Paul Nyhus Travel Grants

The Department offers grants normally capped at $500 each, for travel to archival collections, microfilm, conducting or transcribing interviews, or copying archival materials.

Small Nyhus Application Deadline: Applications will be considered on a rolling basis. Applications must be submitted via email to Jen Conner (j.conner@bowdoin.edu).

Application Materials:

1) Application letter that briefly states the grant’s purpose.

2) Budget with advisor approval. 

3) Letter of support from faculty advisor based on this template.

This grant, normally capped at $5000, is for travel, lodging and research expenses related to an honors project. 

Applications will be considered on a rolling basis. Applications must be submitted via email to Jen Conner (j.conner@bowdoin.edu).

Application Materials:

1) 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.

2) Budget with advisor approval.

3) Unofficial Bowdoin transcript.

4) Letter of support from faculty advisor based on this template.

 

 

The Malaysian Student Movement: Why and How Students Protest

 

From 1967 to 1974, Malaysian university students made headlines by organizing massive strikes and demonstrations nationwide. Student leaders from clubs such as the University of Malaya’s Malay Language Society (PBMUM), University of Malaya’s Student Union (UMSU), and UM’s Socialist Club expressed their views on a range of issues including workers’ rights, government policies and education reform. This period of increased student engagement in politics did not happen in a vacuum. Leading up to the general election of 1969, there was an overall sense of dissatisfaction towards the government led by the Alliance party. Many blamed the government’s economic and social policies for the high poverty rate and slow progress made since Malaysia’s independence in 1957. As in other multiethnic countries, the situation also caused friction between the different ethnic groups who blamed each other for issues they faced. Three days after the general election, on May 13, 1969, racial riots erupt across the city of Kuala Lumpur leading the prime minister to call for a State of Emergency to be imposed. Many politicians at the time considered the riots an example of what could happen if the government was not proactive in solving problems brought up by the people and in creating a sense of unity within the newly independent nation.When parliament reconvened in 1971 a set of policies were implemented prioritizing not only accelerated economic growth but also equal opportunities for the different ethnic groups to thrive, beginning by ensuring the ethnic Malays had better access to such opportunities. Thus, 1969 is considered a watershed year in Malaysian history.

Leading many of these demonstrations against the government was the University of Malaya’s Malay Language Society (PBMUM). With the large Paul Nyhus Travel Grant, I had the opportunity to visit University of Malaya’s library to look at publications and reports by this club. This gave me insight into the political views of club leaders and why they chose to champion the issues they did. For example, I found that the club was initially formed to preserve and advance the use of the Malay language. While in the constitution Malay is considered the National Language, they believed that not enough was being done by the government to implement its use in education institutions. In 1967, however, they held the symposium of “Problems Faced by Rural Communities” which spurred interest in students from this urban university towards problems faced by the peasants such as poverty, landlessness and lack of access to quality education. While it may seem as if the these two causes were unrelated, considering how rural communities at the time were mainly composed of Malay people, the increasing pressure students put on public figures to institutionalize the use of the Malay language was a way to ensure access to education and economic mobility of the Malay people. Apart from this, the Nyhus grant also allowed me to look at the publication Risalah by the Muslim Youth Movement of Malaysia (ABIM), another youth organization active in this period. The founding of ABIM in 1972 sparked growing interest in students towards a new form of dissent expressed through Islam, seen as the solution to creating a more just and equal world especially for those rejecting both communism and capitalism.

Overall, the process gave me deeper insight into the different organizations leading the student movement and why and how they chose to collaborate in building an effective political force. This will greatly help in writing my thesis which centers activities of the student movement against the backdrop of broader political discussions occurring at the time.

This year, I am completing an honors project looking at how American policy and treatment of Cuba, more specifically, the regime of Fidel Castro, changed so rapidly from the years 1958-1961. Beginning with the end of the Fulgencio Batista dictatorship and looking at Castro’s rise to power, I am examining how the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations viewed and responded to political turmoil in Cuba within the context of the Cold War. Of particular interest to me is how the United States’ stance of relative ambivalence towards Castro taking power in 1959 transformed in a mere two years to the Bay of Pigs and the multiple attempts to assassinate Castro and remove him from power. A large part of my research, therefore, is centered on newly declassified and (largely) non-digitized primary sources and archives that are found in the National Archives at College Park in Maryland.

