Colonial Williamsburg Research Fellowships
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Become a Fellow
Colonial Williamsburg Fellows have access to the museums’ material culture collections, in addition to Colonial Williamsburg’s librarians, historians, archeologists, and curators. Colonial Williamsburg’s John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library is home to an extensive collection of seventeenth-, eighteenth-, and nineteenth-century books and manuscripts. The library also has a 60,000-volume circulating assortment of monographs and other secondary sources.
Williamsburg is conveniently located near Richmond, home to the Virginia Museum of History and Culture (formerly Virginia Historical Society), and the Library of Virginia, institutions that also hold significant collections of period documents.
Robert M. & Annetta J. Coffelt and Robert M. Coffelt Jr. Fellowship
The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation is pleased to invite applications for a range of short-term residential fellowships. Fellowships are an important component of Colonial Williamsburg’s educational mission. Fellowships primarily support research on topics related to Early America, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Virginia, the histories of marginalized people, and the history of Colonial Williamsburg, all broadly defined. Scholars in the fields of history, African American Studies, Women’s Studies, American Studies, anthropology, and other allied fields are encouraged to apply.
Preference will be given to projects rooted primarily in the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library collections. The committee will consider the clarity and viability of your project and its contributions to the scholarly community when assessing your application. Additionally, we will consider this project’s potential benefit to the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. This includes, but is not limited to, the project’s application to programming, training, and exhibit creation.
Fellows are expected to be in continuous residence at Colonial Williamsburg and to actively participate in the intellectual life of the Foundation's research, educational, and interpretive campus. Fellowships carry a stipend of $2,500 per month and are available to researchers with strong qualifications. Fellows must be in residence during the 2024 calendar year.
To apply for either fellowship, please submit your proposal in a single document, submitted electronically as a PDF or Word file via email to fellowships@cwf.org.
The document should include:
- The fellowship to which you are applying
- A succinct project abstract (maximum 250 words)
- A project description (not to exceed 750 words)
- A Resume (C.V.) (not to exceed 2 pages).
- A list of the specific collections to be consulted at the John D. Rockefeller library.
This Fellowship is currently closed.
EXARC Fellowship
The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation– EXARC Fellowship is intended to advance the investigation and interpretation of archaeological and experimental archaeological heritage by supporting research and scholarship through a partnership between EXARC, the international organization of Archaeological Open-Air Museums (AOAM) and Experimental Archaeology, and the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
This fellowship will fund a one month of scholarship in residence at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Successful proposals will demonstrate potential to advance the understanding and practice of reconstructive and experimental archaeology and its interpretation through structured experimentation to recreate material culture, technology, or life-ways of the past. Applicants need experience in ancient technology, experimental archaeology, or interpretation, applicable to the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation or 18th century America. Fellows are expected to be in continuous residence at Colonial Williamsburg and to actively participate in the intellectual life of the Foundation's research, educational, and interpretive campus. Fellowships run for one month totaling $2,500.
This Fellowship is currently closed.
How to Apply
Application Procedures
To apply for either fellowship, please submit your proposal in a single document, submitted electronically as a PDF or Word file via email to fellowships@cwf.org
The document should include:
- The fellowship to which you are applying
- A succinct project abstract (maximum 250 words)
- A project description (not to exceed 1,000 words)
- A Resume (C.V.) (not to exceed 2 pages).
- The names and contact information for two professional references who could provide a letter of recommendation at the request of the committee.
Please indicate in your proposal whether you are a U.S. Citizen, or if you are eligible to visit the U.S. for the required amount of time. Fellows are expected to be in continuous residence at Colonial Williamsburg and to actively participate in the intellectual life of the Foundation's research, educational, and interpretive campus. This will include a presentation of the Fellow’s research to staff and the public.
Past Fellows
Colonial Williamsburg fellows present portions of their research during their residence, where they engage directly with our community of scholars and interpreters. The list below highlights some of the topics studied by our most recent fellows.
2024
- Lauren Muney
EXARC Scholar
“The Itinerant Artist: Portraiting Early ALmerica Using Scissors, Soot and Beer” - Ashley Gilbert
Coffelt Fellowship
“Taverns as a window into eighteenth-century society”
2022
- Adam McNeill
Coffelt Fellowship
“I Would Not Go With Him: Black Women’s Survival and Resistance in the Revolutionary Era Tidewater.”
