The Early Research Initiative invites applications for two Morgan Library & Museum Graduate Archival Fellowships (Summer 2017). These $4,000 fellowships will be offered to Graduate Center Ph.D. students from any program with primary research interests related to the collections at the Morgan Library & Museum. The primary responsibilities of the award winners will be to collaborate with curators and librarians from the Morgan in order to process uncatalogued collections, improve public access to documents and related materials, and to gain experience in creating and organizing collections.

 

While the rich and diverse collections of the Morgan Library & Museum span the medieval period to the contemporary moment and embrace the global as well as the local, it is offering CUNY Fellows projects in select areas ranging from artists’ letters in the Rosenberg Collection to the archives of the Paris Review and Doc Humes. Please see the attached list of potential projects below; applications are welcomed for specific projects.

 

Fellowship recipients will be required to be in residence for 120 hours over the summer of 2017 at the Morgan working for scheduled times from 9:30 to 4pm on Monday through Friday. In addition, recipients will be required to do a brief public presentation on their work and write a blog post about their experiences at the end of the relevant semester. Additional opportunities for social media contributions to the Morgan’s accounts are also possible.

 

To apply please send a letter of interest describing your research interests and related experience with specific reference to one of the projects described below, a c.v., a current Graduate Center transcript (Students may submit the unofficial student copy that can be printed from banner), and a letter of support from your primary advisor.

 

Instructions for submitting your application:

1)     Please combine the above materials (except for the letter of recommendation) into a SINGLE file (either as a pdf document or a word document).

Use the following format when naming your document: Last Name, First Name, Program

2)     Email your file directly to fellowshipapps@gc.cuny.edu

Please use your graduate center email address when sending the file.

 

Instructions for Faculty Recommenders

1)     Prepare your reference letter as a regular word or pdf document.

2)     Please use the following format when naming your document:

Student Last Name, First Name

3)     Email your file directly to fellowshipapps@gc.cuny.edu

 

Application Deadline: Monday, April 24^th 2017 by 5:00 PM
Available projects, Summer
Doc Humes Papers (Literary & Historical Manuscripts)
Harold L. “Doc” Humes was a pivotal figure in the budding counterculture of the 1950s. A novelist,
filmmaker, inventor, and activist, Humes founded The Paris Review in 1953 together with Peter
Matthiessen and George Plimpton. The ca. 14-cubic-foot collection of Humes’s papers consists of
manuscripts, documents relating to various projects and patents, correspondence regarding The Paris
Review, personal correspondence and family papers, clippings, photographs, and audio visual
material. It has been inventoried and partially rehoused. This archival processing project would
address the next stage of processing: physically reorganizing the collection, and creating a finding
aid.
Paris Review Archive (Literary & Historical Manuscripts)
The 150+-cubic-foot collection consists of correspondence, typescripts, and galley proofs of several
hundred writers; editorial, production, and business correspondence; and other records of the
international literary journal from just before its founding in 1953 through 2003. The collection has
been described at the box level, but only a portion of it has been fully processed. This archival
processing project would continue the processing of the minimally-described parts of the collection.
Carter Burden Collection of American Literature (Literary & Historical Manuscripts)
In 2013, the Morgan received from the family of Carter Burden more than 400 manuscripts,
typescripts, screenplays, and correspondence to add to that collection of twentieth century American
literature. The collection includes authors such as Elizabeth Bishop, Ben Hecht, Sylvia Plath, John
Steinbeck, Tennessee Williams, and others. This project would focus on researching and individually
cataloging the works in this collection.
George Washington (Literary & Historical Manuscripts)
The Morgan has strong holdings in the letters of American presidents. This project would survey the
holdings in a targeted section of the collection and ensure that the location of each item is correctly
represented in the online catalog.
Artist letters from the Rosenberg Collection (Literary & Historical Manuscripts)
In 2013, the Morgan received approximately 300 artist letters as an accretion to the Rosenberg
collection. The letters, in French, are from the personal papers and professional correspondence of
Paul and Alexandre P. Rosenberg, leading art dealers of the late 19th and 20th centuries. The
collection includes letters of Salvador Dali, Edgar Degas, Alberto Giacometti, Henri Matisse, Pablo
Picasso, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Gertrude Stein, and others. This project would focus on researching
and individually cataloging the works in this collection, using a pre-existing finding aid as a guide.