The Impact of AAS Fellowships
At a symposium marking twenty-five years of the visiting fellowships
program at AAS, the Society's President Ellen S. Dunlap observed that it
is "among the signal components that have shaped the reputation of this
great institution as the place to be to do research in
pre-twentieth-century American history and culture." Since the first
fellowships were awarded (1972-73), the writings of AAS fellows have made
substantial contributions to scholarship. Many works have been honored by
the prestigious prizes of the academic world and recognized by their peers
as the seminal works in their fields. The 2000 SHARP Book Prize was
awarded to Scott Casper (Peterson, 1990-91, 1998-99) for Constructing
American Lives: Biography and Culture in Nineteenth-Century America
(University of North Carolina Press, 1999). The 1999 Bancroft Prize was
won by Jill Lepore (Peterson, 1993-94) for The Name of War: King
Philip's
War and the Origins of American Identity (Alfred A. Knopf, 1998). The
1995
Pulitzer Prize in History, the 1995 Bancroft Prize, the Beveridge Prize,
and the 1996 SHEAR Book Prize were awarded to Alan Taylor (AAS-NEH,
1989-90; Mellon Senior Distinguished Scholar in Residence 2000-2001) for
William Cooper's Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the
Early
American Republic (Knopf, 1995). Nell Irvin Painter (Peterson,
1991-92)
received the 1995 Brown Memorial Prize from the Association of Black Women
Historians for her article "Representing Truth: Sojourner Truth's Knowing
and Becoming Known," which appeared in the Journal of American
History
81
(1994). David Waldstreicher (Peterson, 1992-93) won the Jamestown Prize in
1995 for In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes: The Making of American
Nationalism, 1776-1820 (University of North Carolina Press for the
Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, 1997).
Through the Program in the History of the Book in American Culture, the
Society has become a center for the study and dissemination of book
history. The Colonial Book in the Atlantic World, edited by Hugh
Amory and
David D. Hall, the first of five volumes of A History of the Book in
America, was published with Cambridge University Press in 2000. Other
recent publications by scholars who have held AAS fellowships include
Printers and Men of Capital: Philadelphia Book Publishers in the New
Republic (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996) by Rosalind Remer
(Peterson, 1988-89); The Transformation of Authorship in America
(University of Chicago Press, 1997) by Grantland S. Rice (Botein,
1993-94); and The Unvarnished Truth: Personal Narratives in
Nineteenth-Century America (University of California Press, 2000) by
Ann
Fabian (Botein, 1994-95).
Among the classic studies in the history of the book researched by fellows
at the Society are Knowledge Is Power: The Diffusion of Information in
Early America, 1700-1865 (Oxford University Press, 1989) by Richard D.
Brown (AAS-NEH, 1977-78); Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgment: Popular
Religious Belief in Early New England (Knopf, 1989) by David D. Hall
(AAS-NEH, 1981-82); Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in
America (Oxford University Press, 1986) by Cathy N. Davidson
(Peterson,
1984-85); Reading Becomes a Necessity of Life: Material and Cultural
Life
in Rural New England, 1730-1830 (University of Tennessee Press,
1988) by
William J. Gilmore (AAS-NEH, 1979-80); Beneath the American
Renaissance:
The Subversive Imagination in the Age of Emerson and Melville (Alfred
A.
Knopf, 1988) by David S. Reynolds (AAS-NEH, 1982-83); and The Letters
of
the Republic: Publication and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century
America (Harvard University Press, 1990) by Michael Warner (AAS-NEH,
86-87).
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