The four-paragraph letter got straight to the point: The Norwegian American Historical Association at St. Olaf College was losing a nearly $300,000 federal grant, effective immediately.
“Your grant’s immediate termination is necessary to safeguard the interests of the federal government, including its fiscal priorities,” the letter from National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Acting Chairman Michael McDonald read.
The historical association was just months into a three-year project to preserve and digitize records documenting Norwegian-Americans’ relief efforts for occupied Norway during World War II. Now the group’s half-dozen staffers will have to find another way to pay for it.
“It was awful,” said executive director Amy Boxrud. “We’ve been cautiously optimistic that a signed grant with the government would be honored, so we were really devastated that the grants that are already underway were being rescinded.”
The historical association is among thousands of museums, libraries, historic sites, colleges and universities and other organizations together losing millions of dollars in federal funding as President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency take aim at the decades-old agencies that support them.
At the NEH and lesser-known Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), employees have been placed on leave and grants either cancelled or left in limbo without anyone remaining to cut the checks.
Ole Reistad, the commander for the Royal Norwegian Air Force in Canada, is pictured with then-Prince Harald, now King of Norway, at Camp Little Norway in Toronto, Canada. The photograph is among those being digitized by the Norwegian American Historical Association. (Provided by the Norwegian Americ)
More grants are outstanding. The Museum of Russian Art in Minneapolis recently applied for about $25,000 to help pay for a new gallery lighting control system, executive director Mark Meister said. A decision would typically come this summer, he said, but he’s not holding his breath.