Maxwell Pingeon – 2023 Maass Research Grant Recipient

Maxwell Pingeon, a PhD student in the department of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia was named the 2023 Maass research grant recipient according to Dr. Elizabeth Dow, chairman of the Scholarship Committee of the Manuscript Society.

“‘A Vast Catholic Body of the English Tongue:’ Irish Power, French Canadians, and the New England Language Wars, 1880-1930”

In his proposal Pingeon shares:

“A million French Canadians emigrated south in search of industrial jobs between the Civil War and the Great Depression. In New England, they became either the largest or the second largest Catholic immigrant group, after the Irish. Though other non-English speaking groups sought to preserve their language and culture with equal vehemence, French Canadians had the benefit of access to neighboring Canada for money, ideas, and personnel.

During this period, Irish American bishops attempted to assimilate francophones by gradually eliminating their bilingual education system. Language and religion had been the twin motors of French-Canadian resistance to Anglo-Protestant domination in Canada. As migrants to the United States, the same fear of ethnic erasure animated French Canadians in their conflicts with the English-speaking Catholic hierarchy.”

These “language wars,” as Max calls them, “culminated in 1920s Rhode Island. The Bishop of Providence began drawing funds from parochial school budgets to fund English-only “central Catholic high schools.” This provoked a mass backlash from French Canadians throughout New England. “The results included excommunications, interdicts, and countless skull-and-dagger machinations in the halls of the Vatican.” Named after the flagship newspaper that led the contestation of the bishop’s authority, the “Sentinelle Affair,” marked the final defeat of a militant section of the French-speaking population.

Research Venues

The Manuscript Society grant will aid Max in completing his research in key archives of the New England-Quebec region. Materials are housed in a combination of public and private collections. This includes the (arch)-diocesan archives of Boston, Providence, and Portland, Maine. Additionally, religious orders who have agreed to open their papers include the Holy Union Sisters of Fall River, Massachusetts, the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur in Ipswich, Mass., the Grey Nuns of Montreal, and the Congrégation de Notre Dame.

The Montreal and Quebec City branches of the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ) host the letters of two Canadian intellectuals, Henri Bourassa and Lionel Groulx. These men followed and influenced both sides of the Rhode Island controversy. The BAnQ also holds the papers of an early chronicler of the conflict, Robert Rumilly. His work played an outsized role in its reception history. The BAnQ collection also holds the complete papers of the Sentinelle movement’s leader, Elphège-J Daignault.

The Rhode Island Historical Society contains the collection of the Providence Visitor, the diocesan newspaper. Papers of the French-speaking press, housed at Assumption College, in Worcester, Mass will also be explored.  Beyond copies of the infamous Sentinelle newspaper itself, Assumption’s collection also includes the personal correspondence of one of the two antagonists of the Sentinelle crisis, Union Saint-Jean Baptiste leader Élie Vézina, including his letters to and from the bishop, as well as with the apostolic delegation in Washington.

The society congratulates Max on his award and looks forward to reading his report upon completing his work. Watch for that report in the Manuscript Society News next year.

How you can Help

This research is made possible by all the members of the Manuscript Society who support the Maass Research Grant Scholarship Fund with their tax-deductible contributions. Thank you! https://manuscript.org/projects/scholarship-activities/

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Who can Apply

Only scholars attending institutions with memberships in the Manuscript Society as of January 1, 2023, will receive consideration for the grant. Check the list of member institutions here https://manuscript.org/projects/scholarship-activities/. If your institution does not now have a membership, consider asking your department or the library to obtain one.

The society issues the nonrenewable grant to the sponsoring institution, which disburses all the monies to the recipient. Upon completing the research, the recipient is required to (1) submit a detailed report to the society’s scholarship committee and (2) recognize the society’s support in any publication resulting from the research.

How the Maass Grant Is Different

Some grants fund only travel. But that is a narrow view of the expenses scholars face. Food and lodging. User fees. Document reproduction. Even if the documents our scholars visit are right in their own backyard, the Maass Grant can help pay the costs of intellectual inquiry. Our disbursement model is different too. Monies are paid to the institution rather than the scholar—and the institution must give the scholar the full amount.

How to Apply

Interested students must submit (1) a letter of application, (2) a résumé, (3) an anticipated budget, (4) a proposal of no more than three double-spaced pages and (5) two or three letters of recommendation sent to the scholarship committee. One letter must be from the thesis or dissertation advisor.  The proposal should demonstrate that the research involves considerable work with original manuscripts.

Each file name should start with the applicant’s surname, for example SmithProposal; SmithBudget; SmithSupportLetter; etc. All applicants will be notified of the scholarship committee’s decision soon after March 17, 2023.

Send inquiries to Dr. Elizabeth Dow at edow1@protonmail.com . Send applications and supporting letters to ManuscriptSocietyGrant@manuscript.org.

Key Dates

Application Deadline: Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2023
Selection Announcement: St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, 2023

Criteria for Evaluating Maass Grant Applications

The Scholarship Committee will use the following criteria to evaluate Maass Grant applications:

• Clear objectives in a well-organized format.
• A description of the manuscripts which the student expects to find and how they will support the research project.
• A detailed and realistic budget explaining how the $5,000 will be used.
• Letters of Reference which explain the significance of the academic project and indicate confidence in the student’s ability to complete it

What Comes After

Once the research is complete, the Maass scholar must submit a detailed report to the Manuscript Society. Any publication resulting from the research
must recognize the society’s support.

Questions?

