Bancroft fellowships and awards

Fellowship offered for academic year 2022-2023. Application deadline is the first Monday in February by 5 p.m.

Eligibility for awards

The Kenneth E. and Dorothy V. Hill Fellowship Fund provides one year-long fellowship to graduate students from any campus of the University of California who are conducting research that would benefit from the use of source materials in The Bancroft Library.  This fellowship is not offered every year. 

The holders of the fellowships, designated as Bancroft Fellows, will conduct their research in The Bancroft Library during the fellowship and must therefore be registered during the academic year at Berkeley or their home campus under the inter-campus exchange program.

Students must be beyond the first year of graduate study; in the past, awards have generally gone to students who have passed their qualifying examinations, have exhausted other forms of support, and are engaged in dissertation research.

The applicant's statement of purpose must describe how the research project will make use of The Bancroft Library's collections.

For applicants

Completed applications must include: statement of purpose, 1000 words or less; official transcripts of all undergraduate and graduate coursework; two letters of recommendation from instructors, and, for summer fellowships, the estimated length of time that the applicant would be in residence. The selection committee will balance all of these factors in determining the recipients of the full year fellowships as well as the summer fellowships.

All awards are made by The Bancroft Library Fellowship Committee. All applications and awards will be made within the framework of existing fellowship programs. The applicant will conduct the research project within one year of notification.

For further instructions on how to apply for a Bancroft Library Study Award, please see How to apply.

See list of winners. 

Fellowship offered for academic year 2022-2023. Application deadline is the first Monday in February by 5 p.m.

Eligibility for awards

The Edward F. and Marianne E. Meylan Fellowship Fund provides one year-long fellowship to graduate students from any recognized institution of higher education in the United States or abroad who are conducting research that would benefit from the use of source materials in The Bancroft Library.  This fellowship is not offered every year. 

The holders of the fellowships, designated as Bancroft Fellows, will conduct their research in The Bancroft Library during the fellowship and must therefore be registered during the academic year at Berkeley or their home campus under the inter-campus exchange program.

Students must be beyond the first year of graduate study; in the past, awards have generally gone to students who have passed their qualifying examinations, have exhausted other forms of support, and are engaged in dissertation research.

The applicant's statement of purpose must describe how the research project will make use of The Bancroft Library's collections.

For applicants

Completed applications must include: statement of purpose, 1000 words or less; official transcripts of all undergraduate and graduate coursework; two letters of recommendation from instructors, and, for summer fellowships, the estimated length of time that the applicant would be in residence. The selection committee will balance all of these factors in determining the recipients of the full year fellowships as well as the summer fellowships.

All awards are made by The Bancroft Library Fellowship Committee. All applications and awards will be made within the framework of existing fellowship programs. The applicant will conduct the research project within one year of notification.

For further instructions on how to apply for a Bancroft Library Study Award, please see How to apply.

See list of winners. 

Application deadline is the first Monday in February by 5 p.m.

Eligibility for awards

The Friends of The Bancroft Library award $15,000 in fellowships for summer study to graduate students from any University of California campus in the form of stipends ranging from $1,000 (1 week residence) to $3,000 (3 weeks residence).

The holders of the fellowships, designated as Bancroft Fellows, will conduct their research in The Bancroft Library during the fellowship and must therefore be registered during the academic year at Berkeley or their home campus under the inter-campus exchange program.

Students must be beyond the first year of graduate study; in the past, awards have generally gone to students who have passed their qualifying examinations, have exhausted other forms of support, and are engaged in dissertation research.

The applicant's statement of purpose must describe how the research project will make use of The Bancroft Library's collections.

How to apply

Completed applications must include: statement of purpose, 1000 words or less; official transcripts of all undergraduate and graduate coursework; two letters of recommendation from instructors, and, for summer fellowships, the estimated length of time that the applicant would be in residence. The selection committee will balance all of these factors in determining the recipients of the full year fellowships as well as the summer fellowships.

All awards are made by The Bancroft Library Fellowship Committee. All applications and awards will be made within the framework of existing fellowship programs. The applicant will conduct the research project within one year of notification.

For further instructions on how to apply for a Bancroft Library Study Award, please see How to apply.

