Libraries Research Awards Program
Between 2011 and 2016, the Libraries Research Awards Program provided grants to scholars and researchers with a compelling need to access to Columbia’s special and unique collections. The program was discontinued in 2016 and we no longer offer these awards.
Hadji Bakara, Graduate Student, University of Chicago
Project: Empire of Dignity: A Literary History of Human Rights in the Twentieth Century
Collections: Global Studies & RBML; Center for Human Rights Documentation and Research
Kristina Borrman, Graduate Student, University of California, Los Angeles
Project: Statistical Portraits of American Cities: Edith Elmer Wood and New Deal Housing Policy
Collections: Avery; Edith Elmer Wood papers
Anne Carly Buxton, Graduate Student, University of Chicago
Project: Two-Way Passage: The Nisei of Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP)
Collections: RBML; Occupation of Japan oral history project, 2003
Elena Suet-Ying Chiu, Associate Profession of Chinese, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Project: Public Voices: The Late-Qing Short Stories on Contemporary Events
Collections: Starr; historical Manchu materials
Gregory Cuéllar, Assistant Professor of Old Testament, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary
Project: “Samuel Rolles Driver’s Portrayal of the East”
Collections: Burke; Charles Augustus Briggs papers
Cara Fallon, Graduate Student, Harvard University
Project: Cities for Old and Young: Accidental Falls and Perceptions of Space in Modern New York City
Collections: Avery; Pepper, Parks Council, and Londino collections among others
Abram Foley, Graduate Student, Pennsylvania State University
Project: In a Dalkey Archive: A Contemporary History of Literary Modernity
Collections: RBML; Dalkey Archive Press records
Chad D. Frazier, Graduate Student, Georgetown University
Project: From Subjects to Citizens: The University of Puerto Rico and the Citizenship Revolution in Puerto Rico and the United States, 1898-1938
Collections: Global Studies and RBML; Frank Tannenbaum papers, Edwin Robert Anderson Seligman papers, Samuel McCune Lindsay papers
Andrew Keener, Graduate Student, Northwestern University
Project: Staging Translation: Cosmopolitan Vernaculars in Shakespeare's England
Collections: RBML; George Arthur Plimpton collection on the history of education
Benjamin Tromly, Associate Professor, University of Puget Sound
Project: Shadow Wars: Russian Émigrés in Cold War Strategy
Collections: Global Studies and RBML; Bakhmeteff Archive
Heather L. Braun, Assistant Professor, University of Akron
Project: The Victorian Doppelgänger
Collections: RBML; Otto Rank papers.
Jayne G. Cosson, Graduate Student, American University
Project: The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: The Origins of Think Tank Influence in United States Foreign Policy
Collections: RBML; Carnegie Endowment for International Peace records, Nicholas Murray Butler papers and John Bates Clark papers, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching records, and Carnegie Corporation records.
Scott Libson, Graduate Student, Emory University
Project: The Christianization of Capital: The Business of Mission Movement Fundraising, 1865-1929
Research Report: Tainted Money, Sanctified Wealth: The Business of Mission Movement Fundraising, 1865-1929
Collections: Burke; Missionary Research Library Archive.
James Loeffler, Associate Professor of History, University of Virginia
Project: “The Vanishing Minority: The Forgotten Story of Human Rights as Jewish Politics”
Collections: RBML; Amnesty International of the USA, Inc. records and Oral History Archive, including histories of Joseph Proskauer, Jacob Blaustein, and Maurice Perlzweig.
Minkah Makalani, Assistant Professor of African & African Diaspora Studies, University of Texas at Austin
Project: Calypso Conquered the World: C. L. R. James and the Politically Unimaginable in the Trinidadian Postcolony
Collections: RBML; C.L.R. James papers, Constance Webb papers, C.L.R. James Institute records, and Darcus Howe papers.
Michael McVicar, Assistant Professor of American Religious History, Florida State University
Project:Constructing the American Right-Wing: Religion, Domestic Intelligence Gathering, and the Making of Conservatism in the United States
Collections: RBML; Americans United Subject Files, Bureau of Applied Social Research records, Center for the Study of Human Rights records, Group Research, Inc. records, Richard Hofstadter papers, The New Leader records, and Pulitzer Prizes collection.
Katherine Ann Miller, Graduate Student, University of Virginia
Project: The Office of the Supervising Architect: Transforming American Architectural Practice, 1852-1862
Collections: Avery; Richard Upjohn, Martin Thompson, James Renwick, Jr., and Alexander Jackson Davis collections.
