The Library Company of Philadelphia strongly opposes the recent actions by the Department of Government Efficiency to terminate already awarded National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grants, including funding for the Library Company of Philadelphia. This is an unprecedented and damaging move that puts critical community programs and cultural organizations across Pennsylvania at risk.

The Library Company’s NEH Postdoctoral Fellowships support advanced humanities research in residence at the Library Company on any subject relevant to our collections, which encompass rare printed, graphic, and manuscript material, art, and artifacts relating to the history of the U.S. and the Atlantic world from the 17th through the 19th centuries.

The NEH-funded Library Company Papers Project is in its final year of a three-year project to review, process, and digitize institutional records from the Library Company’s founding in 1731 through 1881 and provide unfettered access to these records for the first time. With our nation’s 250th anniversary approaching next year, this is a crucial time to be reviewing and providing better access to the history of an institution that served as the de facto Library of Congress before there was such an entity.

Cancelling already awarded grants and defunding the NEH undermines our communities, our history, and our shared values.

John C. Van Horne
Director
The Library Company of Philadelphia