Green-Wood Cemetery is launching a new history fellowship to provide support for one current graduate student or early-career scholar to conduct independent research in any area of study that makes use of Green-Wood's historical resources.
The selected researcher will be awarded a $5,000 honorarium and have access to the cemetery’s primary source assets, including tens of thousands of gravestones and mausoleums, and millions of archival documents dating back nearly two centuries, according to a news release.
They’ll also work closely with the cemetery’s professional staff, including its current environmental research fellows and artist in residence.
Applications for the 2024-2025 fellowship, which will run from September 2024 through May 2025, are now open. Those welcome to apply include current graduate students (MA or PhD) or earlier-career academics, historians, or other professionals no more than five years into their career who are living or studying in New York City.
The fellowship is open to any area of specialization, though fields of research may include the history of American cemeteries or funeral customs, public health, demographics, landscape design, and the visual culture of death and memorialization.
Throughout the nine-month fellowship, the awardee is expected to draw on the institution’s archives, which includes burial files, business records and architectural drawings; its historical collections of over 10,000 artifacts including art, photographs and ephemera; and its historic landscape and burial monuments.
After selecting, investigating, and reporting on their topic, the history fellow will develop and facilitate public programs, tours, workshops or classes to share their findings.
“We’re thrilled to be opening up this new opportunity for researchers to access our trove of historical records,” said Harry J. Weil, vice president of education and public programs at Green-Wood. “We hope through this fellowship, and the public history programs that come out of it, we’ll be able to engage more of our neighbors and visitors with new areas of our complex and fascinating history—and learn a bit more about this incredible place in the process.”
Applications are due by May 15, 2024, and include a research statement and public program proposal. For full details, visit www.green-wood.com/history-fellowship. The inaugural research fellow will be announced in June.
Any questions about the application process should be directed to: historyfellowship@green-wood.com.
