Idaho Humanities Council

Remember that book, or teacher, or visit to an historic site that seemed to broaden your vision about your interests and purpose in life? Those humanities moments are essential to a well-rounded education, promoting lifelong learning.

The Idaho Humanities Council is committed to inspiring those moments through greater public understanding of literature, history, law, languages, and other humanities disciplines—and we need your help.

The IHC is a non-profit organization serving as the state-based affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Since 1973, the IHC has helped support the work of museums, libraries, civic clubs, schools, and other grassroots organizations to develop humanities projects and programs on the local level.

The IHC is the only organization of its kind in Idaho fully dedicated to providing broad public access to humanities education and lifelong learning for people of all ages, all income levels, and all geographic areas of our state.

IHC awards grants to organizations throughout Idaho and develops its own programs, including (1) weeklong summer institutes for K-12 teachers on such themes as Idaho history, Native American literature, the U.S. Constitution, the works of John Steinbeck, Mark Twain, Willa Cather, Ernest Hemingway and more; (2) a statewide Speakers Bureau lecture program bringing humanities scholars to libraries, museums and civic clubs in some of the Idaho’s smallest communities; (3) annual Distinguished Humanities Lectures with nationally prominent historians, journalists, and writers to  in Coeur d’Alene, Twin FallsBoise and Idaho Falls; (4) a program of annual Smithsonian traveling exhibitions touring small communities around Idaho; (5) public reading/discussion programs on the American Civil War, the history of the 1964 Wilderness Act, and more.

The IHC’s mission is to “deepen public understanding of human experience by connecting people with ideas.” The vision of the IHC is that the humanities inspire a more literate, tolerant and intellectually inquisitive Idaho citizenry, better able to embrace life’s possibilities.

Please join us and help the IHC bring the public humanities to Idahoans young and old.