by William Trollinger

On April 03 the Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE) sent an email – from a nongovernmental email address (which meant that many of these emails ended up in SPAM folders – this is efficiency?) – informing hundreds of recipients that their National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grants had been terminated. These grantees include museums, teachers, and state humanities councils. As the American Historical Association (AHA) has rightly pointed out, “this frontal attack on the nation’s public culture is unpatriotic, anti-American, and unjustified” and “imperil[s] both the education of the American public and the preservation of our history.” These grant terminations are in keeping with other Trump executive orders that “prioritize narrow political ideology over historical research, historical accuracy, and the actual historical experiences of Americans.”

This attack was then amplified by an email sent the evening of April 03 – again from a nongovernmental email address – informing 75-80% of NEH staff that they were being placed on “administrative leave.” 

One of the casualties of this anti-American assault is the Ohio Humanities Council (OHC). The OHC has funded a variety of projects that “tell stories that are essential to our cultural infrastructure,” including the remarkable documentary film, “The Lincoln School Story,” which tells the story of African American mothers in Hillsboro, Ohio and their heroic effort to desegregate the local school. More than this, it is OHC policy to “serve everyday Ohioans statewide, from school children to veterans, living everywhere from one-stoplight communities to big cities.”

The OHC is an invaluable resource for the state. And besides everything else it does, it maintains a Speakers Bureau which includes 27 scholars in the humanities. Libraries, museums, and the like apply for (modest) OHC support to bring in one of these scholars to speak at an event that is free and open to the public. 

Sue and I are both Ohio Humanities speakers. Sue gives presentations on “Moving Off the Farm and Trying to Stay Amish” and “Rebels in Corsets: The Embodied Rhetoric of the Women’s Suffrage Movement”; I speak on “Statues, Flags, and the Ongoing Battle over the Meaning of the Civil War” as well as “Terrorizing Immigrants and Catholics: The Ohio Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s.” And in keeping with OHC’s stated goal to serve Ohioans “living everywhere from one-stoplight communities to big cities,” in the past decade we have given talks in the following locations (sometimes we have each spoken in the same locale, and sometimes we have given both of our presentations at the same venue):

• Athens
• Barberton
• Bellville
• Celina
• Cincinnati
• Columbus
• Coshocton
• Dayton
• Granville
• Greenville
• Lima
• Loudonville
• Marietta
• Milan
• Niles
• Northmont
• Peninsula
• Sandusky
• Shawnee
• Springboro
• Versailles
• Wapakoneta
• Warren
• Zanesville
• Zoar

We have thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to see towns we would never have visited otherwise. Even better, we have thoroughly enjoyed the people we have met at these events. In particular, we have been repeatedly struck by how eagerly folks want to learn the history we have to share – which is contrary to the bad rap that the humanities often receive in contemporary American culture (sometimes even in institutions of higher education). More than this, attendees are quite eager to interact, with questions that are often terrific and smart (“how is that there are now Catholics in white Christian nationalist organizations, given that they used to be the enemy?”), and with comments that expand our knowledge (“if a Swartzentruber Amish person shows up at the hospital, you have to give them your immediate attention, as it has to be very serious since they never seek medical treatment.”)

The public humanities work supported by the NEH and state humanities councils really does matter. And the Trump Administration’s attack on the public humanities is, indeed, thoroughly unpatriotic.