To complete this Honors Research Project, I applied for and was awarded the Grua/O’Connell Research Award and the Paul Nyhus Travel Grant. These funds allowed me to stay in Washington DC and travel to and from the archives each day. This week-long trip was a truly incredible experience. Not only did I find essential sources and evidence for my honors project, but I also gained firsthand experience working in the National Archives. I was able to work alongside the research librarians and other researchers and find sources that were not yet explored for this history. Outside of the archives, I also made sure to visit the National Monuments and went to a few of the Smithsonian Museums once my days in the archives were over. This was an opportunity that I did not take for granted, particularly as I look towards my career post-Bowdoin and whether I follow a path towards a Ph.D. degree in History. I really appreciate the funds from both the Grua/O’Connell Research Award and the Paul Nyhus Travel Grant that made this trip and my research possible. Thank you.

Building Home in Diaspora:

Jewish Cooperative Housing Movements in the Interwar Bronx 

For the many Jewish immigrants who settled in New York between 1890-1920, neither work nor home afforded much dignity. Most landed rooms in the Lower East Side’s overpriced and overcrowded tenements, and jobs as needleworkers in the garment industry. Where the vast, primarily Yiddish-speaking Jewish labor movement leveraged considerable power on the shop floor, there remained few outlets to address their blighted living conditions. By 1927, however, union leaders took their belief in collective ownership to forge a creative solution: cooperative housing. In a matter of years, thousands of Jewish workers traded in their cramped tenements for spacious garden apartments; they went from tenants to co-owners. In the Bronx, each sect of the Jewish Left (Di Linke, as they were known in Yiddish) offered a radical experiment in communal living. The cooperatives were replete with libraries and clubs, daycare facilities and art studios, co-op stores and their very own newspapers. Yet beyond such common amenities, the three main cooperatives promoted vastly different perspectives on Jewish political and culture life.

With the help of the large Nyhus Travel grant, I had the opportunity to travel to the Bronx County Historical Society to conduct archival research on this understudied slice of American Jewish history. I combed through meeting minutes and reunion journals from each of the three co-ops to learn about the various ways they organized cooperative life. However, I spent most of my time listening to their vast collection of tape-recorded oral histories interviewing former cooperative members. These tapes opened an unparalleled view into cooperators’ perspectives on topics ranging from assimilation to party politics, from roughing the Depression to maintaining the cooperative library.

This research will contribute to my Honor Thesis in History and Urban Studies, which will attempt to ground an intellectual history of the Jewish Left in the everyday lives of the members of these Jewish cooperative housing projects.

Holocaust remembrance in the United States has taken many forms in the last seventy-five years. Holocaust memory comprises its own academic field of study. There is not, of course, any single appropriate method of studying Holocaust memory to accurately understand the way individuals, communities, and nations remember and re-remember the Holocaust in changing contexts. In the public domain, though, memorialization stands out as perhaps the most obvious, as well as the most subtle, form of remembrance. Across the United States and Europe, individuals, organizations, communities, and nations have erected museums and monuments to the Holocaust, each with a similar message: do not forget the horrors of the past if we wish to avoid anything as destructive as the Holocaust in the future. Yet, most sites differ when it comes to which horrors must be remembered, how they should be presented, and whose stories to tell.

With a Large Nyhus Travel Grant, I traveled to Washington, D.C., New York City, and Boston to study a few cases of Holocaust memorialization in the United States. While studying abroad in Europe, I visited Holocaust-related sites across the continent. With the Nyhus Grant, I was able to closely study the sites in the U.S. and contrast their narratives and presentation styles with those of sites in Europe. I spent a week and a half visiting museums, such as the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (Washington) and the Museum of Jewish Heritage (New York), and memorials, including the New England Holocaust Memorial (Boston), the New Castle Holocaust Memorial (Chappaqua, NY), and Holocaust Memorial Park (Brooklyn). At each site, I focused on how the creators of the memorial/museum had narrated the Holocaust, studying topics from how each site defines the term “Holocaust” to each site’s treatment of responsibility to the usage of individual stories to tell the whole narrative.

The site visits I conducted during my trip will feature heavily in the latter two sections of my honors thesis. I would not be able to successfully complete my project if not for the generosity of the Nyhus Grant program. I am extraordinarily grateful for the opportunity to travel for my research and learn as much as I did as a result.

