Long-Term Fellowships at the Massachusetts Historical Society

FAIN: RA-50082-10

Massachusetts Historical Society (Boston, MA 02215-3631)
Conrad Edick Wright (Project Director: August 2009 to December 2014)

The equivalent of two twelve-month fellowships a year for three years.

The Massachusetts Historical Society requests a grant of $280,400 in outright funds and $20,000 in matching funds, a total of $300,400, for a program of long-term post-doctoral fellowships. To this sum the Society will add $20,000 raised from outside sources and $40,500 in its own funds, a total of $60,500. The initiative will complement three other research fellowship programs at the Society -- 1) short-term fellowships; 2) regional fellowships (in collaboration with the New England Regional Fellowship Consortium); and 3) a two-month Civil War fellowship (in collaboration with the Boston Athenaeum). In the Spring of 2009 the four research fellowship competitions the Society sponsors considered 235 applications and made 35 awards. Fellows employ these grants at the Society, where they make use of one of the great research collections for the study of American history.

Media Coverage

Grief, fear, glee: How Americans reacted to Lincoln’s killing, 150 years ago (Review)
Author(s): Carlos Lozada
Publication: The Washington Post
Date: 4/1/2015
Abstract: Review of "Mourning Lincoln" by NYU historian Martha Hodes
URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/book-party/wp/2015/04/01/150-years-ago-lincolns-death-brought-grief-fear-and-glee/

Martha Hodes: "Mourning Lincoln" (Media Coverage)
Author(s): Diane Rehm (host)
Publication: The Diane Rehm Show
Date: 3/24/2015
Abstract: The death of President Lincoln on April 15, 1865, shocked the nation. His assassination at the hands of actor John Wilkes Booth came just days after the Confederate army’s surrender. Most Northerners grieved the loss of the man who ended slavery and saved the Union. African-Americans were especially devastated. But for many Southerners, news of the president’s death was cause for rejoicing. A hundred and fifty years after Lincoln’s death, we take a new look at how ordinary Americans mourned the slain president, and how it shaped race relations in the post-civil war era and today.
URL: http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2015-03-24/how-americans-in-the-north-and-south-mourned-the-death-of-president-abraham-lincoln

Associated Products

Illegitimate Borders: Jus Sanguinis Citizenship and the Legal Construction of Family, Race, and Nation (Article)
Title: Illegitimate Borders: Jus Sanguinis Citizenship and the Legal Construction of Family, Race, and Nation
Author: Kristin A. Collins
Abstract: Looks at how federal benefits, including widows' pensions, helped to shape the definition of marriage during the nineteenth century.
Year: 2014
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: The Yale Law Journal 123(2014):2134-2235
Publisher: Yale Law School

The Age of Shinplasters: Making Sense of Unregulated Paper Money (Book Section)
Title: The Age of Shinplasters: Making Sense of Unregulated Paper Money
Author: Joshua Greenberg
Editor: Brian P. Luskey
Editor: Wendy A. Woloson
Abstract: not available
Year: 2015
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Book Title: Capitalism by Gaslight: Illuminating the Economy of Nineteenth-Century America
ISBN: 9780812246896

Death in Oregon (Article)
Title: Death in Oregon
Author: Matthew Dennis
Abstract: Special Issue of Oregon Historical Quarterly; author was guest editor.
Year: 2014
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Oregon Historical Quarterly (fall 2014)
Publisher: Oregon Historical Society

Mourning Lincoln (Book)
Title: Mourning Lincoln
Author: Martha Hodes
Abstract: Through deep exploration of diaries, letters, and other personal writings of everyday people -- northerners and southerners, soldiers and civilians, black people and white, men and women, rich and poor -- penned during the spring and summer of 1865, Martha Hodes captures the full range of reactions to the president’s death. Hodes brings to life a key moment of national uncertainty and confusion, when competing visions of America’s future proved irreconcilable and hopes for racial justice in the aftermath of the Civil War slipped from the nation’s grasp.
Year: 2015
Primary URL: http://www.worldcat.org/title/mourning-lincoln/oclc/886493416&referer=brief_results
Primary URL Description: WorldCat.org entry
Secondary URL: http://marthahodes.com/book-detail.php?recordID=4
Secondary URL Description: Author's website
Publisher: Yale University Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9780300195804
Copy sent to NEH?: No
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

Prizes

Avery O. Craven Award
Date: 4/12/2016
Organization: Organization of American Historians

How Coffee Fueled the Civil War (Article)
Title: How Coffee Fueled the Civil War
Author: Jon Grinspan
Abstract: not available
Year: 2014
Primary URL: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/07/09/how-coffee-fueled-the-civil-war/?_r=0
Primary URL Description: link to NYT article.
Format: Newspaper
Periodical Title: New York Times

The Wild Children of Yesteryear (Article)
Title: The Wild Children of Yesteryear
Author: Jon Grinspan
Abstract: not available
Year: 2014
Primary URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/01/opinion/sunday/the-wild-children-of-yesteryear.html
Format: Newspaper
Periodical Title: The New York Times

