University of South Carolina Libraries has received a 2026 National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grant of $324,979 to continue its work digitizing South Carolina newspapers.
The grant is one of 81 awarded nationwide by the NEH this year, and the only one to be awarded in South Carolina. It is the 6th NEH grant that has been awarded to University Libraries for digitization of South Carolina newspapers.
To date, NEH support has enabled the Libraries to digitize more than 400,000 pages of South Carolina newspapers. The new grant is projected to bring that number to 600,000 by 2028. The South Caroliniana Library holds 1,159 newspapers on print and microfilm, representing every county in South Carolina and spanning the years 1732 through the present.
Newspapers being digitized with the current round of funding include those from the Revolutionary War era as well as those featuring underrepresented communities. The new grant will also allow the Libraries to fill in gaps in geographic coverage across the state.
Papers such as the Charleston South-Carolina & American General Gazette (1764-81) and Charleston Royal South-Carolina Gazette (1780-82), which are among several dozen eighteenth-century SC newspapers in the South Caroliniana Library’s collections, offer insight into the lives of Charlestonians under British occupation and the turning of the tide against the British army in South Carolina during the American Revolution. Papers like Columbia Light (1916-28) and Sumter People’s Informer (1936-41) shed light on the daily lives and concerns of South Carolina’s African American residents. And papers from Berkeley, Colleton, Dorchester, Florence, Horry, Jasper, and Marion counties will make the Libraries’ digital newspaper collection more geographically representative of the whole state.
“This grant is so important to our work and to the public because researchers turning to the web or AI to find historical information will not find the content that exists only in the physical archives,” said University Libraries Digital Collections Librarian Katie Hoskins. “That is a significant barrier to conducting complete and accurate research. So much of our state's history is still waiting to be digitized. The process of digitizing newspapers takes major coordination and effort that would not be possible without the funding from NEH and the support provided by the Library of Congress to National Digital Newspaper Program participants”
South Carolina Digital Newspaper Program Coordinator Michele Patterson notes that the Libraries’ newspaper collections capture a long and comprehensive record of the state’s history: "I'm considering the South-Carolina Gazette which was the very first newspaper printed in South Carolina even before we actually became a state! This grant is important because it allows us to help celebrate the 250th anniversary of the founding of our country by bringing to life (digitizing) early South Carolina newspapers—many never previously available to the public—and making them accessible for discovery and research to the entire public for free. These firsthand accounts preserve the voices, events, debates, and everyday experiences that have helped shape what has become the Palmetto State."
University Libraries Associate Dean of Special Collections Nathan Saunders says the digitization of the South Caroliniana’s newspaper collection significantly enhances the library’s educational mission, at the university and beyond: “Each year, hundreds of college students in dozens of classes visit South Caroliniana for various assignments, and digital newspapers invariably form one component of their research. Digitized newspapers are also the most accessible resource for the hundreds of middle and high school students who consult the Library's holdings. They therefore help the Library achieve its core educational function of serving the needs of the people of South Carolina from within the state's flagship public institution.”
The Historical Newspapers of South Carolina digital collection is part of the Library of Congress’s Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers project, which provides access to historic newspapers throughout the nation.
Since its founding in 1965, the National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded over $6 billion in grants to museums, historic sites, colleges, universities, K-12 teaching, libraries, public television and radio stations, research institutions, independent scholars, and to its humanities council affiliates in each of the nation’s 56 states and jurisdictions. Panels of independent, external reviewers examine and select top-rated proposals to receive grants.
Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.