Grant funds Civil War governors research
Historical Society’s digital documentary
will tell key story about state’s leaders

It may require as much as 100,000 hours of effort and 10 years to complete, but a Kentucky Historical Society (KHS) project to tell the story of Kentucky’s five Civil War governors promises to be a blockbuster.

In August, KHS received a $210,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to develop the “Civil War Governors of Kentucky Digital Documentary Edition.”

According to Dr. Darrell Meadows, who will direct the project, a team of some seven to eight individuals will be hired to sift through some 25,000 documents related to Kentucky’s governors of that period.

“We’ll identify, transcribe, annotate and proof information that will be obtained from a variety of sources to put together a document that is accurate and trustworthy,” the KHS director of research and interpretation explained. “Sources will range from individuals to the national archives.”

Although the 100,000 research hours and multi-years of effort are estimates, Meadows emphasizes that the project will be thorough and complete and an initial website may be available as early as 2014. Meadows will be assisted by Beth Van Allen, editor of the The Register, the history journal of KHS.

“The Civil War Governors of Kentucky” is associated with all five of the state’s Civil War governors, consisting of three Union governors – Beriah Magoffin (1859-62), James F. Robinson (1862-63) and Thomas E. Bramlette (1863-67) – and two provisional Confederate governors, George W. Johnson (1861-62) and Richard Hawes (1862-65).

The project’s digital document will focus on the period between November 1860 – when Lincoln was elected president – and the end of December 1865, roughly corresponding with the ratification of the 13th Amendment that ended slavery.

Each of these national milestones signaled a pivotal change in Kentucky’s political and social order, Meadows said, and will provide new ways of looking at the society of the Civil War era.

The grant was made available through the NEH Scholarly Editions and Translations Program.

“We couldn’t be more thrilled by the award,” Meadows stated. “The grant will not only allow us to make significant progress toward the completion of the project, but furthers the Kentucky Historical Society’s mission to advance new scholarship in Kentucky and in regional and national history. The project promises to be a significant legacy of the Civil War Sesquicentennial in Kentucky.”

Project directors also expect their effort to serve as a national model for other scholarly programs conceived and executed for a digital environment.