With the support of the Nyhus Travel Grant, I was able to collect valuable primary sources to support my honors project that explores the identity and legacy of Qian Xuesen, a Chinese aerospace scientist who was instrumental in the development of China’s nuclear weapons, missile, and space programs in the 1950s and 60s. Simultaneously hailed by the Chinese government as a national hero and accused of espionage by the United States government, the complicated historical narrative of Qian Xuesen’s life reveals themes of political struggle, nationalism, modernization, and survival. My project aims to explore Qian’s political identity, as well as the Chinese state’s construction of Qian as a heroic and patriotic scientist.

I visited the Harvard-Yenching Library to access archives of People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party. Using the newspaper archives, I found a variety of primary source articles covering Qian Xuesen’s activities in China, articles written by Qian Xuesen himself, coverage of the nuclear bomb project, and pieces that directly and indirectly address Qian’s views on science, intellectuals and his personal identity as a scientist. These sources provided critical primary source evidence to support my analysis of Qian’s political identity and beliefs.

The Nyhus Grant also allowed me to spend one week in Shanghai at the Qian Xuesen Library & Museum. The museum is funded and operated by the Chinese state, and serves to educate the public on the achievements and life story of Qian Xuesen. With around 70,000 historical artifacts including Qian’s manuscripts, journals, documents, personal belongings, and photographs, the museum has in its possession a wealth of original documents that give insight into Qian’s life and legacy. Through my visits to the museum, I was able to carefully observe how the Chinese state has crafted a historical narrative on Qian, that emphasizes his devoted patriotism and leadership in China’s scientific development.

Since its inception in 1955 and into the present day, the Chinese nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles program has always been a potent symbol of nationalism. In about one decade, Chinese experts were able to build a successful program and conduct the nation’s first atomic bomb test in October of 1964. The historic feat was achieved with the help of many Chinese experts and scientists who were involved in a concerted research and development project, that brought together top leaders from the Chinese Communist Party, the People’s Liberation Army, and the nation’s scientific and research institutes. As one of the leading scientists working on these projects, Qian Xuesen’s story shows how he was able to use his celebrity scientist status to secure self-protection in an environment that was increasingly antagonistic towards intellectuals, and in turn use his status to help secure public legitimacy for the CCP’s reform policies.

The Paul Nyhus Travel Grant enabled me to travel to the National Archives and the British Library in London to conduct primary source research for my upcoming honors project on the post-indenture experience of East Indians in the Caribbean. The historiography on pre-independence Guyana and the cache of primary sources on colonial Guyana are limited, and thus my two week trip aimed to gather materials–colonial papers, memorandums, and newspaper clippings–essential to start to answer my main research question: what did forms of political organizing and resistance look like for East Indians in Guyana post-1917?

The first week of my trip centered on the National Archives, where I set out to gather information on three separate sugar strikes from 1918 to 1948. Each strike resulted in a commission of enquiry into the state of affairs of the sugar industry, colony, and wider Caribbean. The commissions were essential to understand how the colonial government responded to ‘disturbances’ through gendered and racialized conclusions. After reading the commissions in full, I dug deeper into the correspondence between the colonial government and the various East Indian civil society organizations. The back and forth dialogue gave me insight into the rationale for the colonial government not granting Indian sugar laborers their demands, and a greater understanding of the structure and function of the organizations formed by the East Indian community. I left the archives with a deep understanding of the status of East Indians in Guyana as transitory labor instead of full citizens, and the struggles the community had at changing this perception and gaining unalienable rights, like franchise, education, and marriage.

While originally I intended to spend the entirety of my week second at the British Library to look at the India Office’s records, I altered my research plan to spend more time at the archives. I found that the India Office, while involved in the lives of the formerly indentured initially, had less of a role in guiding the colonial government policy. Adapting my research plan was unnerving as I took a risk omitting potential sources at the British Library, however by deciding to look more deeply in the Colonial Office’s papers, I was able to expand the stock of materials to include photographs, for instance.

Directly penning through physical documents in the Archives taught me hard skills in primary source research that I hope to carry forth past my undergraduate degree. I learned how to categorize material relevant or irrelevant to my scope, use large catalogues, and handle sensitive archival documents. My honors project would not be able to continue without the skills and knowledge I acquired this trip, and thus I am sincerely grateful for this research opportunity.

