Paul Nyhus Travel Grants
These travel grants are established in the name of Professor Paul Nyhus (1935-2005), a member of the Department of History from 1966 to 2004. Professor Nyhus served as Acting Dean of Students in 1969, Dean of Students from 1970 to 1975 and Dean of the College from 1975 to 1980. These grants are intended to facilitate primary research by History majors enrolled in either Honors or an Independent Study. There are two types of grants.
Small Nyhus Travel Grants
The Department has allocated an annual sum of $1000 for grants of no more than $250 each, for travel to archival collections, microfilm, conducting or transcribing interviews, or copying archival materials. Students are encouraged to apply for only the funds they need, so the money can be used by other students. There is no application deadline; applications will be considered on a rolling basis. A departmental committee will decide on applications promptly. Students must be History majors enrolled in either Honors or an Independent Study. Application letters should briefly state the grant's purpose, and include an estimated budget and endorsement by the faculty supervisor of the project. Expenses must be verified by receipts or other documentation.
Nyhus Small Grant Awards, 2006-2007
Munny Munford '07 spent her senior year researching the role of women in the nineteenth-century organization, The American Colonization Society. The American Colonization Society was an organization that founded Liberia in 1822 and transported free blacks there from the United States. Some charged that the ACS was a racist society, while others point to its benevolent origins and later takeover by men with visions of an American empire in Africa. Munny's research culminated in an honors project entitled, "Bound Together By History." As Munny notes, "Women were crucial to the movement that sent freed blacks to Africa and spawned the country of Liberia. They also provide an interesting alternative to those women involved in the Abolition movement." Few scholars have studied the role that women played in the ACS. Munny took advantage of the opportunities afforded by the Nyhus Grant in visits to the Library of Congress, where she explored this fascinating piece of U.S. history, and where she was able to identify and research the women involved in the male dominated ACS.
Mark Viehman '07 also used his Nyhus Grant to visit the Library of Congress and, like Munny, his research resulted in a fine honors thesis. Mark's thesis, "Lynching in the Jim Crow Era: A Study of Southern Counties," depended heavily on recently aggregated census data from a large number of nineteeth-century southern counties. Many have studied "typical" instances of lynching. But by examining southern counties that evidenced atypically high rates of lynchings, Mark hoped to identify discrete factors that contributed to this horrible practice. The Nyhus Grant allowed Mark to give this statistical information a broader cultural context. Using the resources of the Library, which offered him an otherwise impossible opportunity to investigate newspapers and other records from his sample counties. "The result of his research in Washington," writes his faculty advisor, Professor Patrick Rael, "was that he was able not simply to invoke statistics to illustrate patterns of lynching, but also to discuss the economic, social, and cultural conditions affecting lynching rates in local areas."
Large Nyhus Travel Grant:
One grant per year of up to $2000. This grant is for travel, lodging and research-related expenses during either the summer or during the January break. Applications should be submitted to the Department Chair by April 1, 2008. A decision by a departmental committee will be announced by April 15, 2008.
The application must include:
- narrative proposal of no more than 1000 words in length explaining the topic to be researched, the student's background relative to the proposal, the method and sources to be used, and any contacts already established with other scholars, interviewees or archives.
- tentative budget, as detailed as possible, for how the grant would be used.
- Bowdoin transcript.
- letter of support from the faculty supervisor of the project.
Expenses must be verified by receipts or other documentation
Links:
Campus News: Travel Grants Established Honoring Paul Nyhus (March 10, 2005)