NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS
FOR 2018-2019 FELLOWSHIPS
New Fellows Welcomed for the 2017-2018 Academic Year
New York, NY, November 13, 2017 – The New-York Historical Society is now accepting applications for its prestigious fellowship program for the 2018–2019 academic year. Leveraging its rich collections of documents, artifacts, and works of art detailing American history from the perspective of New York City, New-York Historical’s fellowships—open to scholars at various times during their academic careers—provide scholars with material resources and an intellectual community to develop new research and publications that illuminate complex issues of the past.
Visit nyhistory.org/library/fellowships for instructions and application checklists for each fellowship. The application deadline for all fellowships is January 8, 2018. The available fellowships include:
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Predoctoral Fellowships in Women’s History
The two recipients of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship in Women’s History should have a strong interest in the fields of women’s and public history. This unique part-time fellowship introduces young scholars to work outside the academy in public history and may not directly correspond with their dissertation research. They must be currently enrolled students in good standing in a relevant PhD program in the humanities. The Predoctoral Fellows will be in residence part time at the New-York Historical Society for one academic year, between September 5, 2018 and June 29, 2019, with a stipend of $15,000 per year. This position is not full time and will not receive full benefits.
National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship
The fellowship is available to individuals who have completed their formal professional training and have a strong record of accomplishment within their field. There is no restriction relating to age or academic status of applicants. Foreign nationals are eligible to apply if they have lived in the United States for at least three years immediately preceding the application deadline. The ten-month residency will carry a stipend of $42,000, plus benefits. This fellowship will begin September 5, 2018 and will end June 29, 2019.
Bernard and Irene Schwartz Fellowships
Offered jointly with the Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts at the New School, two Bernard and Irene Schwartz Fellowships are open to scholars who will have completed their PhD in History or American Studies before the end of the 2017-2018 academic year. Fellows will teach one course per semester at Eugene Lang College in addition to conducting focused research in residence at the New-York Historical Society. These fellows carry a stipend of $60,000, plus benefits. The fellowship will begin September 1, 2018 and will end June 29, 2019.
Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation – Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship
This fellowship will be awarded to an early-career scholar. Research projects should expand public understanding of New York State history and should include research based on the collections and resources of the New-York Historical Society. This ten-month residency will carry a stipend of $60,000, plus benefits. The fellowship will begin September 5, 2018 and will last through June 29, 2019.
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowships
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship will be awarded to a candidate who has earned their PhD between 2013 and 2015. Research projects should be based in some way on the collections and resources of New-York Historical. This ten-month residency will carry a stipend of $60,000, plus benefits. The fellowship will begin September 5, 2018 and will last through June 29, 2019.
Short-Term Fellowships
New-York Historical Society awards a variety of short-term fellowships to enable researchers to conduct research on site for two-to-four week periods. Each award brings with it a stipend of $2,000. The fellowship period runs from July 1, 2018 through June 29, 2019. Applicants should apply simply for a short-term fellowship. New-York Historical will decide which fellowship to award a successful applicant based on the particular proposal.
2017-2018 Fellows at the New-York Historical Society
New-York Historical is also pleased to announce 12 fellows, now in residence during the 2017–2018 academic year. New-York Historical offers fellowships to scholars dedicated to understanding and promoting American history. Fellowship positions at the New-York Historical Society are made possible by the generous support of Bernard and Irene Schwartz, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation, Sid Lapidus, the Lehrman Institute, and Patricia and John Klingenstein. All fellows receive research stipends while in residency, and Bernard & Irene Schwartz Fellows each teach two courses at Eugene Lang College at the New School for Liberal Arts during their year as resident scholars. This year’s fellows are:
NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES FELLOW
Joseph Murphy, an adjunct instructor at Hunter College, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, and Adams State University, is the 2017-2018 National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow. He received a BA in history from Temple University in 2004, an MPhil in history from CUNY Graduate Center in 2014, and a PhD and certificate in American studies from CUNY in 2016. “Neither a Slave Nor a King: The Antislavery Project and the Origins of the Civil War and Reconstruction,” examines how antislavery forces developed an alternative vision of the American nation-state which provoked a constitutional crisis and set the stage for a new order based solely on fundamental human equality. Dr. Murphy’s research recovers the antislavery origins of the Civil War and Reconstruction, clarifying the terms of the sectional crisis while upending some long held beliefs about 19th-century politics and reform. In order to complete two chapters of his scholarly monograph and incorporate additional research into two more, Dr. Murphy will make extensive use of New-York Historical’s archival collections. Among other sources, Murphy will rely heavily on the Slavery Collection and Civil War Papers. He will also consult its collection of broadsides and anti-slavery newspapers, such as the Free Soil Advocate.