I applied for the Large Nyhus Travel Grant to visit the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR) in Winnipeg, Manitoba. As a part of my independent study with Rachel Sturman on human rights museums, my trip to the CMHR allowed me to think about the role such museums play in the greater history of human rights and human rights activism. Experiencing the CMHR was crucial to my project, in which I explore questions of historical story-telling and how museums inspire change-making, and what kind of change-making the CMHR engages with in its attempt to “promote a culture of human rights.” With the Nyhus Grant I was able to visit the museum for three consecutive days and take my time with each exhibit and speak at length with museum interpreters staffing the galleries, which was especially helpful in understanding the museum’s curatorial decisions and philosophy of human rights activism. I ultimately produced a paper engaging with both the history of museums and of human rights, exploring how the two came to intersect at the CMHR upon its inception in 2000 and opening in 2014, and what this institution says about their futures. I’m grateful to the History Department for supporting such an incredible trip!

Morocco during the pre-colonial Alaouite Sultanate is often considered in two parts -- “Bilad al-Makhzen,” the regions under the direct political control of the sultan, and “Bilad al-Siba,” the regions that respected the religious authority of the sultan as a descendant of the prophet Muhammad, but rejected his secular rule. The borders of these zones tend to overlap with Arab-Amazigh divisions, and they have at times been simplified to ethnic tribal boundaries. There is some debate, however, over the extent to which this distinction reflects contemporaneous Moroccan understandings of their state versus a European depiction intended to divide Morocco and cast aspersions on its sovereignty in order to ease colonial penetration. Undeniably, this portrayal of a divided state strongly affected the later implementation of the French protectorate as evidenced by the establishment in 1930 of two legal systems, one for Arabs and one for the Amazigh.

Through the Nyhus Large Travel Grant, I spent two weeks conducting research at the library of The Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies. During my time there, I was able to review a number of rare European travelogues from the end of the 1800s as well as the dispatches of the American consul general on the state of affairs in Morocco during the same period. In particular, I focused on descriptions of the military expeditions, or mahallas, of Sultan Hassan I to subdue rebellious tribes and collect taxes in the Rif, Sous, and Tafilalt regions during the 1880s and 90s. I plan to compare the Western depictions of these expeditions and tribal relations with the descriptions of the same events in Ahmad ibn Khalid Al-Nasiri’s concomitant Moroccan history Kitab al-Istiqsa li-Akhbar Duwal al-Maghrib al-Aqsa. I believe by contrasting these narratives of the mahallas I will be able to shed light on the differences in Moroccan and Western perceptions of the sultan’s sovereignty over these regions in the final period before the protectorate. The other incident I concentrated on was the 1897 Tourmaline Expedition, an attempt by British adventurers to open direct trade with the Sous in defiance of the sultan. This case incorporated a number of different perspectives including that of the mostly Amazigh tribesmen living in the region, who repudiated the sultan’s authority over them during contractual negotiations with the leader of the expedition.

The primary source materials I gathered during this trip will form the basis of my honors project looking at origins of the Bilad Al-Makhzen/Bilad Al-Siba divide, which in turn will be a lens into the character of Islamic sovereignty in the Maghrib at the end of the pre-colonial era. Additionally, the chance to apply the research skills I have developed here at Bowdoin in an overseas archive was an incredible opportunity for which I am extremely grateful to the Nyhus Program. I had a terrific experience during my research period and would strongly encourage others to apply for this amazing grant.

My honors project was centered upon the Boy Scouts of America in Japanese-American incarceration camps during the Second World War, and with the support of the Large Nyhus Travel Grant, I was able to conduct two archival visits that greatly deepened my understanding of the topic. These archival visits provided me with the primary source materials necessary to construct a compelling argument and were an incredible opportunity to apply the skills that I learned in the classroom. Nothing can match the satisfaction of discovering an important document, and I consider my experience at the archives to be the culmination of my Bowdoin academic experience.  

My first trip was to the National Archives in Washington D.C., where I examined the records of the War Relocation Authority—the government agency responsible for administering the camps. Letters between WRA officials and the Boy Scouts of America’s leadership demonstrated the friendly relationship that developed between these two organizations over the course of the war, and how this relationship affected the incarcerated individuals inside the barbed wire. My time at the National Archives was my first experience doing archival research, and the staff there was friendly and helped guide me through the process. It was surreal thumbing through documents composed by important figures like Secretary of War Henry Stimson and Boy Scout Chief Executive James West. I found a wealth of sources that I was able to use to write my first chapter, and looking back, my trip to the National Archives proved to be the highlight of my Fall semester.   

