KOHC Announces Start of Next Grant Cycle

The Kentucky Oral History Commission (KOHC) will accept grant applications for the fall fiscal year 2017-2018 grant cycle from Monday, July 17, through Monday, Sept. 25.

KOHC grants are available for new projects and for the transcription and indexing of existing oral history interviews. The commission intends its grant program to encourage statewide collection and preservation of oral histories and to help make those historically valuable interviews accessible to the public.

In fiscal year 2016-2017, KOHC awarded $42,837.05 to support 11 oral history projects in Kentucky. Topics ranged from Red River Gorge climbers to an African American Rosenwald school in Berea’s Middletown, women graduates from University of Kentucky’s medicine program in the 1960s and 1970s to Appalachian food and dance traditions.

The Kentucky Historical Society administers and houses Kentucky Oral History Commission, the only commission of its kind in the United States dedicated to providing financial and technical assistance to oral history repositories and oral historians. KOHC has positioned Kentucky historical organizations, libraries and archives to lead the way in collecting and preserving oral histories.