Andrea Nichols, Graduate Student, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Project: Dissertation research on English printed chronicles and annals from the late fifteenth up to early seventeenth century
Collections: RBML and Burke; eight English chronicles by Thomas Cooper and John Stow.
Olaf Lewis Recktenwald, Graduate Student, McGill University
Project: Dissertation research on the architecture of eighteenth-century rocaille ornamental engravings
Collections: Avery; original books of ornament and plates of François de Cuvilliés, Jacques de Lajoue, Franz Xaver Habermann, and Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier.
K. Kale Yu, Assistant Professor of History, Nyack College
Project: Conceiving a Religious and Social Movement: Henry G. Appenzeller in Late Nineteenth Century Korea.
Collections: Starr; late nineteenth-century periodicals and Burke, Missionary Research Library Archive, Henry G. Appenzeller papers.
John Bak, Professor, Universite’ de Lorraine
Project: Gathering Up the ‘Pieces of [His] Youth’: A Study of Tennessee Williams’ Non-Fiction
Collections: RBML, Tennessee Williams Papers
Douglas Duckworth, Assistant Professor, East Tennessee State University
Project: Redactions from India in Modern Tibet
Collections: Starr, Tibetan collections
Reto Geiser, Assistant Professor, Rice University
Project: Giedion In Between
Collections: Avery, Serge Chermayeff Papers
Kirin Makker, Assistant Professor, Hobart & William Smith College
Project: Mail Order Main Street: Storefronts, Streetscaping, Goods
Collections: Avery, Trade catalogue collection
Anna Marshall Shields, Associate Professor, University of Maryland, Baltimore
Project: Mapping the Social: A Reexamination of the Mid-Tang Yuefu (Music Bureau Poetry
Collections: Starr, Collections on medieval Chinese literature
Amy R. M. O’Keefe, Graduate Student, University of California San Diego
Project: In the War but Not of the War: The Protestant Public Sphere in WW-II-era China
Collections: Burke, Missionary Research Library Archive
Kelly R. O’Reilly, Graduate Student, Vanderbilt University
Project: ‘The Most Important Cause There Is’: Mary and Albert Lasker and the Birth Control Federation of America
Collections: RBML, Mary Lasker Papers and oral history
Zachary Smith, Graduate Student, University of North Carolina
Project: Reading Citizens: Popular Literacy Programs and the Construction of the Chinese Political Subject, 1898-1937
Collections: RBML, International Institute for Rural Reconstruction Records
Chelsea Stripe, Graduate Student, Purdue University
Project: (Im)mobility in a Culture of Containment: Rebellion and the Women of the Beat Generation
Collections: RBML, Beat Collections (Kerouac, Jones, Ginsberg, Orlovsky, Corso, et al.)
Matthew Unangst, Graduate Student, Temple University
Project: Making East Africa: Colonialism, Race, and Islam
Collections: Burke, “Missionssammler” and “Berliner Missionsberichte”
Sakena Abedin, Yale University
Project: Cornell Medical College comprehensive care and teaching program
Collections: RBML; Bureau of Applied Social Research; Robert Merton
Paola Canova, University of Arizona
Project: Reading Between the Lines: Exploring Self-Representations of Missionaries and their Constructions of Ayoreo Christianity in the New Tribes Mission Periodicals
Collections: Burke; Brown Gold and NTM@Work periodicals
Paige Conley, University of Wisconsin
Project: Rhetorical legacy of Dakota activist, writer, and orator, Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, also known as Zitkala-Ša (Native Americans in the 20th c)
Collection: RBML; Vera Connolly Papers
Ari Cushner, UC Santa Cruz
Project: Cold War liberalism
Collections: RBML; New Leader; Sol Stein; Lionel and Diana Trilling; Richard Hofstadter; Peter Viereck
Ann Fleming, University of Pennsylvania
Project: History of predatory lending and urban poverty in the 20th c
Collections: RBML; Bureau of Applied Social Research; Lilian Wald; Mobilization for Youth; Community Service Society
Joseph Malherek, George Washington University
Project: Marketing strategies in postwar America
Collections: RBML; Bureau of Applied Social Research; Paul Lazarsfeld; Robert Merton
Steffen Rimner, Harvard University
Project: Asia and global drug control
Collections: RBML, Starr & Burke; Wellington Koo (papers and library); James T. Shotwell; anti-opium pamphlets collection
Martha Scotford, North Carolina State University
Project: Biographical study of trade book designer Ernst Reichl
Collections: RBML; Ernst Reichl; Graphic Arts Collections
Nicole Willock, University of Denver
Project: How did Tibetan Intellectuals Understand the Categories of Religion, Secularism and Superstition in the Early 20th Century
Collections: Starr; Tharchin and other related Tibetan collections