Preservation Maryland is pleased to announce it has received a grant award from Maryland Humanities’ Voices and Votes Electoral Engagement Project to support the expansion of the organization’s Ballot & Beyond women’s history project.
Preservation Maryland will use the $2,000 grant to continue to tell the story of Maryland’s suffragists and early female elected officials, lawyers, and judges. The project is aimed at exploring the enduring legacy of the efforts of these women of diverse backgrounds and the strategies they used to ensure a place for women in the civic arena. Specifically, Preservation Maryland will produce a series of videos and podcasts about these remarkable civic leaders to be released in early 2021 in coordination with Women’s History Month.
The Voices and Votes Electoral Engagement Project is supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and administered through the Federation of State Humanities Councils for its new initiative, “Why It Matters: Civic and Electoral Participation.” This initiative explores civic participation as it relates to electoral engagement in a multivocal democracy. Maryland Humanities is one of 43 state and jurisdictional humanities councils to receive this funding for grant-making. Twelve Maryland-based projects received funding from Maryland Humanities totaling just over $20,000.
The announcement from Maryland Humanities explained, “Voices and Votes Electoral Engagement Support Grants were awarded to support projects engaging and benefitting Marylanders, on such topics as voting during a pandemic, suffrage, the power of protest, voting rights, voter suppression, contested elections, and ideological polarization, social media and democracy, rural/urban divide in voting, the electoral college, and voter apathy.”
Preservation Maryland is proud to bring a historical context to the ever-evolving story of democracy in America with a focus on some of Maryland’s strongest voices for equality, justice and inclusion.