 documents, while the UVA Digital Publishing Cooperative will provide the technical infrastructure for sustainable digital editions.

UVA’s leadership in documentary editing is rooted in a decades-long tradition. The Washington Papers project, established in 1968, has assembled more than 133,000 Washington-related documents and hundreds of thousands more from his contemporaries. By making these sources accessible — from military orders to personal correspondence and even a teenage George Washington’s handwritten etiquette guide — UVA has helped illuminate both the monumental and the everyday aspects of the founding generation.

“At a time when humanities projects face reduced funding and terminated grants, this award is not just a lifeline but a vote of confidence in the importance of this work,” Stertzer said. “It affirms that UVA is uniquely positioned — with its editorial expertise, world-class press, and digital infrastructure — to preserve and share these essential sources of our national story.”

Looking Ahead

The grant’s impact will also stretch far beyond Charlottesville. By 2030, UVA and its partners will have completed comprehensive and accessible editions of critical historical resources, launched a dynamic public portal for Founding Era history and trained the next generation of scholars and editors to continue the work.

Together, these outcomes will ensure that the documents of the nation’s early leaders remain accessible, understandable and meaningful for Americans who want to explore the connections between the nation’s past and its present as it commemorates its 250th year of independence.