The Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study today announced the 40 scholars, professionals, and student recipients of the 2012 Schlesinger Library Grants. The Schlesinger Library grants, totaling $75,000, fund projects that involve the library’s holdings on the lives and work of women in America.

“The Schlesinger Library grant winners are scholars and students whose work will advance knowledge on the history of women in America and draw on the library’s collections to examine topics on women’s rights and feminism, health and sexuality, work and family life, education, and culinary history,” said Marilyn Dunn, executive director of the Schlesinger Library.  

The 40 Schlesinger Library grant recipients will explore a diverse range of topics from the lives of culinary legend Julia Child and poets Adrienne Rich and June Jordan to women of the Black Panther Party and social welfare in the late 20^th century.

Grantees will conduct research in the library’s holdings—more than 3,200 manuscript collections, 100,000 volumes of books and periodicals, and films, photos, and audiovisual material that date from the founding of the United States to the present—to research the following projects: 

Carol K. Pforzheimer Student Fellowships
This year, the Schlesinger Library awarded 14 Carol K. Pforzheimer Student Fellowships to support Harvard College undergraduate study.   

Joanna Behrman ’13
“Physics Pedagogy and Gender: A Comparison of Harvard and Radcliffe, 1890–1950”

Nadia Farjood ’13
“Pathways to Power: The Routes of 39 Women to the Senate Chamber”

Lauren Feldman ’13
“Cross-Campus Sexual and Romantic Culture at Harvard-Radcliffe in the Early 20^th Century”

Daily Guerrero ’14
“Immigrant Women: Seeking Shelter”

Rachel Johnston ’14
“From the Frontlines: The Life and Legacy of Women's Rights Activist Dolores Alexander”

Caitlin Lewis ’13
“Piecing Together the US Local Food Movement: A Historical Approach”

Devi Lockwood ’14
“Storytelling through Activism, Puppetry, and Poetry: Cora Vail Brooks, Merry Gangemi, and Bread & Puppet Theater in Northern Vermont”

Samantha Alex Meier ’12
“Women’s Comix, 1970–2000”

Natalie Padilla ’12
“The Postmodern Culinary Plate”

Paige Qin ’13
“The Cake as a Reflection of Aesthetics and Feminization Since the Early 20^th Century to Postwar America during the 1950s”

Leah Reis-Dennis ’13
“Mistresses, Morals, and Mitzvahs: A Story of Jewish Prostitution and Social Reform in the Progressive Era”

Henry Shull ’13
“A History of Radcliffe College”

William Simmons ’14
“The 4-H Youth Development Program and Girls Empowerment”

Cassandra E. Weston ’14
“Writing from a Passionate Life: an Exploration of the Papers, Lives, and Poetry of Adrienne Rich and June Jordan”

Research Support Grants
The 11 Schlesinger Library Research Support Grant recipients are independent scholars and college and university faculty from around the world.

Julie Berebitsky,Sewanee: The University of the South
“Republican Feminists: From Center to Margin”

Karen Curran,Independent Scholar
“History of Girls’ Latin School, 1878–1976”

Tracey Deutsch,University of Minnesota
“The Julia Child Project”

 Audrea F. Dunham,Georgia State University
“Fight for a Change! MAW (Mothers for Adequate Welfare) and the Evolution of the Welfare Rights Movement in Boston”

Michael Hevel,University of Iowa
“‘Betwixt Brewings’: A History of College Students and Alcohol” 

Marni Reva Kessler,University of Kansas
“Preserving Claude Monet's Jar of Peaches 1866”

Suryasikha Pathak,Assam University
“Gendered Encounters: Wives and Women Missionaries of the American Baptist Mission in Colonial Assam”

Don Romesburg,Sonoma State University
“Arrested Development: Homosexuality and American Adolescence, 1890–1940”

Lindsay Shen,Sino-British College, Shanghai
“Sharper Focus: Photography by Western Women in Concession-era China”

Emily LaBarbera Twarog,University of Illinois
“Working-Class Domestic Politics: Housewives, Consumption, and Protest in 20th Century America”

Bridget Vincent,University of Melbourne
“Public Apology and 20th Century Poetry: Geoffrey Hill and Adrienne Rich” 

Dissertation Grants
The Schlesinger Library awarded 11 Dissertation Grants to scholars enrolled in a doctoral program and researching their dissertation topic.  

Alix Genter, Rutgers University
“Butch-Femme and the Ambiguities of American Sexual Culture, 1945–1969”

Annelise Heinz, Rutgers University
“Mahjong: Gender, Race, and the Democratization of Respectable Leisure”

 Antonio Daniel Juan Rubio, Universidad Politecnica, Spain
“The Presence of Women in the US Congress: Edith Nourse Rogers”

Suzanne Kahn, Columbia University
“Divorce and the Politics of the Social Welfare Regime, 1959–1996”

Zain Lakhani, University of Pennsylvania
“Encounters Known and Strange: Coercion, Violence and the Politics of Defining Rape in America, 1945–1996”

Jessica Lancia, University of Florida
“Borderless Feminisms: A Transnational History of the US Women’s Movement, 1967–1985”

Einav Rabinovitch-Fox, New York University
“This Is What a Feminist Looks Like: The Construction of the New Woman Imagery through Fashion and the Political Culture of American Feminism, 1890–1940”

Sarah Rowley, Indiana University
“A New Right: The Cultural Politics of Abortion, 1960s–1980s”

 Megan E. Springate, University of Maryland
“Women’s Holiday Houses and the Contradictions of Progressive Era Reform”

Melinda R. Tarsi, University of Massachusetts at Amherst
“A Veteran Welfare State: Veterans’ Benefits and the Development of American Social Policy”

Rich Updegrove, Northern Arizona University
“Queering Nonviolence—Barbara Deming's Androgynous Vision”

Oral History Grants
This year, four Oral History Grants were awarded to scholars conducting oral history interviews.

Colin Davis, University of Alabama at Birmingham
“Gloucester Fisherman’s Wives Association, 1968–1976”

Joan McCarty
“Comrade Sisters: An Oral History of the Women of the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party”

Stina Soderling, Rutgers University
“Owning Her Land: Land Tenure in Women’s Land Communities”

Lina Verchery, Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
“Le Grand Derangement: Contemporary Stories of Acadian Women in Exile”

For more information about the Schlesinger Library’s research grants and deadlines please visit: www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/schlesinger-library/grants.

About the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study
The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University is dedicated to creating and sharing transformative ideas across the arts, humanities, sciences, and social sciences. The Fellowship Program annually supports the work of 50 leading artists and scholars. Academic Ventures fosters collaborative research projects and sponsors lectures and conferences that engage scholars with the public. The Schlesinger Library documents the lives of American women of the past and present for the future, furthering the Institute's commitment to women, gender, and society. Learn more about the people and programs of the Radcliffe Institute at www.radcliffe.harvard.edu.