Warren Center names 2004-05 grant recipients

Howard Mumford Jones Professor of American Studies Lizabeth Cohen, director of the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History, recently announced the names of undergraduate and graduate students awarded Warren Center grants for the current academic year. Established in 1964, the mission of the center is to further the study of American history at Harvard and to open Harvard’s facilities to scholars from elsewhere.

The Warren Center’s grants program includes support for the thesis research of rising seniors in the College, and three different opportunities for graduate students: grants to support summer research, term-time research, and dissertation writing. The grants are open to students from all departments and programs offering instruction in American history. The only stipulations are that the supported projects’ methodology be primarily historical, and that graduate recipients be enrolled in a Ph.D. program.

The 2004-05 undergraduate fellows and their thesis research topics are as follows:

Katy Bartelma ’05 (history), “The Prairie Land and Cattle Co.: A Look at the Social and Economic Repercussions of Trans-Atlantic Investment on the Development of the U.S. Cattle Industry.”

Brian Distelberg ’05 (history and literature), “A ‘Classic’ Case: Mass Culture, Sexual Identity, and the Celebrity of Auntie Mame.”

T. Josiah Pertz ’04 (history and literature), “The Jewgrass Boys: Bluegrass Music’s Emergence among Jews in New York City’s Washington Square Park, 1945-1961.”

Stephanie Safdi ’04 (history and literature), “Identity and Experience in the Writings of Anzia Yezierska, John Dewey, Horace Kallen, and Randolph Bourne.”

Whitney Martinko ’05 (history), “‘Democratick Rabble’ on Tory Row: Remembering the Cambridge Loyalists, Redefining an American Identity.”

Summer graduate research grant recipients are as follows:

Peter Becker (history of American civilization), “History Under Siege? The Construction of Historical Consciousness in Fictional War Narratives.”

Lauren Brown (history), “From Balanchine to Baryshnikov: Importing a Russian Aesthetic to American Culture, 1933-1989.”

Yonatan Eyal (history), “Young America and the New Democracy, 1828-1861.”

Rebecca Goetz (history), “Religion and the Construction of Race in the Early Chesapeake.”

Kate Grandjean (history), “Bound Communities: Mapping the Encounters of Indians, English, and Africans in Early New London County, Connecticut.”

Jeremy Greene (history of science), “The Vanishing Symptom: Pharmaceuticals and the Reshaping of Chronic Disease in Postwar America.”

Hua Hsu (history of American civilization), “East Wind, West Wind: China in the American Imagination.”

Louis Hyman (history), “Debtor Nation: Practicing Debt in 20th Century America.”

Judy Kertesz (history of American civilization), “Salutary Institutions of Origin: The Appropriation of the American Indian Past and the Formation of American Identity, 1791-1850.”

Andrew Kinney (history), “Imagining Moral Order in Deindustrializing America, 1945-1980.”

Alison LaCroix (history), “A Well-Constructed Union: The Intellectual history of American Federalism, 1754-1835.”

Sonia Lee (history), “Between Boricua and Black: How the Civil Rights Movement Changed Puerto Rican Identities in New York City, 1950s-70s.”

Deborah Levine (history of science), “Diet and Nutrition in America: Managing the American Body.”

Marion Menzin (history), “Visions of Growth: The Place of Alaska in Nineteenth-Century American Economic History.”

Mara Mills (history of science), “Learning Theory: The Science and Culture of American Pedagogy, 1900-1940.”

Erin Royston (history of American civilization), “The Philadelphia Centennial Exposition: Exhibiting, Viewing, and Contesting America in 1876.”

Christopher Schmidt (history of American civilization), “Postwar Liberalism and the Origins of Brown v. Board of Education.”

Sara Schwebel (history of American civilization), “History, Memory, and Myth: Children’s Literature and the Conceptions of the Past Conveyed to American Schoolchildren.”

Hanna Shell (history of science), “Second Hand: Lives and Afterlives of the Social Fabric, 1869-Today.”

Salamishah Tillet (history of American civilization), “Peculiar Memories: Slavery and the American Cultural Imagination.”

Kenneth Weisbrode (history), “EUR and American Diplomacy, 1909-89.”

Daniel Wewers (history), “A More Perfect Union: Secession and the Founding of American Republic, 1776-1865.”

Term-Time (one semester in duration) graduate research grant recipients are as follows:

James Fichter (history), “Massachusetts and the American East Indies, 1783-1815.”

Kate Grandjean (history), “Bound Communities: Mapping the Encounters of Indians, English and Africans in Early New London County, Connecticut.”

Alison Lacroix (history), “A Well-Constructed Union: The Intellectual History of American Federalism, 1754-1835.”

Sonia Lee (history), “Between Boricua and Black: How the Civil Rights Movement Changed Puerto Rican Identities in New York City, 1950s-1970s.”

Graduate dissertation-writing grant recipients are as follows:

Yonatan Eyal (history), “The New Democrats: Young America and Party Transformation, 1828-1861.”

Ariane Liazos (history), “Good Citizens and Good Government: Municipal Charter Reform, Civic Associations, and Progressive Theories of Governance.”