National Archives grant awarded for 'Complete Correspondence of Charles W. Chesnutt'

The National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), the publishing arm of the National Archives, has awarded a $152,648 grant to the Charles Chesnutt Digital Archive to support the publication of The Complete Correspondence of Charles W. Chesnutt.

Chesnutt was a pioneering African American writer, lawyer, and activist whose correspondence sheds light on his life and work, as well as his friendships with W. E. B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington, and others. The Charles Chesnutt Digital Archive, edited by Stephanie Browner (of The New School), Matt Cohen, and Kenneth M. Price, offers fiction, essays, reviews, and poems by Chesnutt, as well as hundreds of reviews of Chesnutt's works and a bibliography and manuscripts section in development.

The National Archives grant will enable the Archive to add Chesnutt's correspondence to its digital collection. From the NHPRC:

“Upon completion, this comprehensive digital archive will consist of transcriptions of all incoming and outgoing letters (estimated at 1,250 letters), including all drafts, and digitized images of the original documents. During the proposed grant year, project staff will create a catalog of all of Chesnutt’s known correspondence and drafts; secure high-resolution digital scans for all known correspondence from 1883-1899; and publish 200 transcribed and annotated letters with their respective images to the The Charles Chesnutt Digital Archive.”

The full press release is available on the National Archives website.