Childhood from the 19th Century to Today, on Radio Times (Radio/Audio Broadcast or Recording)
Title: Childhood from the 19th Century to Today, on Radio Times
Writer: Lenore Skenazy
Writer: Jon Grinspan
Director: Marty Moss-Coane
Producer: WHYY
Abstract: Childhood today is often carefully choreographed. Structure, safety and control are just some of the hallmarks of modern American parenting. The focus is on reining in children, rather than letting them run amok. But kids in the 19th century were a very different breed, according to historian Jon Grinspan. Assertive, rebellious and freewheeling, these young scamps roamed free in gangs, getting into fights, building bonfires and attacking small animals. We compare childhood then and now, with Jon Grinspan, a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow at the Massachusetts Historical Society and Lenore Skenazy, author of Free-Range Kids: How to Raise Safe, Self-Reliant Children (Without Going Nuts with Worry).
Date: 6/30/2014
Primary URL: http://whyy.org/cms/radiotimes/2014/06/30/childhood-from-the-19th-century-to-today/
Access Model: Open Access
Format: Radio
Format: Web

Judgment at Washington: Henry Wirz, Legacies, and the Ends of War (Film/TV/Video Broadcast or Recording)
Title: Judgment at Washington: Henry Wirz, Legacies, and the Ends of War
Writer: Michael Vorenberg
Producer: C-SPAN
Abstract: Michael Vorenberg talked about the legacy of Confederate Captain Henry Wirz, who was in charge of the Andersonville Prison Camp from March 1864 to his arrest in May 1865 for war crimes. Professor Vorenberg argued that Mr. Wirz’s trial was framed within the context of slavery but the memory of his trial and execution has changed as historians view it through the lens of 20th century events. “Judgment at Washington: Lew Wallace, Henry Wirz, and the Elusive Quest to End the Civil War” was part of the U.S. Capitol Historical Society 2014 Spring Conference “A Just and Lasting Peace: Ending the Civil War", held in the Dirksen Senate Office Building. It was the eleventh symposium in the series, "The National Capitol in a Nation Divided: Congress and the District of Columbia Confront Sectionalism and Slavery.”
Year: 2014
Primary URL: http://www.c-span.org/person/?michaelvorenberg
Access Model: Open Access
Format: Digital File
Format: Web

The Virgin Vote: How Young Americans Made Democracy Social, Politics Personal, and Voting Popular in the Nineteenth Century (Book)
Title: The Virgin Vote: How Young Americans Made Democracy Social, Politics Personal, and Voting Popular in the Nineteenth Century
Author: Jon Grinspan
Abstract: Discusses the efforts of political parties to recruit supporters among young men who have just registered to vote.
Year: 2016
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9781469627342

Pursuing Respect in the Cannibal Isles: Americans in Nineteenth-Century Fiji (Book)
Title: Pursuing Respect in the Cannibal Isles: Americans in Nineteenth-Century Fiji
Author: Nancy Shoemaker
Abstract: "Pursuing Respect in the Cannibal Isles" shows that the aspirations of individual Americans to be recognized as people worthy of others' respect was a driving force in the global extension of United States influence shortly after the nation's founding. The author contends that what she calls "extraterritorial Americans" constituted the vanguard of a vast, early US global expansion. Using as her site of historical investigation nineteenth-century Fiji, the "cannibal isles" of American popular culture, she uncovers stories of Americans looking for opportunities to rise in social status and enhance their sense of self. Prior to British colonization in 1874, extraterritorial Americans had, she argues, as much impact on Fiji as did the British. While the American economy invested in the extraction of sandalwood and sea slugs as resources to sell in China, individuals who went to Fiji had more complicated, personal objectives. Pursuing Respect in the Cannibal Isles considers these motivations through the lives of the three Americans who left the deepest imprint on Fiji: a runaway whaleman who settled in the islands, a sea captain's wife, and a merchant. Shoemaker's book shows how ordinary Americans living or working overseas found unusual venues where they could show themselves worthy of others' respect—others' approval, admiration, or deference.
Year: 2019
Primary URL: https://www.worldcat.org/title/pursuing-respect-in-the-cannibal-isles-americans-in-nineteenth-century-fiji/oclc/1079868423&referer=brief_results
Primary URL Description: WorldCat entry
Secondary URL: https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501740343/pursuing-respect-in-the-cannibal-isles/
Secondary URL Description: Publisher's website
Publisher: University of Cornell Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9781501740343
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

American Relics and the Politics of Public Memory (Book)
Title: American Relics and the Politics of Public Memory
Author: Matthew Dennis
Abstract: The gold epaulettes that George Washington wore into battle. A Union soldier's bloody shirt in the wake of the Civil War. A crushed wristwatch after the 9/11 attacks. The bullet-riddled door of the Pulse nightclub. Volatile and shape-shifting, relics have long played a role in memorializing the American past, acting as physical reminders of hard-won battles, mass tragedies, and political triumphs. Surveying the expanse of U.S. history, American Relics and the Politics of Public Memory shows how these objects have articulated glory, courage, and national greatness as well as horror, defeat, and oppression. While relics mostly signified heroism in the nation's early years, increasingly, they have acquired a new purpose—commemorating victimhood. The atrocious artifacts of lynching and the looted remains of Native American graves were later transformed into shameful things, exposing ongoing racial violence and advancing calls for equality and civil rights. Matthew Dennis pursues this history of fraught public objects and assesses the emergence of new venues of memorialization, such as virtual and digital spaces. Through it all, relics continue to fundamentally ground and shape U.S. public memory in its uncertain present and future.
Year: 2023
Primary URL: https://www.umasspress.com/9781625347114/american-relics-and-the-politics-of-public-memory/
Primary URL Description: publisher's website
Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9781625347121

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