Having acquired the WRA’s perspective on Scouting matters, I wanted to incorporate the voices of the incarcerated individuals. While there have been many memoirs reflecting on time spent in the camps, I wanted to amass a trove of Scouting-specific letters, journal entries, and other primary sources. So, over Winter Break, I made a trip to the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles. I was unsure of what might be in their archives, but the materials I discovered were extensive and truly rounded out my project. I pored over letters and journal entries from Scouts in the camps, examined their uniforms and Scouting accessories, and got to see rare photographs of Scouting events. Overall, I came away with a newfound awareness of the hardship that Scouts faced, and the ways in which the overcame challenges to create a thriving Scouting program. 

Overall, my research trips helped me to get two sides of the incarceration experience—that of the WRA officials, and that of the incarcerated Boy Scouts. Along the way, I learned how to navigate immense amounts of archival material to find salient documents and honed my primary source analysis skills. I would not have been able to do my topic justice without archival research, and I would not have been able to conduct this research without the help of the Large Nyhus Travel Grant. I am incredibly grateful for this opportunity and would encourage future Bowdoin history majors to embark upon research journeys of their own.  

The newly expanded Large Nyhus Travel Grant enabled me to conduct essential archival research in the United Kingdom for 16 days in January 2019 for my Honors Project on Britain and the Great War (1914-1918) and how the war blurred the distinction between civilians and soldiers within British society. Researching at the archives in the Imperial War Museum in London and the Liddle ‘personal collection’ at the Brotherton Library Special Collections in the University of Leeds allowed me to read personal accounts—journals, diaries, and letters—from British soldiers on the Western Front and the Home Front. These personal accounts, or ‘private papers’ as the Imperial War Museum calls them, will form the basis for my second chapter, which will analyze the impact conscription had on social classes in Britain during the Great War. Additionally, I viewed museum exhibits and war memorials in London, Leeds, and York, which provided an extraordinary opportunity to see in person physical manifestations of war memory and witness first-hand how the Great War continues to be remembered in the United Kingdom. These exhibits and memorials will serve as sources for my third chapter. In particular, the “First World War” exhibit at the Imperial War Museum in London and the “1914: When the World Changed Forever” exhibit at the Castle Museum in York displayed sources for my third chapter, which will focus on how the Great War continues to be remembered and memorialized in the United Kingdom. Smaller exhibit displays at the University of Leeds and a walking tour commemorating “York in the First World War” provided additional opportunities to view and participate in how the war is remembered in the United Kingdom.

Most of my archival research was on personal accounts of British soldiers during the Great War. Reading and analyzing these letters, diaries, and journal entries gave me enormous insight to the severity of their experiences as I investigated the impact the Military Service Act of 1916—which represented the quintessential affront to traditional volunteerism, a ‘sacred principle’ and tenet of old, classic British liberalism—and the subsequent introduction of conscription had on soldiers’ experiences during the war. As I read these personal accounts, I discovered layers of complexity to the conscription debate, while recognizing differing and conflicting views of the war and how individuals’ social classes impacted their perception of the Great War. Though I was struck with feelings of sad devastation, awe, inspiration, and shock, as I read through these accounts, they gave me a chance to insert myself into a soldier’s world during one of the most devastating wars in modern European history, albeit a century later and in a literary sphere. Lastly, I also read memoirs and transcriptions of taped interviews from British veterans after the war, which contributed to their memory of the war and how it impacted their lives and perspective of world events.

During my junior fall semester, I studied in Bath at the Advanced Studies in England study abroad program and enrolled in a1-1 Oxford style tutorial on Britain and the First World War. I was so captivated by the topic that I chose to continue my research on this subject my Senior Honors Project, and the Large Nyhus Grant gave me the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to conduct archival research at the undergraduate level in a country with rich military history. Writing under the auspices of the centenary of the end of the Great War (1918-2018) adds special significance and importance to my research. As I continue writing my second and third chapters this semester, the personal accounts I read at the Imperial War Museum and at the University of Leeds, and the museum and memorial exhibits I investigated will serve as invaluable sources for my study. The Great War is under-taught in the United States and the relationship between conscription and social class is an under-explored historiographical topic, so I am grateful for the opportunity the Large Nyhus Grant to explore and learn about this consequential historical event. It opened my eyes to the rewarding nature of original archival research.

