[Congressional Bills 107th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. Res. 156 Introduced in Senate (IS)]







107th CONGRESS
  1st Session
S. RES. 156

    Expressing the sense of the Senate that the Regional Humanities 
 Initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities be named for 
                             Eudora Welty.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                             August 3, 2001

    Mr. Cochran (for himself and Mr. Lott) submitted the following 
 resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Health, Education, 
                          Labor, and Pensions

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
    Expressing the sense of the Senate that the Regional Humanities 
 Initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities be named for 
                             Eudora Welty.

Whereas Eudora Welty was the last of the 4 literary giants (William Faulkner, 
        Tennessee Williams, and Richard Wright) who shaped both the Southern 
        Literary Renaissance and American literature in the 20th century;
Whereas this grand lady of American literature both embraced and transcended the 
        South;
Whereas in the words of critic Maureen Howard, ``It is not the South we find in 
        her stories, it is Eudora Welty's south, a region that feeds her 
        imagination and a place we come to trust'';
Whereas critic Maureen Howard noted that Eudora Welty was ``a Southerner as 
        Chekhov was a Russian, because place provides them with a reality, a 
        reality as difficult, mysterious, and impermanent as life'';
Whereas Eudora Welty's literary legacy includes more than a dozen novels, 
        collections of short stories, essays, and books of photography;
Whereas for this impressive literary canon Eudora Welty was awarded the Pulitzer 
        Prize in 1973, the French Legion of Honor in 1996, the PEN/Malamud Award 
        in 1992, 6 O'Henry Awards, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the 
        National Endowment for the Humanities Frankel Medal, the National Book 
        Critics Award, and the Gold Medal of the National Institute of Arts and 
        Letters;
Whereas Eudora Welty was the first living writer to be included in the 
        prestigious Library of America series that features American literary 
        giants such as Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, Henry James, Willa Cather, 
        Edith Wharton, Edgar Allen Poe, and William Faulkner;
Whereas 2 of Eudora Welty's books, The Robber Bridegroom and The Ponder Heart, 
        were adapted for the stage in New York;
Whereas the place in which Eudora Welty lived, Jackson, Mississippi, was central 
        to her work as a writer;
Whereas Jackson, Mississippi was, in Eudora Welty's words, ``like a fire that 
        never goes out'';
Whereas for Eudora Welty, place was ``the stuff of fiction, as close to our 
        living lives as the earth we can pick up and rub between our fingers, 
        something we can feel and smell ...We know what the place has made of 
        these people through generations. We have a sense of continuity and 
        that, I think, comes from place.'';
Whereas no writer was ever more beloved, or more adored by her readers who 
        avidly followed her life and work;
Whereas Eudora Welty deeply loved family stories and recalled how ``Long before 
        I wrote stories, I listened for stories ...when their elders sit and 
        begin, children are just waiting and hoping for one to come out, like a 
        mouse from a hole.'';
Whereas Eudora Welty's work focused on family life, including weddings, 
        reunions, and funerals;
Whereas Eudora Welty's career began with the study of region and place when she 
        worked as a writer and photographer for the Works Progress 
        Administration, work that later inspired her fiction and literary 
        essays;
Whereas these writings help each of us better understand the humanities and 
        their ties to region and place;
Whereas Eudora Welty's work inspired the National Endowment for the Humanities 
        to launch its Regional Humanities Initiative through 20 planning grants 
        that have been awarded to institutions in the States of Arizona, 
        California, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, 
        Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, 
        Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Wisconsin;
Whereas like the gentle rain that fell across Mississippi on the day of Eudora 
        Welty's funeral, the Regional Humanities Initiative nourishes the soil 
        of American culture and its roots in our regions;
Whereas the Regional Humanities Initiative honors the places from which we each 
        come and preserves our history and culture for future generations; and
Whereas Eudora Welty believed deeply in the noble work of the Regional 
        Humanities Initiative and her name will inspire future generations to 
        understand and celebrate the places that shape our Nation: Now, 
        therefore, be it
    Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate that the Regional 
Humanities Initiative be named for Eudora Welty.
                                 <all>