The Texas State Library and Archives Commission (TSLAC) and the Texas Library and Archives Foundation are pleased to announce the recipients of the 2022 TSLAC Research Fellowship in Texas History. The $2,000 fellowship is awarded to applicants with the best research proposals utilizing collections at the State Archives in Austin. Administered through the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA), the awards are presented each year at the TSHA annual meeting.
The recipients of the 2022 fellowships are Caitlyn Jones, “Texas Women and International Women’s Year;” Andrew Busch, “High Tech Texas: Public Institutions, Regional Economic Development, and the Myth of Free Markets;” and Christopher Phillips, “Dissent and Disorder in the Southern Confederacy.”
Caitlyn Jones is a graduate student at the University of Houston interested in the Texas International Women’s Year Coordinating Committee Records held at the State Archives. Jones will write a journal article that “analyzes the Texas Women’s Meeting through the lens of race and ethnicity” and may include the work as a chapter in her dissertation. Jones will also use her research to produce an essay as part of a digital humanities project at her institution about the National Women’s Conference, Sharing Stories from 1977. Jones’ research will raise awareness about this significant event and inform the academic community and the public about these key records at TSLAC.
Andrew Busch is an assistant professor at Coastal Carolina University wishing to conduct research at the State Archives as part of his forthcoming book project from University of Texas Press, High Tech Texas: Public Institutions, Regional Economic Development, and the Myth of the Free Market. Busch points to the collections in TSLAC’s holdings such as Texas Governor Mark White Records and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board Records as being key to his research. The project offers potential insight into specific aspects of the history of the state in the 20th century, including the history of technology, science and the political economy. Busch’s project represents a more current examination of recent Texas history and will help highlight collections less frequently used in research.
Christopher Phillips is a professor at the University of Cincinnati who has published extensively on Civil War topics and whose most recent book on the subject received numerous awards. While this era and the collections identified by Phillips are both quite popular with TSLAC researchers, Phillips has been looking at the diverse groups of dissenters and extracting data from primary sources in a number of repositories, including TSLAC. Phillips’s work should offer new information about Texans and the Civil War.
“Each year, I am more impressed with the number of strong applications and the diversity of topics represented by the proposals,” said State Archivist Jelain Chubb. “We are pleased to support projects that help students, the public and others form a greater understanding of the history of our state and the integral value of the primary sources.”
The 2022 TSLAC Research Fellowship in Texas History awards were announced Friday, February 25, at an awards luncheon at the TSHA annual meeting in Austin.