ANDREW W. MELLON FOUNDATION FELLOWS
Sarah Gronningsater, assistant professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania, is one of two Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellows for 2017-2018. She received an AB in history and literature from Harvard University in 2003, an MSt in history from Oxford in 2004, and a PhD from the University of Chicago in 2014. Gronningsater’s project, “The Arc of Abolition: The Children of Gradual Emancipation and the Origins of National Freedom,” explores the long and legally-oriented transition from slavery to freedom in New York, from the first widespread Quaker emancipations in the mid-18th century to the passage of the Reconstruction amendment at the conclusion of the Civil War. During her tenure at New-York Historical, Gronningsater intends to fine tune her manuscript, completing research for certain chapters and completely rewriting others. She will be consulting New-York Historical’s extensive holdings of family papers from prominent citizens in New York, both slave-holding and otherwise, the Gilder Lehrman collections, and more.
Julia Rose Kraut is a legal historian who recently served as the inaugural Judith S. Kaye Fellow for the Historical Society of the New York Courts and is one of two recipients of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation fellowship for the 2017-2018 year at New-York Historical. Dr. Kraut received a BA in history from Columbia University in 2003. She received a JD in 2006 from American University Washington College of Law, and was admitted to the New York State Bar in 2008. Dr. Kraut received a PhD in history from New York University in 2015. Dr. Kraut’s book project is a legal, social, and political history of the exclusion and deportation of foreigners from the U.S. based on their beliefs, associations, and expressions. Her manuscript is under contract to Harvard University Press, and the archives at the New-York Historical Society will be essential to its completion. Among others, some of the sources Dr. Kraut will use include documents related to the Alien Act of 1798 and calls for its repeal, documentation of Chinese Exclusion, and the suppression of anarchists following President McKinley’s assassination in 1901.
BERNARD AND IRENE SCHWARTZ FELLOWS
Frank Cirillo is one of two Bernard and Irene Schwartz Fellows for 2017-2018. He received a BA in history from Yale University in 2011, and a PhD from the University of Virginia in 2017. Cirillo’s tenure at New-York Historical will be spent revising his dissertation into a publishable manuscript and by beginning research for another publishable work. Cirillo’s dissertation analyzes the relationship between abolitionism and support for the Union effort during the Civil War, touching on themes like activism and wartime pacifism. In order to expand his current research for this work, he will use several collections including manuscripts from Charles Sumner, Edward Everett, and Horace Greeley. For his second project, exploring the contours of postwar abolitionist memory, Cirillo will examine memoirs from ex-activists like Francis Jackson Garrison and Henry Wright.
Michael Hattem is one of two Bernard and Irene Schwartz Fellows for 2017-2018. He received a BA in history from the City College of New York in 2011, and a PhD from Yale University in 2017. Before the American Revolution, colonists held the same past in common with their British counterparts across the Atlantic. In the years leading up to the conflict, Hattem argues, this collective past was replaced by a new national narrative specific to the American colonies. Hattem’s research examines intersections between politics and culture in the revolutionary era to account for this shift. Several collections held at New-York Historical, including the John Jay Papers, the William Livingston Collection, and the Alexander McDougall Papers, will aid in the completion of Hattem’s monograph.
PATRICIA AND JOHN KLINGENSTEIN SHORT-TERM FELLOWS
Anna Nau, a PhD candidate in architecture and historic preservation at the University of Texas in Austin, is one of three Patricia and John Klingenstein Fellows for 2017-2018. She received a BA in art history from Southwestern University in 2006, and an MA in architectural history in 2009 from the University of Virginia. She received an MS in architectural conservation in 2011 from the University of Edinburgh. Nau’s dissertation focuses on the origins of architectural preservation in the United States in an attempt to reframe the relationship of preservation and architectural practice. Ms. Nau’s research at New-York Historical will focus on the archives of the McKim, Mead, and White architecture firm as well as the collection of architect Cass Gilbert.
Franklin Sammons, a PhD candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, is one of three Patricia and John Klingenstein Fellows for 2017-2018. He received a BA in history and American studies from Sarah Lawrence College in 2008, and an MA in history from the University of Georgia in 2011. Sammons’ dissertation resurveys the Yazoo land sales in the Yazoo land fraud of 1795. He will be examining how the intersection of emerging financial markets and claims to native land shaped the development of territorial expansion, constitutional law, and the political economy of the early Republic. Sammons will examine the papers of Nathaniel Pendleton, Nicholas Low, and Rufus King, among others.