See list of winners. 

Application deadline is the first Monday in February by 5 p.m.

Eligibility for awards

The Gunther Barth Fellowship, established in memory of Gunther Barth, Professor of History, supports projects at The Bancroft Library by formally enrolled college and university students, regardless of academic degree sought.

Such projects will generally be in the area of nineteenth-century history of the North American West, with preference given to areas of special interest to Professor Barth: the environment, exploration, immigrants, urban history, cultural landscapes, and built environments (such as city or memorial parks).

Size of awards

This fellowship is offered for short term research projects. Awards may be used to defray travel expenses, living expenses, or research costs.

For applicants

All awards are made by The Bancroft Library Fellowship Committee. All applications and awards will be made within the framework of existing fellowship programs. The applicant will conduct the research project within one year of notification.

For more details on applying for the Gunther Barth Fellowship, please see How to apply.

2021-2022 academic year

Cycle cancelled due to Covid-19

2020-2021 academic yearr

Laura Gómez, Farmworkers’ Labor Camps: Race, Gender and the Family in California’s Central Valley, 1880-1940

Cooper Weissman, Invasive Bodies, Natural Borders: Eugenics, Conservation and Eco-nativism in the U.S. 1918-1988

2019-2020 academic year

Yoav Hamdani, Uncle Sma's Slaves: Slavery in the United States Regular Army, 1797-1865

Lorraine Dias Herbon, "Give 'em Jessie": The Life of Jessie Benton Frémont

Mark Jordan Keagle, Cold Commodities: Ice and the Building of the American West, 1848-1945

2018-2019 academic year

Charnan Williams, Slavery and Freedom in the City of Angels: Black and Indian Angelenos from the Mexican Period to the United States Civil War, 1820–1865

2017-2018 academic year

William Cowan, The Pacific Slope Megaflood of 1861-1862

2016-2017 academic year

Richard Soash, Tempered Inclusion: Syrian-Lebanese and Armenian Mobility in the U.S. Progressive Era

2015-2016 academic year

John Suval, Dangerous Ground: Squatters, Statesmen, and the Rupture of American Democracy, 1830–1860

Laura Fravel, Gazing Westward: The Quest for Unity in American Art Displays at the World's Fairs, 1876–1916

2014-2015 academic year

Darren Raspa, Pacific Policeways: Grassroots Control and Power in San Francisco, 1850-1950

2013-2014 academic year

Travis Ross, Machines of Memory: Hubert Howe Bancroft's History Company and the Making of Western History

2012-2013 academic year

Daniel Lynch, The Lost Cause of the Californio: Southern and Californio Convergence in Southern California, 1846-1920

2011-2012 academic year

Michael Caires, Greenbacks in the Golden State: California, Legal Tender and the State Resistance during the Civil War

2010-2011 academic year

Christina Salerno, Fire: Not a Natural Disaster

Mackenzie Moore, Our Hearts Are Unalienated from the Land of Our Birth: Isolation and the Americanization of Oregon, 1834-1859

2009-2010 academic year

Alexander Olson, Scars and Signs: Natural History at the University of California, 1869-1906

2008-2009 academic year

Richard Welker, The Culture of Agrarian Capitalism: Farmers, Neighbors, and Economic Relationships in Nineteenth Century California

Application deadline is the first Monday in February by 5 p.m.

Eligibility for awards

Prizes are open to undergraduates currently enrolled at UC Berkeley. Kenneth E. Hill and Albert Shumate established the prizes to encourage Berkeley students to collect books, to build their own libraries, to appreciate the special qualities of the printed word, and to read for pleasure and education.

The Hill-Shumate Prize awards $1,500 to the winning entry and $1,000 for second place. In addition, all entrants will receive one-year gift memberships in the Friends of The Bancroft Library.

To be considered for the Hill-Shumate Prizes, collections must include at least 50 items. Collections may:

• Cover specific authors or subjects, contemporary or historical
• Stress bibliographical features (edition, illustrations, binding, etc.)
• Include paperbacks and ephemeral material, as long as they significantly reflect the purposes of the collection 

Modern textbooks should not be submitted.

