The American Antiquarian Society offers short-term visiting academic research fellowships tenable for one to two months.
The following short-term visiting academic research fellowships are available for scholars. Please check each description for eligibility. Doctoral candidates engaged in dissertation research are eligible for many of the fellowships. Candidates holding a recognized terminal degree appropriate to the area of proposed research, such as the master's degree in library science or M.F.A., are often eligible to apply.
- Kate B. and Hall J. Peterson Fellowships are for research on any topic supported by the collections. Stipends derive from the income on an endowment provided by the late Hall J. Peterson and his wife, Kate B. Peterson. This fellowship is awarded to individuals engaged in scholarly research and writing - - including doctoral dissertations - - in any field of American history and culture through 1876.
Application deadline: January 15 | Previous Peterson fellows
- The Brown Family Collection Fellowship, supported by funds provided by the late Hall J. Peterson and Kate B. Peterson, is intended for researchers whose projects would benefit from working with the Brown Family Collections as well as many other AAS collections related to African Americans and Indigenous Peoples. The Brown family, for whom the fellowship is named and whose descendants entrusted the collections to AAS, were a Black family in nineteenth-century Worcester with familial connections to the local Nipmuc tribal community. Descendants donated correspondence, official documents, photographs, portraits, and the family's library to AAS. The fellowship is open to graduate students as well as postdoctoral scholars. Scholars who identify as being of Black and/or Indigenous descent are encouraged to apply.
Application deadline: January 15
- AAS-American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Fellowships are for research on projects related to the American eighteenth century. The award is jointly funded by the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies and AAS. ASECS membership is not required of applicants; awardees who are not already members must join. Degree candidates are not eligible.
Application deadline: January 15 | Previous AAS-ASECS fellows
- The Alstott Morgan Fellowship, funded by a generous gift from Richard Parker Morgan and Carolyn Alstott Morgan, supports research on the history of education in nineteenth-century America, drawing on AAS’s unmatched collection of early educational materials, including the Alstott Morgan School Catalogue Collection and the The Student, Teacher, and Trustee Database Project, 1800-1900. This fellowship is awarded to an individual engaged in scholarly research and writing--including doctoral dissertations--in any field of American history and culture through 1876.
Application deadline: January 15 | Previous Alstott Morgan fellows
- The American Historical Print Collectors Society Fellowship is for research on American prints of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries or for projects using prints as primary documentation. The award is jointly funded by the American Historical Print Collectors Society and AAS.
Application deadline: January 15 | Previous AHPCS fellows
- Stephen Botein Fellowships are for research in the history of the book in American culture. Funding is derived from an endowment established by the family and friends of the late Mr. Botein. Doctoral candidates may apply.
Application deadline: January 15 | Previous Botein fellows
- The "Drawn to Art" Fellowship supports research on American art, visual culture, or other projects that will make substantial use of graphic materials as primary sources. Funds have been provided by Diana Korzenik, a painter, author, and historian of art education.
Application deadline: January 15 | Previous Drawn to Art fellows
- The Christoph Daniel Ebeling Fellowship is jointly administered by the German Association for American Studies (DGfA) and AAS. Application for this short-term fellowship is made through the DGfA.
The AAS-DGfA Fellowship is open to German citizens or permanent residents at the post-graduate or postdoctoral stages of their careers. The Fellow will be selected on the basis of the applicant's scholarly qualifications, the scholarly significance or importance of the project within the field of American studies in general and its German context, and the appropriateness of the proposed study to the Society's collections.
For application deadline and more information, see the German Association for American Studies website | Previous Ebeling fellows
- The David Jaffee Fellowship in Visual and Material Culture is named for David Philip Jaffee (1954-2017) who was a wonderful friend and favorite reader at AAS. Elected to membership in October 2007, Professor Jaffee was instrumental in the development of the Center for Historic American Visual Culture (CHAViC) at AAS, encouraging engagement with images, artifacts, books and photographs of all kinds in the study of American history. A longtime teacher at City College of New York and the Bard Graduate Center, he is remembered as a devoted teacher, generous colleague, and committed mentor who shared his passion for his work in the classroom as well as through special workshops, seminars and exhibitions. The fellowship will provide a stipend for the study and use of visual and material culture in the pursuit of research on all aspects of American history before 1900. It is open to both postdoctoral scholars and graduate students at work on doctoral dissertations.