Natale Zappia, the Nadine Austin Wood Chair in American history and associate professor of history at Whittier College in California, is one of three Patricia and John Klingenstein Fellows for 2017-2018. He earned a BS in human development and family studies from Cornell University in 1996, an MA in history from Claremont Graduate University in 2003, and a PhD in history from the University of California at Santa Cruz in 2008. Professor Zappia’s work explores the evolution of food in the early American West. Using New-York Historical’s collection of John Jacob Astor’s papers, letters, and memoirs in addition to those of the American Fur Company and the Whiting Family, among others, Zappia hopes to synthesize materials produced in different regions and different periods.
CENTER FOR WOMEN’S HISTORY FELLOWS AT THE NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY
The Andrew W. Mellon Pre- and Postdoctoral Fellows in Women’s History will work on scholarly, programmatic, and curatorial aspects of the New-York Historical Society’s new Center for Women’s History, the first of its kind in the nation within the walls of a major museum.
ANDREW W. MELLON POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWS IN WOMEN’S HISTORY
Nicholas A. Juravich is the incoming Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Women’s History, a two-year appointment through 2019. He received a BA in history from the University of Chicago in 2006, an MPhil in economic and social history from the University of Oxford in 2008, and a PhD in history from Columbia University in 2017.
Joanna Scutts is completing her term as the inaugural Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Women’s History. She received a BA in English from the University of Cambridge (UK) in 2000, an MA from Sussex University (UK) in 2003, and a PhD in English and comparative literature from Columbia University in 2010. Her book, The Extra Woman, a study of self-help literature for single women from the 1930s to the 1960s, will be published in November 2017 by Liveright, an imprint of W.W. Norton. As the inaugural Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Women’s History, she helped create public programming and permanent installations for the launch of the Center for Women’s History, and is co-curating the exhibition Hotbed, opening in November 2017.
ANDREW W. MELLON PREDOCTORAL FELLOWS IN WOMEN’S HISTORY
Nicole Mahoney, a doctoral candidate in American History at the University of Maryland, College Park is one of two Andrew W. Mellon Predoctoral Fellows in Women’s History for 2017-2018. She received a BA in French studies and history from Wagner College in 2010, and an MA in history and literature from Columbia University in Paris in 2013.
William J. Simmons, a Provost’s PhD Fellow in the Humanities and a doctoral student in art history at the University of Southern California, is one of two Andrew W. Mellon Fellows in Women’s History for 2017-2018. He earned a BA in the history of art and architecture and LGBTQ studies from Harvard University in 2014 and was a graduate teaching fellow at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and an adjunct lecturer in art history at the City College of New York until spring 2017.
ABOUT THE NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY
The New-York Historical Society, one of America’s preminent cultural institutions, is dedicated to fostering research and presenting history and art exhibitions and public programs that reveal the dynamism of history and its influence on the world of today. Founded in 1804, New-York Historical has a mission to explore the richly layered history of New York City and State and the country, and to serve as a national forum for the discussion of issues surrounding the making and meaning of history.
ABOUT THE PATRICIA D. KLINGENSTEIN LIBRARY
The Patricia D. Klingenstein Library at the New-York Historical Society is home to over 350,000 books, nearly 20,000 linear feet of manuscripts and archives, and distinctive collections of maps, photographs, and prints, as well as ephemera and family papers documenting the history of the United States from a distinctly New York perspective. The Library’s collections are particularly rich in material pertaining to the American Revolution and the early Republic, the Civil War, and the Gilded Age. Significant holdings relate to Robert Livingston and the Livingston family, Rufus King, Horatio Gates, Albert Gallatin, Cadwallader Colden, Robert Fulton, Richard Varick, and many other notable individuals. Also well documented within the Library’s collections are major social movements in American history, especially abolitionism, temperance, and social welfare. The Library’s visual archives include some of the earliest photographs of New York; a significant collection of Civil War images; and the archives of major architectural firms of the later 19th century. Among the more than 1.6 million works that comprise the museum’s art collections are all 435 preparatory watercolors for John James Audubon’s Birds of America; a preeminent collection of Hudson River School landscapes; and an exceptional collection of decorative and fine arts spanning four centuries.
MEDIA CONTACT
Marybeth Ihle, (212) 873-3400 x326, marybeth.ihle@nyhistory.org