Judges will give special consideration to how well the collection reflects the student's stated goals and interests. Age, rarity, or monetary value of material in the collections submitted is less important than the thought, creativity, and persistence demonstrated in defining a collection and bringing it into being.

For applicants

The statement of purpose section of your Hill-Shumate Book Collecting Prize application should include:

A brief essay of up to 1,000 words describing:  

• The nature and character of the collection
• How and why it was assembled 
• When it was begun 
• Its significance
• The future direction(s) the collection may take.

An informal list of the items in the collection, citing:

• Author
• Title
• Place and date of publication
• Type of binding
• Condition
• Optional annotations on the importance of individual pieces.

After reviewing the essays and lists, the judges may ask finalists to bring selected items from their collections to The Bancroft Library for final judging.

For further instructions regarding how to apply for The Hill-Shumate Book Collecting Prize, and to download the application form referenced above, please see the How to apply section of this page.

2021

Cycle cancelled due to Covid-19

2020

First Place

Nicole Su-Wen Lee, A Library of Dragons: Friend not Foe

Second Place

Geraint R. H. Hughes, Historical Fiction from Alexander to Napoleon

2019

Ian Stevens Erickson, Geometry: The Diagram and The Description

2017

Henry Weikel, Visual Legacy of Late 20th Century Science Fiction

2016

Elise Levin-Guracar, Education in America: Policy, Practice, Theory, and History

2015

Samuel Diener, Down to the Sea in Ships:Voyage Narratives and the Epistemic Power of Fictionality

2014

No award granted

2013

First Place

Reginald James, Oakland, California: The Epicenter of the Black Radical Imagination

Second Place

Rebecca Peters, Water, Rights, and the Spirit of Resistance in Latin America

Third Place

Hunam Rostomyan, A Logico-Philosophical Collection

2012

Luciano Concheiro, Becoming Mexican: A Collection

2011

Kathleen O'Connell, Library of Books in Warfare: Military History and Fiction

2010

Anthony James Wright, Traditions of the University of California: Yearbooks

2009

First Place

Kathleen O'Connell, Library of Books in Myths, Legends, and Fantasy

Second Place

Candace Cunard, Science Fiction Through the Years: A Critical/Historical Collection

Third Place

Steven Broderick, Classical Latin and Greek Literature

2008

Rhae Lynn Barnes, The Print Culture of American Amateur Minstrelsy, Blackface Plays, and Dialect in Black Literature (circa 1890s-1940s)

2007

First Place

Sudev Jay Sheth, Library of Books in Northern Indian Classical Vocal and Percussion Music

Second Place

Ashley Fiutko, Library of Books in Ancient Egypt

Third Place

Christopher Montes, Library of Books in Modern American Military History

2006

First Place

Alexis Ashot, Library of Books in Russian Published in the 20th Century

Second Place

Gustavo Buenrostro, Encountering Mexico: History, Politics, and Culture

Third Place

Matt Werner, Jorge Luis Borges and the McSweeney's School

2005

No award granted

2004

First Place

Raul Diaz, Evolutionary Biology and Herpetology

Second Place

Billy Chen, Feminist and Queer Cultural Studies and Psychoanalysis

Third Place

David Singer, Jewish Religion and History

2003

First Place

Danielle Peterson, The Poet, John Ashbery

Second Place

Anobel Odisho, Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology

Third Place

Mai Der Vang, Hmong Culture

2002

No award granted

2001

First Place

David Weinrich, Classics

Second Place

Ken Chen, Modern Poetry

2000

Sean Nye, Scottish Literature

1999

First Place

Lyubov Golburt, Poetry

Second Place

Carolyn Babauta, Beat Poets

Third Place

Christina Tran, World Literature

Application deadline is the first Monday in February by 5 p.m.

Eligibility for awards

The program will support original research relating to the depth and breadth of the Jewish experience in California from 1848, the beginning of the Gold Rush era to 1915, the opening of the Pan Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, with preference for the relation to the California Gold rush experience. The research must include investigation of the original and related secondary materials of the Bancroft Library

Robert E. Levinson, PhD, was an historian and pioneer scholar in the study of the Jewish experience in the California Gold Rush. His doctoral thesis, The Jews in the California Gold Rush, University of Oregon, 1968, and subsequent book of the same title, published by the Judah L. Magnes Museum, Berkeley, 1978, opened an exciting chapter for researchers to examine the complexity, diversity, and impact of the Jewish experience in early California history.