Visit https://manuscript.org/projects/scholarship-activities or contact Scholarship Committee Chair Dr. Elizabeth Dow at edow1@protonmail.com.

The Maass Research Grant is made possible by the generosity of our members. We encourage you to donate at https://manuscript.org/product/scholarship-fund. Your gift will help us bring original manuscripts to a new generation of scholars.

The post 2023 Maass Research Grant: Application Open appeared first on The Manuscript Society.

This year’s Maass Research Grant goes to a scholar looking at the struggle for health equity through the long lens of one Chicago hospital.

LeNie Adolphson is examining “Health Care in the Black Metropolis: A History of Provident Hospital, 1891–1960.” Provident was the first Black-owned and -operated hospital in America. Until Provident, Black women were shut out of nursing schools, and Black physicians were denied hospital staff privileges. The results rippled across the city’s Black community.

Provident set out to close the gap in health care access. The hospital had a huge impact, yet no book fully covers its history, and no single archive holds its records. “While scholars have discussed Provident as a pivotal institution in the Black hospital movement, I am the first historian to analyze the hospital’s role in the ongoing fight against racial health disparities,” Adolphson wrote in her grant application.

Her research will take her to the Chicago History Museum and the Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection of Afro-American History at Woodson Regional Library. The museum holds records of the Chicago Defender, a major Black newspaper and a voice of support for the hospital. Woodson, part of the city’s public library system, has papers of several prominent Provident physicians.

LeNie Adolphson

LeNie Adolphson

Adolphson is completing her PhD in history at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb. She earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in history from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Her master’s thesis—on the Black Power Movement in Lowndes County, Alabama—took second place in SIU’s awards for Best Graduate History Paper of 2006. While completing her doctorate, she teaches history at Highland Community College in Freeport, Illinois.

Adolphson is NIU’s first Maass scholar.

The grant is named in memory of Richard Maass, a philanthropist and prominent collector of American historical manuscripts. He was a founder and early president of the Manuscript Society. Scholarship Committee members are Ellen Myers (then chair), Dick Cameron, Ellen Clark, and Elizabeth Dow (current chair).

Funding for the Maass Research Grant comes from the generosity of Manuscript Society members. Learn how you can help at https://manuscript.org/projects/scholarship-activities.

The post LeNie Adolphson – 2022 Research Grant Winner appeared first on The Manuscript Society.

One month remains to apply for the $5000.00 Maass Research Grant. Offered each year to graduate students of any field who work in manuscript collections this grant allows great flexibility. Some grants fund only travel. But that’s a narrow view of the expenses scholars face. Food and lodging. User fees. Document reproduction. Even if the documents our scholars visit are right in their own backyard, the Maass Grant can help pay the costs of intellectual inquiry.

Announcement of Recipient is March 17, 2022

Students must be enrolled in an academic program at one of the society institutional members.  More information on requirements as well as applying Click Here.

The post 2022 Maass Research Grant Deadline Approaches appeared first on The Manuscript Society.

Who can Apply

Applicants must be graduate students—doctoral candidates are given preference—at an institution that currently belongs to the Manuscript Society. An institution qualifies as a member if its library currently subscribes to Manuscripts, the society’s quarterly journal.

The society issues the nonrenewable grant to the sponsoring institution, which disburses it to the recipient. Upon completing the research, the recipient is required to (1) submit a detailed report to the society’s scholarship committee and (2) recognize the society’s support in any publication resulting from the research.

How the Maass Grant Is Different

Some grants fund only travel. But that’s a narrow view of the expenses scholars face. Food and lodging. User fees. Document reproduction. Even if the documents our scholars visit are right in their own backyard, the Maass Grant can help pay the costs of intellectual inquiry. Our disbursement model is different too. Monies are paid to the institution rather than the scholar—and the institution must give the scholar the full amount.

How to Apply

Interested students must submit (1) a letter of application, (2) a résumé, (3) an anticipated budget, (4) a proposal of no more than three double-spaced pages and (5) two or three letters of recommendation sent to the scholarship committee. One letter must be from the thesis or dissertation advisor.  The proposal should demonstrate that the research involves considerable work with original manuscripts.

Each file name should start with the applicant’s surname, for example SmithProposal; SmithBudget; SmithSupportLetter; etc. All applicants will be notified of the scholarship committee’s decision soon after March 17, 2022.

Send inquiries to Dr. Ellen Howell Myers at myers@manuscript.org. Send applications and supporting letters to ManuscriptSocietyGrant@manuscript.org.

Key Dates

Application Deadline: Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2022
Selection Announcement: St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, 2022

Criteria for Evaluating Maass Grant Applications

The Scholarship Committee will use the following criteria to evaluate Maass Grant applications:

• Clear objectives in a well-organized format.
• A description of the manuscripts which the student expects to find and how they will support the research project.
• A detailed and realistic budget explaining how the $5,000 will be used.
• Letters of Reference which explain the significance of the academic project and indicate confidence in the student’s ability to complete it.

What Comes After

Once the research is complete, the Maass scholar must submit a detailed report to the Manuscript Society. Any publication resulting from the research
must recognize the society’s support.

Questions? Visit https://manuscript.org/projects/scholarship-activities or contact Scholarship Committee Chair Ellen Howell Myers at myers@manuscript.org.

The Maass Grant is made possible by the generosity of our members. We encourage you to donate at https://manuscript.org/product/scholarship-fund. Your gift will help us bring original manuscripts to a new generation of scholars.

The post 2022 Maass Grant Application Window Is Open appeared first on The Manuscript Society.