In 1869, the new Meiji government of Japan declared Hokkaido, an island just north of Japan’s main island of Honshu, a colony and established Sapporo as the capital and regional center for the island’s development. The Meiji government established a colonization office and began to send settlers to Hokkaido, which they claimed to be an open frontier, despite the indigenous Ainu population living there. Although today Sapporo is Japan’s fifth largest city and boasts some two million residents, it was hardly a major urban center at the time of colonial development. While government officials prioritized improving regional infrastructure to gain access to important industrial resources such as coal, the residents of Sapporo itself struggled to settle themselves and establish basic urban infrastructure, including canals, bridges, and a sewage system. At the same time, Sapporo was a location of global exchange, in which Japan’s colonization department contracted foreign experts, with a particular focus on recording the agricultural and geological characteristics of Hokkaido. These foreigners, most of whom were Americans, however, lived and worked in Sapporo and contributed to its urban development.

The Nyhus Travel Grant allowed me to travel to libraries at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and Yale University, which house the archives of these foreign advisors who went to Hokkaido in the early Meiji period and were mainly active roughly from 1873 to 1888. I looked at official correspondence between the foreign contractors and their supervisors in the Meiji government’s colonization department as well as with their families in the United States. These included descriptions of bridge construction and canal surveys in Sapporo. At the archives I was able to compare what I learned from a previous research trip in Japan, and to bolster my source material from the American advisors who came from New England. The archival research at UMass Amherst and Yale will contribute towards my history honors project on the environmental influence of urban growth in Sapporo in Meiji Japan.

Studying Meiji Sapporo highlights conversations of colonial, environmental, and urban forces during the period of Japan’s early imperial growth. As Japan sought to lay the framework of a Pacific empire through industrialization and the consolidation of power, Hokkaido served as a first attempt at colonization. Likewise, Sapporo, as a planned city, served as a model for future colonial cities of Imperial Japan. The construction and survey projects of foreign advisors in Sapporo, whose archives I accessed at UMass and Yale, displayed Japan’s drive to impose early imperial power on Hokkaido through constructing an orderly city. The primary struggle of foreign engineers and Japanese colonial planners alike, however, was establishing urban infrastructure despite environmental forces such as flooding and the cold climate, which slowed progress on developing Sapporo. This research project ultimately attempts to show the early roots of urban environmental management in Imperial Japan.

With the support of a Large Nyhus Travel Grant, I traveled to London for a week to use sources at the British Library that will be an invaluable part of the third chapter of my honors project. The primary purpose of my research was to learn more about how Scottish agriculture in the eighteenth century – the focus of my honors project – fit in with broader British trends of thinking about the landscape and how it should be used for agriculture. Spending time at the British Library allowed me to put my understanding of Scottish history in context of the politics and ideologies of British attitudes towards the environment. Being in the British Library, with its wealth of information, and in London itself, was very helpful in situating my research and writing within this larger scale.

I focused on the correspondence of British agriculturalists, such as Sir John Sinclair and Arthur Young. My honors project, which focuses on the changing views and practices of agriculture in the latter half of the eighteenth century, benefited greatly from the opportunity to view these primary sources that revealed a great deal about well-known practitioners of agriculture. Seeing the letters written between Sinclair, Young and others, such as Joseph Banks helped me to recognize the breadth and depth of knowledge that was communicated during this period. The correspondence of these men helped me to visualize the webs of agricultural knowledge that were created during this period, and to understand how information and ideas about the environment were shared and used to implement agricultural change.

I was also able to examine various agricultural journals and documents that revealed the extent of ecological change in Britain during the latter half of the eighteenth century. The writings and images describing specific crops, uses of agricultural produce, and implements such as the plough demonstrated the extent to which land use changed throughout Britain. I was specifically interested in the changing role of certain crops, such as the potato, within common agricultural practice. Additionally, the role of sheep in the Scottish Highlands grew exponentially during this period as the Board of Agriculture, founded by Sir John Sinclair, advocated for new methods of farming. All of the information I gathered about changing land use through different crops and livestock demonstrated the important role of agriculture in Enlightenment attitudes towards the environment and the alterations humans created in the landscape during this time.