The Robert E. Levinson Fellowship for the study of the history of Jews in California has been established by the Commission for the Preservation of Pioneer Jewish Cemeteries and Landmarks in the West. This fellowship has been established to encourage the further exploration of primary and related secondary resources to further expand the original research of Dr. Levinson.

Size of awards

The fellowship is offered in the amount of $1000. Awards may be used to defray travel expenses, living expenses or research costs.

For applicants

Please see the How to apply section of this page for further instructions.

On the application form, applicants should describe the purpose and scope of the proposed project, detailing sufficient information about relevant holdings of the Bancroft Library that would support the project. Indication of qualifications of the applicant to undertake the proposed work will help the review committee evaluate the proposal.

All awards are made by the Bancroft Library fellowship committee. No awards are made directly by the donor, The Commission for the Preservation of Pioneer Jewish Cemeteries and Landmarks. The applicant will conduct the research project within one year of the notification. The recipient will be asked to write a report for the Bancroft Library and the Commission for Preservation of Pioneer Jewish Cemeteries and Landmarks on their research.

2019

Michel Sunhae Lee, Contesting the Sabbath: A History of the Weekly Sacred Times in America, 1848–1920

2018

Benjamin Steiner, Ketubot from Early California: Jewish Acculturation in the American West

2017

Lori Harrison-Kahan, The Deghettoization of American Jewish Literature: Pioneering Women Writers in the Progressive Era

Application deadline is the first Monday in February by 5 p.m.

Eligibility for awards

Meyers-Putnam Family Bancroft Library Fellowship established in 2007 celebrates the important role of the University of California, Berkeley in the lives of its family members: Leslie O. Meyers (BS Mechanical Engineering, 1922), Kathryn P. Meyers, Peggy Jane Meyers Putnam (BA Physics, 1948; C.LS 1949), and Malcolm G. Putnam (BA Labor/Industrial Relations, 1953; MBA 1955). Leslie O. Meyers served as Captain of the 1921 Cal baseball team. Jane Meyers Putnam was employed as a UC Berkeley technical reference librarian from 1949 through 1955.

This fellowship supports research at The Bancroft Library by undergraduates currently enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley.

Size of awards

This fellowship is offered in the amount of $1000. Awards may be used to defray travel expenses, living expenses, or research costs.

For applicants

All awards are made by The Bancroft Library Fellowship Committee. All applications and awards will be made within the framework of existing fellowship programs. The applicant will conduct the research project within one year of notification.

To apply for the Meyers-Putnam Family Bancroft Library Fellowship, please see the How to apply section of this page.

2021-2022

Cycle cancelled due to Covid-19

2020-2021

Gitika Nalwa, Strange Fruit: Male Racial Identity and the American Wilderness, 1830-1950

2019-2020

Emma Bianco, What are They Doing to your Children? Examining Orange County's Right-Wing War on Progressive Education in the 1960s

Application deadline is the first Monday in February by 5 p.m.

Eligibility for awards

The Arthur J. Quinn Memorial Fellowship was established in memory of Arthur Quinn (1942-1997), Professor of Rhetoric.  These fellowships support research by doctoral candidates (i.e., those who shall have been advanced to candidacy by the time the fellowship is taken up) in the history of California from any recognized institution of higher education in the United States or abroad, with a preference for students carrying out research in The Bancroft Library. Applicants must be enrolled in an accredited university.

Size of awards

This fellowship is offered for short term research projects. Awards may be used to defray travel expenses, living expenses, or research costs.

How to apply

Applicants should indicate the scope and purpose of their proposed projects and how collections at The Bancroft Library will support their research. All awards are made by The Bancroft Library Fellowship Committee. All applications and awards will be made within the framework of existing fellowship programs. The applicant will conduct the research project within one year of notification.

For more details on applying for an Arthur J. Quinn Memorial Fellowship, please see the How to apply section above.

