Fellowships

A Mary Catherine Mooney Fellowship, courtesy of a long-time teacher in the Boston Public School system, offers a stipend of $2,000 for a residency of twenty days (four weeks) and includes a year’s membership to the Boston Athenæum. Scholars, graduate students, independent scholars, teaching faculty, creatives, and professionals in the humanities as well as teachers and librarians in secondary public, private, and parochial schools are eligible. Applicants must be U.S. citizens or foreign nationals holding the appropriate U.S. government documents.

A Caleb Loring, Jr. Fellowship is available for research on topics concerning the Confederate States and the Civil War. It offers a stipend of $2,000 for a residency of twenty days (four weeks) and includes a year’s membership to the Boston Athenæum. Applicants must be U.S. citizens or foreign nationals holding the appropriate U.S. government documents.

The American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Fellowship is offered in conjunction with the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies to use the Boston Athenæum’s holdings relevant to the 18th century and comes with a stipend of $1,500 for a residency of twenty days (four weeks) and includes a year’s membership to the Boston Athenæum. Applicants must be U.S. citizens or foreign nationals holding the appropriate U.S. government documents.

This fellowship requires membership in the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies.

The American Congregational Association-Boston Athenæum Fellowship is for research into American religious history involving the collections of the Boston Athenæum and the Congregational Library. The award includes a stipend of $1,500 for a residency of twenty days (four weeks) and includes a year’s membership to the Boston Athenæum and to the Congregational Library. Applicants must be U.S. citizens or foreign nationals holding the appropriate U.S. government documents.

The Boston Athenæum Community Fellowship includes a year’s membership to the Boston Athenæum. Scholars, graduate students, independent scholars, teaching faculty, and professionals in the humanities as well as teachers and librarians in secondary public, private, and parochial schools are eligible. Applicants must be U.S. citizens or foreign nationals holding the appropriate U.S. government documents.

All applicants to the Athenæum’s fellowships that include a stipend are under consideration for this fellowship. Every year there are more applicants than can be awarded stipends; this fellowship allows worthy applicants who are selected to enjoy full access to all reading rooms, stellar service, book borrowing privileges, etc. You can see all the benefits listed under the heading Membership on our website. There is no need to submit a separate application.

The Boston Athenæum and the Massachusetts Historical Society offer the Suzanne and Caleb Loring Fellowship on the Civil War, Its Origins and Consequences with a stipend of $4,000 for research residencies of at least four weeks at each institution. Applicants must be U.S. citizens or foreign nationals holding the appropriate U.S. government documents. Applications are due February 15 each year. Each institution will automatically refer unsuccessful proposals to its short-term fellowship competition.

• The Athenæum’s Civil War collections are anchored by its holdings of Confederate states imprints, the largest in the nation, consisting of books, maps, broadsides, sheet music, newspapers, governmental publications, and other materials organized according to the Parrish & Willingham bibliography.
• The MHS’s manuscript holdings on the Civil War are particularly strong. They include, for example, diaries, photographs, correspondence from the battlefield and the home front, papers of political leaders, material on black regiments raised in Massachusetts, and extensive holdings on the U.S. Sanitary Commission.

The Athenæum and the MHS are particularly interested in projects for which both repositories’ resources are vital. For more information and to apply please visit the MHS’s website

The Boston Athenæum participates in the New England Regional Fellowship Consortium, a collaboration of twenty-seven major cultural institutions. Applicants must be U.S. citizens or foreign nationals holding the appropriate U.S. government documents.

Please see the New England Regional Consortium’s website for more information and the application process.