My research in London was essential for my continued work on my honors project, which examines changing agricultural practices in Scotland. The primary source material I encountered in the library helped to deepen my understanding of agriculture as a whole in Enlightenment Britain, and offered perspective on how Scottish agriculture fits into this larger picture. Additionally, the opportunity to immerse myself in an archive for a week helped me to further hone my skills of primary source analysis and work with manuscript material, which will hopefully remain a part of my life after Bowdoin. I am immensely grateful for the resources and support that helped me to visit the British Library, which was an important part of my honors work and a personal and academic inspiration. 

Thanks to the Paul Nyhus Large Travel Grant, I had the opportunity to spend the summer in Maine researching the English aristocracy during the 14th and 15th centuries, particularly focusing on how they used visual markers, including behavior and material goods, to define both self and group. This grant enabled me to spend six weeks at Bowdoin conducting my research through the library’s extensive resources and meetings with professors from multiple departments. Having spent the previous semester in Bath, England studying English nobility, I was especially excited to continue my examination of the subject through an academic research fellowship in preparation for my honors project.

Through this grant, I studied how the English aristocracy created a framework for what it meant to be a member of the nobility during the Late Middle Ages. When I began the summer I was interested in ideas of identity. As I read numerous primary and secondary sources, I tailored this interest towards a focus on conceptions of self and the ways that elites performed roles in both courtly and everyday life. I found these ideas of presentation intricately connected to ideas of identity, because the aristocracy dressed, acted, and spoke in a way that aligned them with notions of what it meant to be a noble. During my time at Bowdoin this summer I read many manner books from the 14th and 15th centuries, which were etiquette guides for young aristocrats on how to act and present themselves in a proper way. In order to be a member of this exclusive group, an individual had to appear according to certain standards of behavior and dress.

Over the course of the summer I examined both primary and secondary sources in order to provide myself with a solid basis upon which I could build my research project. Along with the manner books, I read English nobles’ letters, 14th and 15th century laws dictating dress codes for English men and women based on income and status, and, of course, Geoffrey Chaucer. Becoming familiar with these primary sources was crucial to narrowing my research topic and to allowing me to generate my own ideas and examinations of elite life during this time. Because my research dealt with ideas of how people portrayed and thought of themselves, I also read a great deal of theory on the self and the performance of self throughout different historical eras. The concept of people participating in the cultivation and display of a particular character based on societal norms seemed to me especially relevant to the Late Middle Ages, which was a highly elaborate and ostentatious culture. Consequently, I had to study the theories and arguments surrounding how people from various times conceived of the “self,” before beginning to make my own claims and analysis. The research I conducted this summer provided me with a solid foundation for my honors project this coming year, and it would not have been possible without receiving the Large Nyhus Grant. 

When India banned surrogacy in 2015, the implications were far reaching. Commercial surrogacy was only legalized in India in 2002, but by 2012 it was generating $2.3 billion US dollars annually. Yet more than 50% of the industry was comprised of international actors. I set out this summer to gain a better understanding of the technology of surrogacy, the development and rise of surrogacy in India, who and what matters to the Indian surrogacy industry, and what the future looks like now that it is banned. The work I started this summer will be directly applied to my history honors project that will explore the same subject.

My research started at the British Library in London. Using the extensive collection of Indian materials available there, I began to develop a strong understanding of the background of surrogacy. This background was imperative to my later research. The British Library’s catalogue was an invaluable resource for my research and I found many books and articles in the collection that I hadn’t found elsewhere.

While the British Library provided me with the necessary basic information, such as the logistics of surrogacy in India, I was able to use my time in London to speak with various people who have stakes in the international industry. These interviews are crucial for my honors project because they provide the primary evidence that is required to write an original honors paper. I spoke with Dharshi Kiruba, the patient and egg donation coordinator for the Harley Street Fertility Clinic, Richard Westoby, an international surrogacy expert, and Puchka Sahay, a family friend whose sister currently is having a child through surrogacy in India currently. These interviews all provided me with similar understanding: that the situation in India is not as clear-cut as academia, the media, and laws would suggest. Speaking with the Harley Street Fertility Clinic, I was able to gain insight into the process from a client’s perspective. I also learn about what the effect of the new surrogacy laws had on clinics at the time when they occurred. Puchka Sahay offered the most insight into the complicated industry. Her sister’s current experience with surrogacy means that while commercial surrogacy is illegal in India, it still exists— and more importantly, people are not hiding it. These revelations that I made while doing research in India will be the foundation for my honors project.