Historical Archives Program
General
The Historical Archives Program has taken a temporary hiatus and is no longer accepting applications for funding at this time.
The Historical Archives Program encourages the preservation of unpublished personal research materials considered of value to the history of anthropology. Grants are offered to assist senior scholars (or their heirs) with the expense of preparing and transferring these materials for archival deposit. Applicants must show evidence that arrangements have been made with an appropriate repository.
Award Money
The maximum amount of a Historical Archives Program grant is $15,000. Wenner-Gren awards do not include funds to cover institutional overhead or any fees related to the administration of our grants and fellowships.
Application Deadline
We consider applications on a rolling deadline, beginning with a preliminary inquiry. As described below, inquiries should be emailed to Mark Mahoney at mmahoney@wennergren.org.
Who Can Apply
Established anthropologists or their heirs, colleagues, friends, and students are welcome to apply. The applicant must have legal access to the archival materials and agreement from an appropriate repository to receive them. The grant request should only include the cost of basic preparation, not efforts to digitize or otherwise enhance an existing collection. Efforts to establish archival facilities are not eligible for funding.
Work undertaken with this grant should support our mission to advance anthropological knowledge, amplify its impact, foster inclusivity, and address the precarity of anthropology as a career and a field of study. The archival materials should have import in research on the history of anthropology. The applicant’s plan to make the materials publicly accessible should be both feasible and appropriate.
Individuals interested in applying for a Historical Archives Program grant must first submit a preliminary inquiry to determine their eligibility. Inquiries should be no more than two pages and must include the following information:
- A brief biographical sketch of the anthropologist whose materials will be preserved, outlining their academic history and contributions to the discipline
- A general description of the size and contents of the research collection
- An overview of the steps involved in preparing these materials for archival deposit
- The name of the repository where materials are to be deposited.
Preliminary inquiries should be emailed to Mark Mahoney (mmahoney@wennergren.org). If your project is eligible for consideration and competitive with other inquiries, we will send you official application materials.
The Foundation requires successful applicants to comply with all U.S. laws. These include but are not limited to regulations governed by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which administers U.S. government sanctions programs and regulations relating to the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List (SDN List). Please see the OFAC Guidelines page on our website and consult the U.S. Department of the Treasury for more information.
In compliance with OFAC regulations, the Foundation requires special documentation for projects located in Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela, Crimea (including Sevastopol), the Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic regions of Ukraine, and Russia. The Foundation does not require this documentation at the application stage, but we must receive it before we can release funds.
Should you be invited to apply, you will receive a link to the application portal.