The National Woman’s Party Research Fellowship Committee, coordinated by the Library of Congress Manuscript Division, made its inaugural grant award this year to Crystal Brandenburgh, a Ph.D. student in history at Carnegie Mellon University. We wish to thank everyone who submitted applications. Brandenburgh will research the topic: “Planning for Peace: The National Committee on the Cause and Cure of War and Women’s Interwar Peace Organizing,” and will examine the women’s interwar peace movement in the records of the National Woman’s Party, National Council of Jewish Women, National Women’s Trade Union League, League of Women Voters, and American Association of University Women (microfilm), all held in the Manuscript Division, as well as the Nina Allender Political Cartoon Collection in the Prints and Photographs Division. Her broad approach will draw important connections between concurrent, and sometimes rival, women’s movements. Brandenburgh’s work will illuminate the ties between the National Committee on the Cause and Cure of War (NCCCW), led by former suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt; various women’s organizations which participated in the peace movement, including the NWP; and the political rhetoric for peace at a time when women attempted to capitalize on their recent victory of the Nineteenth Amendment’s addition to the U.S. Constitution.
The National Woman’s Party (NWP), founded as the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage in 1913 by Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, fought for women’s suffrage and equal rights for women for more than a century. The NWP collaborated with the Library of Congress throughout much of the twentieth century to preserve the organization’s history by donating collection materials for scholarly research. In 2020, during the centennial year of the Nineteenth Amendment’s ratification, the NWP donated its remaining archival and book collections to the Library of Congress. Before ceasing operations as an independent non-profit, the NWP also established a fellowship to ensure long-term support for future research within the National Woman’s Party collection and other unparalleled women’s history collections at the Library of Congress.
As the home of the National Woman’s Party Records, the Manuscript Division administers the fellowship and is currently seeking applicants for the 2023 fellowship award (applications due by February 15, 2023). One fellowship will be awarded annually (with a stipend of up to $2,000) to be used to cover travel to and from Washington, D.C., overnight accommodations, as well as other research expenses. Awards will assist fellows in their ongoing scholarly research and writing projects on the NWP or on more broadly related topics within the fields of women’s and gender history, equality studies, women’s studies, or other subjects areas linked to the legacy of NWP. Proposals must demonstrate the need for onsite access to collections that are not yet completely digitized or readily available remotely. In the interest of increasing awareness and extending documentation of Library of Congress collections, fellows are required to make use of the Library’s extensive collections and be in residence for a minimum of at least five business days during the award period. For more information on application requirements, collection availability, and how to apply for the NWP Fellowship, please see the Manuscript Division’s Interns and Fellows page.