A new state grant awarded to the Dorchester Historical Society (DHS) will put $15,000 towards researching the lives of Dorchester veterans. The Veterans’ Heritage Grant, allocated by the Massachusetts State Historical Records Advisory Board, will allow DHS to expand its Veterans Project and explore the past experiences of neighborhood residents who served in the military by producing biographies that will be made available online.

"This generous support from the Massachusetts SHRAB will allow the Society to include many more of Dorchester's service members in its research,” said DHS president Earl Taylor in a press release. “Building on our initial Veterans Project, it will allow us to develop a fuller picture of the lives of Dorchester's residents and the roles they have played in serving our nation.”

So far, the DHS’s Veterans Project, which was initiated as part of the centennial commemoration of the Great War, has resulted in biographies of 43 World War I veterans from Dorchester, excerpts of which have been featured in the Reporter over the past year. The injection of funding will expand the scope of this research, with the goal of exploring Dorchester veterans of conflicts ranging from the colonial times through the 21st century. The press release noted that a special interest of the project would be to illuminate the lives of those often “left out of the records,” including women and service members of color.