ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½

ST. LOUIS — Money for the Missouri Historical Society in ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ was canceled amid the Trump administration’s cuts to a federal humanities program, the museum’s leader said.

The money from the National Endowment for the Humanities was to have funded the care of artifacts with “national and international significance,� Jody Sowell, president and CEO of the historical society, said in a .

On Monday, Sowell told the Post-Dispatch that his organization, which runs the Missouri History Museum in Forest Park, also expects a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to be canceled.

The grants total $250,636, and would have gone toward care of the collection and employee training and digitization, he said.

“Museums and libraries are even more essential in times like this, and MHS is committed to serving our visitors, to being a welcoming space for people of all political persuasions, and to being a port in the storm,� Sowell said in his post.

Since beginning his second term in January, President Donald Trump has sought to eliminate hundreds of federal programs and agencies. He tasked the Department of Government Efficiency, the task force run by billionaire Elon Musk, to lead the cuts.

But the effort has been chaotic: Some federal workers were fired, only to be rehired weeks later. Real estate leases, such as for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration facility in the city’s Central West End neighborhood, were to be canceled, only for the administration to reverse course. Other cuts stranded federal workers overseas and abruptly ended other foreign aid.

DOGE recently targeted the National Endowment for the Humanities for cuts, reportedly seeking as much as an 80% cut in staffing and the cancelation of all grants made under the Biden administration that had not been paid out, according to .

Sowell said federal funding typically represents about 1% of his organization’s budget. Last year, the society claimed $33.7 million in revenues.

The Missouri Historical Society operates the museum in Forest Park, the nearby Library & Research Center on Skinker Boulevard and the Soldiers Memorial Military Museum in downtown ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½. It is one of five taxpayer-funded cultural institutions in ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½, all of them overseen by the Metropolitan Zoological Park and Museum District.

“I hope you will find ways to support our efforts, and I hope you know that we are here to support you by providing a space to connect and by protecting, preserving, and sharing the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ story,â€� Sowell said in his post.