Application deadline: January 15 | Previous Jaffee fellows
- The Kate Van Winkle Keller Fellowship for Research in Early American Music and Dance is funded by an endowment established by Kate’s family and friends and by the Society for American Music (SAM), of which Kate was a founding member and the first Executive Director. The fellowship supports research at the American Antiquarian Society (AAS) for scholars at all levels (graduate student to senior scholar) engaged in scholarly research and writing on American music or dance, which must be appropriate to research collections at the AAS. It is open to individuals affiliated with academic institutions as well as independent scholars. Awardees who are not currently members of the Society for American Music will also be awarded a one-year membership in SAM.
Application deadline: January 15 | Previous Keller fellows
- The Lapides Fellowship in Pre-1865 Juvenile Literature and Ephemera supports research on printed and manuscript material produced in America through 1865 for (or by) children and youth. This fellowship will support projects examining the creative, artistic, cultural, technological, or commercial aspects of American juvenile literature and ephemera produced between the Puritan Era and the Civil War. It is open to both postdoctoral scholars and graduate students at work on doctoral dissertations.
Application deadline: January 15 | Previous Lapides fellows
- Jay and Deborah Last Fellowships are for research on American art, visual culture, or other projects that will make substantial use of graphic materials as primary sources. The awards are funded from the gift of Jay and Deborah Last.
Application deadline: January 15 | Previous Last fellows
- The Legacy Fellowship, also for research on any topic supported by the collections, is funded by the gifts of former fellows and research associates. The tradition of former fellows directing their annual gifts to support a fellowship began in 1997. In that year a special effort was undertaken to solicit current-use funds from former holders of fellowships at AAS. The aim was to help a young scholar by supporting a short-term fellowship. This fellowship is awarded to an individual engaged in scholarly research and writing - - including doctoral dissertations - - in any field of American history and culture through 1876.
Application deadline: January 15 | Previous Legacy fellows
- The Barbara L. Packer Fellowship is named for Barbara Lee Packer (1947-2010), who taught with great distinction for thirty years in the UCLA English department. Her publications, most notably Emerson’s Fall (1982) and her lengthy essay on the Transcendentalist movement in the Cambridge History of American Literature (1995), reprinted as The Transcendentalists by the University of Georgia Press (2007), continue to be esteemed by students of Emerson and of the American Renaissance generally. She is remembered as an inspiring teacher, a lively and learned writer, and a helpful friend to all scholars in her field—in short, as a consummate professional whose undisguised delight in literature was the secret of a long-sustained success. In naming the Fellowship for her, the Ralph Waldo Emerson Society offers her as a model worthy of the attention and emulation of scholars newly entering the field. The Barbara L. Packer Fellowship is awarded to individuals engaged in scholarly research and writing related to the Transcendentalists in general, and most especially to Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, and Henry David Thoreau. Ph.D. candidates, pre-tenure faculty, and independent scholars are eligible to apply.
Application deadline: January 15 | Previous Packer fellows
- The Reese Fellowship supports research in American bibliography and projects in the history of the book in America. Funding for this award is provided by the William Reese Company, New Haven, Connecticut.
Application deadline: January 15 | Previous Reese fellows
- The Justin G. Schiller Fellowship supports research by both doctoral candidates and postdoctoral scholars from any disciplinary perspective on the production, distribution, literary content, or historical context of American children's books to 1876.
Application deadline: January 15 | Previous Schiller fellows
- The Joyce Tracy Fellowship is for research on newspapers and magazines or for projects using these resources as primary documentation. This award derives from an endowment established in memory of the Society's longtime curator of newspapers and periodicals. Doctoral candidates may apply.
Application deadline: January 15 | Previous Tracy fellows