2021-2022 academic year

Cycle cancelled due to Covid-19

2020-2021 academic year

Nicholas Anderman, Anachronic Ocean: Automation and the Time of Labor in Maritime Shipping

Kyle DeLand, Land Monopoly and the Crisis in California Settler Society 1860-1890: Liberalism, Law and Empire

Kevan Malone, Borderline Sustainability: Urbanization and Environmental Diplomacy at the Tijuana-San Diego Boundary 1919-1999

2019-2020 academic year

Grace Morrison Goudiss, California Converts: New Religious Movements and American Politics, 1965-1989

Arang Ha, Free Labor, Free Trade, Free Immigration: The Vision of the Pacific Community After the Civil War

Lauren Paige Hunter, Meals of Change: San Francisco Food Activism in the 1960s and 1970s

Antonina Griecci Woodsum, Fiesta Immemorial: Native and Settler Political Economies in Southern California

Tian Xu, Navigating Worthiness in America: White Attorneys, Chinese Immigrants, and African American Civil War Pensioners, 1873-1910

2018-2019 academic year

Ivon Padilla-Rodriguez, Hidden in the Fields: The Racial Politics of Laboring Childhoods in California and the Limits of Reform

Calvin Snyder, The State and the Underworld, Los Angeles, 1919–1973

2017-2018 academic year

Richard Elliott, A Nation of Silver and Gold: Comstock Mines, California Finance, and the Business of Making Money in America, 1860-1879

Rosario Vasquez Montano, Tras los pasos de Ethel Duffy Turner: La Mujer que Recuperó su Propia Sombra / In the Footsteps of Ethel Duffy Turner: The Woman Who Recovered her Own Shadow

2016-2017 academic year

Julia Lewandoski, Surveying Settler Treaties and Indigenous Land Tenure in North America, 1763-1856

Emilie Raymer, Evolution for the Twentieth Century: Carl Sauer and the Development of Cultural Geography, 1920-1950

2015-2016 academic year

Kevin Waite, The Slave South in the Far West: California, the Pacific, and Postslavery Visions of Empire

Josi Ward, A Place for Our Landless Farmers: Recovery and Reform in the FSA Migratory Labor Camps

2014-2015 academic year

Alanna Hickey, The Forms of National Belonging: Cherokee Poetry in Gold-Rush California

Minyoung Lee, The California Gold Rush, American Empire, and the Transformation of a Pacific World, 1848-1898

Thomas Richards, The Texas Moment: Breakaway Republics and Contested Sovereignty in North America, 1836-1846

2013-2014 academic year

Gregory Rosenthal, Work, Body, and Environment in the Hawaiian Diaspora, 1786-1876

Simone Diender, Expert Power in the Knowledge Economy: Clark Kerr, The University of California, and Private Citizenship in the 1940s-60s

2012-2013 academic year

Jessica Christian, Return to the Mission: Gendered Bonds, Women, and Colonization in San Diego, 1769-1910

2011-2012 academic year

Emmanuelle Perez, Between the United States of Mexico and the United States of America: Californios and Politics, 1821-1879

Application deadline is the first Monday in February by 5 p.m.

Eligibility for awards

The Reese Fellowship in American Bibliography and the History of the Book in the Americas have been established by the William Reese Company to encourage research on material printed in or related to the Americas. The fellowships support qualified individuals at the institutions participating in the fellowship program, regardless of academic degree, who are pursuing research in the areas listed below.

The program will support research relating to print culture in any part of the Western Hemisphere, or any investigation of the history of the book in the Americas. Preference will be given to projects in materials printed prior to 1920. Projects may investigate any printed genre (e.g. books, prints, pamphlets, photographs intended for publication, broadsides). They may be purely bibliographical, or they may address any issues of ownership, readership, or use of printed materials. Support for work in manuscript collections will be limited to projects related to printed materials (e.g. annotations in books, publishers' business archives, etc.). They are not intended to support the editing of an author's papers.

Size of awards

The fellowship is offered in the amount of $2,500, to support a month of study. Awards may be used to defray travel expenses, living expenses, or research costs. It is assumed that the recipient of the award will be in residence for whatever term is set by the awarding institution.

