Long-term Visiting Academic Research Fellowships

Hench Post-Dissertation Fellowship

Scholars who are no more than three years beyond receipt of the doctorate are eligible to apply for a special year-long residential fellowship at the American Antiquarian Society to revise their dissertation for publication. Established as the Mellon Post-Dissertation Fellowship in 1998, the fellowship has been renamed in honor of John B. Hench, who retired in August 2007 as vice president for collections and programs after thirty-three years on the staff of the American Antiquarian Society. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, generous sponsor of this fellowship, has made a challenge grant to the Society, which is currently raising money to endow this fellowship.

The purpose of the Hench Post-Dissertation Fellowship is to provide the recipient with time and resources to extend research and/or to revise the dissertation for publication. Any topic relevant to the Society's library collections and programmatic scope--that is, American history and culture through 1876--is eligible.

Applicants may come from such fields as history, literature, American studies, political science, art history, music history, and others relating to America in the period of the Society's coverage. The Society welcomes applications from those who have advance book contracts, as well as those who have not yet made contact with a publisher. The twelve-month stipend for this fellowship is $35,000.

The deadline for application for a Hench Post-Dissertation Fellowship to be held during the 2023-2024 academic year is October 15, 2022.

The Hench Post-Dissertation Fellowship offers splendid opportunities for collegiality with and mentoring from the staff, other visiting fellows, and the academic community in and near Worcester, Massachusetts. Recipients of other AAS long-term and short-term fellowships--academic scholars as well as creative and performing artists and writers--will be in residence for varying periods of time throughout the Hench Post-Dissertation Fellow's tenure.

The Society has self-catering accommodations that fellows may rent. Although fellows have priority, renting from the Society is not a requirement of those holding fellowships. When requested, the staff will do their best to suggest alternative accommodations in Worcester or environs.

List of current and previous Hench fellows

Application Procedure

The Hench Post-Dissertation Fellow will be selected on the basis of the applicant's scholarly qualifications, the appropriateness of the project to the Society's collections and interests, and, above all, the likelihood that the revised dissertation will make a highly significant book.

All materials for the Hench Fellowship are to be submitted online.

For further information about the Hench Fellowship, please contact Nan Wolverton, director of fellowships, at nwolverton@mwa.org or 508-471-2119.

Publications by Hench Fellows

Bonds of Union by Bridget Ford Mahogany by Jennifer Anderson The Medical Imagination by Sari Altschuler

The Many Panics of 1837 by Jessica Lepler American Women Authors and Literary Property, 1822-1869 by Melissa Homestead Prophets, Publicists, and Parasites by Adam Gordon

Bridget Ford book Timothy Marr book Cindy Lobel book

Renée Sentilles book Kyle Roberts book Dawn Peterson book

David Silverman book April Haynes book AT. Cole Jones book

Whitney Martinko book Daniel Rood book Roberto Saba book

AAS Welcomes Ann Daly, the Hench Post-Dissertation Fellow for 2021–22

Headshot of Ann Daly Ann Daly will spend the coming year at AAS revising her dissertation into a book about the origins of money. In traditional interpretations, currency emerged as a replacement for barter, and then followed a linear progression from coin to paper money to the contemporary world of credit cards and fiat currency. Daly takes a different perspective. In her project, titled “Minting America: The Politics, Technology, and Culture of Money in the Early United States,” she examines how the state used gold and silver coins to power American capitalism. Daly focuses on the material processes of mining and minting: The innovations of skilled workers, from expert enslaved women working Georgia’s goldfields to chemists who brought the latest science to the U.S. Mint, became tools of governance as the federal state deployed the design, production, and distribution of government-issued coin to regulate financial markets.

Daly, who recently accepted an appointment as assistant professor of history at Mississippi State University, received a Ph.D. from Brown University where she received the History Department’s Distinguished Dissertation Award.