We're launching a campaign to reenvision Appalachian history

We are very proud to announce that the National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded our Appalshop Archive a Challenge grant to preserve and expand access to our collections of Appalachian history.

It’s an enormous honor — and we need your help to do it.

We're launching a 4-year capital campaign to raise 3:1 matching funds in order to access the NEH's generous grant. That's $375,000 over just the next four years!

The Appalshop Archive cares for thousands of hours of 16mm film, videotape and audio recordings, plus photographic prints and negatives, paper records, and material ephemera that show an incredible range of life and history in central Appalachia.

It's an enormous responsibility, and in order to sustain our collections — and improve access to them — we need to make major upgrades to the warehouse and Appalshop building where they're stored and preserved.

That's where you come in. With everyone from scholars to television producers to the public accessing the rich holdings of the Appalshop Archive, we have the opportunity to dramatically change the narrative about Appalachia by making our history accessible.

Imagine what we could change in the present just by putting the spotlight on our region's past. 

As we continue to grapple with the misconceptions about who and what make up Appalachia, the Appalshop Archive embodies Appalshop's core mission of cultural preservation, perpetuation, transmission, and exchange — that is, recording and amplifing the full picture of life in these mountains.

Help us tell Appalachian stories straight from the Archive, and give to the campaign we just launched to re-envision Appalachian history.

It is because of you that our Appalshop Archive can tell these stories. Thank you for your support: we are honored to do this work together with all of you.

More information about Appalshop available at @appalshop on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.