For applicants

To apply for the Reese Fellowship, please see the please see the How to apply section of this page.

Indication of qualification of the applicant to undertake the proposed work will help the review committee evaluate the proposal.

All awards are made by The Bancroft Library Fellowship Committee. No awards are made directly by William Reese Company. All applications and awards will be made within the framework of existing fellowship programs. If applying for a Reese fellowship at more than one institution in one year, this should be clearly stated in the application.

The applicant will conduct the research project within one year of notification. All recipients will be asked to write a brief report on their research for The Bancroft Library and the William Reese Company.

2021-2022 academic year

Cycle cancelled due to Covid-19

2020-2021 academic year

Rafael Cerpa, Exploring the Sources of the Enlightenment in Hispanic America

2019-2020 academic year

No award granted

2018-2019 academic year

Carla Fumagalli, The Editorial and Paratextual Representation of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz and Her Work in Her First Editions (1689, 1692, and 1700)

2017-2018 academic year

No award granted

2016-2017 academic year

No award granted

2015-2016 academic yearr

Albert Palacios, Preventing "Heresy": Publishing in Sixteenth-Century Mexico

2014-2015 academic year

Maria Belen Bistue, Multilingual-Translation Practices and Multi-Version Texts Printed in Colonial Spanish America, 1530-1800

2013-2014 academic year

Garrett Morrison, The Place of Print: Publication and the Regional Imagination in the Mining West, 1849-1869

2012-2013 academic year

Bert Emerson, Local Rules: The Alternative Democracies of Mid-19th Century American Fiction

2011-2012 academic year

Benjamin Reed, Devotion to Saint Philip Neri in Colonial Mexico City, 1657-1821

2010-2011 academic year

Christina Cruz Gonzalez, The Published Sermon as Reflection and Extension of Faith and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Queretaro

2009-2010 academic year

Daniel Wasserman, Translating the Words of God: Evangelization and the Politics of Language in the Spanish World, 1524-1700

2008-2009 academic year

Andrina Tran, Resurrecting the Forgotten Cookbook

Application deadline is the first Monday in February by 5 p.m.

Eligibility for awards

Donald Sidney-Fryer is a surviving member of Clark Ashton Smith's literary circle, having been his student at the end of Smith's life. In the realm of scholarship, Sidney-Fryer's bio-bibliography of Clark Ashton Smith, Emperor of Dreams (1976) remains the cornerstone of all Smith studies.

The Donald Sidney-Fryer Fellowship, funded by the Aeroflex Foundation, supports scholarly use of primary source materials at The Bancroft Library related to the works of writers, poets, artists and their community collectively referred to as the West Coast Romantics. Notable members of this group, located in Northern California, include Ambrose Bierce, Jack London, Robinson Jeffers, Mary Austin, George Sterling, Clark Ashton Smith, Nora May French, Henry Lafler, James Marie Hopper, Gelett Burgess, Sinclair Lewis, and Xavier Martinez.

The Fellowship is intended to support qualified researchers regardless of academic degree.

Size of awards

The fellowship is offered in the amount of $2500, to support a month of study. Awards may be used to defray travel expenses, living expenses, or research costs. It is assumed that the recipient of the award will be in residence for whatever term is set by the awarding institution.

For applicants

The Fellowship is intended to support qualified researchers regardless of academic degree. Indication of qualification of the applicant to undertake the proposed work will help the review committee evaluate the proposal. All awards are made by The Bancroft Library Fellowship Committee. All applications and awards will be made within the framework of existing fellowship programs.

The applicant is expected conduct the research project within one year of notification. All recipients will be asked to write a brief report on their research for The Bancroft Library and the Aeroflex Foundation.

To apply for a Donald Sidney-Fryer Fellowship, please see the How to apply section of this page.

2021-2022

Cycle cancelled due to Covid-19

2020-2021

No award given

2019-2020

Erik Russ Davis, Clark Ashton Smith and the California Weird

2018-2019

Ian Fetters, Icy Portents of Doom: Clark Ashton Smith’s Hyperborean Cycle and the Polar Mythos