Previous Nyhus Travel Grant Recipients
2007-2008
David K. Thomson '08 used his Nyhus Grant to visit two separate archives in Washington, D.C., at the Library of Congress and at the Moorland-Springarn Research Center at Howard University. David's fascinating and ambitious research agenda revolved around the study of Bowdoin graduate and military man, Oliver Otis Howard (class of 1850). Less famous, and unfortunately, less successful than Bowdoin's revered Joshua Chamberlain, Howard served as a general in the Union army during the Civil War and later, during the campaigns against the Native American tribes of the American Midwest. Not only was Howard a military man, he was also deeply religious, so much so that even during his life he was known as "The Christian General." In his senior honors thesis, "Oliver Otis Howard: The Paradox of the Christian General," David examines the deep conflict that shaped Howard's personality and, likely, prevented him from being a successful leader. David writes, "Every attempt to resolve the paradox only further exacerbated the problem for Howard and contributed to the larger perception of him as an inept general whose religiosity led him to be weak and effeminate."
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."
2005-2006
Kathryn Ostrofsky, a senior from Bangor, Maine is pursuing an honors project under the direction of Patrick Rael on the "life, career, and audience reception of a black opera singer form the 1850s, Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield." She will use the Nyhus funds to conduct research at the Philadelphia Historical Society. While pursuing her research in early January, she will attend the American Historical Association annual meetings, go to sessions relating to her area of interest and meet with scholars in the field. Kathryn plans on pursuing a doctorate in American history after graduation.
Stewart Stout is a junior from Berkeley Heights, New Jersey and is completing an independent study with Matt Klingle on wooden boat building in Maine. Stewart is interested in the wooden boat renaissance that began in the 1970s, its relationship to consumer culture in the post-Vietnam era, and "the search for authenticity and art in traditional crafts." He will be locating sources at a host of Maine archives and collections, including the Portland Public Library, the Maine Maritime Museum and a number of wooden boat shops along the coast.
Erin Turban, a senior from Northfield, Illinois is pursuing an honors project under the direction of Page Herrlinger on the Nazi occupation of Britain's Channel Islands during WWII. Although the islands had only a small Jewish population, its British Jewish population and those Jews from the continent who had relocated there during the 1930s were later sent to concentration camps in Germany and Poland by the Nazis. Erin's thesis will examine how the British government and Anglo-Jewish organizations reacted to the Reich's anti-Semitic policies. She will travel to London in December to conduct research in the Home Office at the British National Archives in Kew and the London Metropolitan Archives.
Jennifer Bernstein, '06, from Forest Hills, New York is completing a senior honors thesis under the direction of Jill Pearlman on the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union's efforts to build 500 cooperative apartment units in the Bronx during the 1920s and 1930s. The Amalgamated "was the only large-scale housing cooperative to survive the Depression years." Jen will be conducting research at a number of archives and collection in the New York area.