David Jaffee Fellowship in Visual and Material Culture

The David Jaffee Fellowship in Visual and Material Culture is named for David Philip Jaffee (1954-2017) who was a wonderful friend and favorite reader at AAS. Elected to membership in October 2007, Professor Jaffee was instrumental in the development of the Center for Historic American Visual Culture (CHAViC) at AAS, encouraging engagement with images, artifacts, books and photographs of all kinds in the study of American history. A longtime teacher at City College of New York and the Bard Graduate Center, he is remembered as a devoted teacher, generous colleague, and committed mentor who shared his passion for his work in the classroom as well as through special workshops, seminars and exhibitions. The fellowship will provide a stipend for the study and use of visual and material culture in the pursuit of research on all aspects of American history before 1900. It is open to both postdoctoral scholars and graduate students at work on doctoral dissertations.

Application Deadline

Fellows

DateNameAffiliationPosition
2025-26Wendy A. WolosonRutgers UniversityProfessor of HistoryThe Latest Novelties: New Goods and New Ideas in 19th-Century America
2024-25Augustine SedgewickIndependent WriterThoreau’s Pencil: A New History of Slavery, Abolition, Complicity, and Justice
2023-24Elizabeth BlockThe Metropolitan Museum of ArtSenior Editor, Publications and Editorial DepartmentHairdressing in the 19th Century
2022-23Phillippa PittsBoston UniversityPhD Candidate in History of Art & ArchitectureThe Self-Made Man: Race, Gender, and Disability in Antebellum Pharmaceutical Imaginaries
2020-21Laura PingPace UniversityAdjunct Assistant Professor of HistoryBeyond Bloomers: Fashioning Change Nineteenth-Century Dress
2019-20Chloe ChapinHarvard UniversityPhD Candidate in American StudiesThe False Universal of Nineteenth-Century Formal Attire: Uniformity, Masculinity, and Power
2018-19Joseph LarnerdStanford UniversityPhD Candidate in Art and Art HistoryThe Makings of Cut Glass in America, 1876-1916
2017-18Christopher AllisonHarvard UniversityPhD CandidateProtestant Relics: Encountering and Collecting the Body in Early America, 1770-1850