2020
- Giovanna Fregni
EXARC Fellowship
“Cuts Stones of all Sorts, In the Best Manner…”: Experiments in 18th Century Lapidary Work in America - Meg Roberts
Coffelt Fellowship
Domestic Caregiving in the American Revolution – see Meg’s fellowship report at Shots, Pots, and Pox: Researching Caregiving in Williamsburg during the Revolutionary War
2019
- Robert Cloutier
NEH 3D Visualization Fellow - James Mackay
Coffelt Fellowship
‘‘What They Call Free in This Country’’: Flight and Freedom in Revolutionary America, 1775-1783.
2018
- Warren Billings
Jack Miller Center Fellowship
Just laws for the happy guiding and governing of the people: Statute law in Colonial Virginia - Dusty Marie Dye
Coffelt Fellowship
A Decent External Sorrow: Death and Mourning in the 18th Century - Lauren Massari and Shayne Brandon
NEH 3D Fellowship
Then and Now 360° Panoramic Exploration of the Douglass Theatre Site - John Seidel
EXARC Fellowship
A multi-faceted project to pursue artifact analysis and structured experiments with Colonial Williamsburg Trades
2017
- Libby Cook
Ivor Noel Hume Fellowship in Archaeology
Public programs in Archaeology - Caroline Creeden
John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library fellowship
Eat Them, Toss Them, Fire Them: The Significance of the Oyster Shell in Colonial American Architecture & Landscape - Jobie Hill
NEH We the People fellowship
Saving Slave Houses - Nikola Krstovic
EXARC
Museum Off Boundaries - John Ragosta
Jack Miller Center fellowship
Patrick Henry, Federalist - Thomas Whitfield
Coffelt fellowship
Materializing Liberty - The material culture of the Wilkes and Liberty movement in colonial America
2016
- Janine Boldt
Coffelt fellowship
Research for dissertation on dissertation titled "Facing the Old Dominion: Portraiture in Colonial Virginia”. - Tim Breen
Jack Miller Center and John D. Rockefeller Jr fellowships
The Face of Revolution: American’s Domestic Enemies During the War for Independence - Sierra Dorschutz
NEH 3D fellowship
Colonial Williamsburg in 3D Motion - Brian Emery
NEH 3D fellowship
Robert Carter House Attic 3D - Odai Johnson
Jack Miller Center fellowship
Imagining the Rebellion: Theatre, Genre, and the Shape of the American Revolution - Russell Dylan Reudiger
Coffelt fellowship
Research for dissertation, which explores the meaning and practice of tributary relations between Virginians and a wide range of Algonquin, Siouan, and Iroquoian peoples of the Chesapeake and Piedmont during the 17th & 18th centuries. - Sarah Thomas
Coffelt fellowship
Long Gone Buildings & Indifferent Improvements: The Fleeting Material Culture of Mid-18th Century Shenandoah County, Virginia - Natalie Zacharewski
John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library fellowship
Whisperings around Williamsburg: Channeling Information during the Revolutionary War
2015
- Anne Bissonnette
John D. Rockefeller Jr Library fellowship
Reassessing the Macaroni - James Coltrain
NEH 3D fellowship
Azimuth 3D - Elizabeth Cook
Jack Miller Center fellowship
Creating the City at the Falls: Building Culture in Richmond, Virginia 1780-1860 - Jobie Hill
NEH We the People fellowship
Slave house database - Craig Gallagher
John D. Rockefeller Jr Library fellowship
Covenants and Commerce: Scottish Networks and the Making of the British Atlantic World 1660-1715 - Erin Holmes
NEH We The People fellowship
Within the House of Bondage: Constructing and Negotiating the Plantation Landscape in the 18th Century British Atlantic - Mary Richard McGuire
Jack Miller Center fellowship
Translating Natural Knowledge in an Age of Revolution: Tobacco, People, and Science in Benjamin Henry Latrobe’s Virginia Journals 1795 to 1798 - Daniel Maudlin
John D. Rockefeller Jr fellowship
Colonial Taverns - The Inn and the Traveler in the Atlantic World - Nikos Pappas
Gilder Lehrman fellowship
Keyboards and Keyboard Music of Colonial Williamsburg - Thomas Rogers
John D. Rockefeller Jr fellowship
Coercion and the Constitution - Sarah Thomas
Coffelt fellowship
Objects of the Early Southern Backcountry: The People of Shenandoah County and their Material Culture - Sally Tuckett
John D. Rockefeller Jr Library fellowship
Cloth, Clothing and Control: Dressing Slaves in the Eighteenth Century - Brittany Venturella
NEH 3D fellowship
A Virtual Reconstruction of Alexander Purdie’s Virginia Gazette Office in 1776 - Holly White
Gilder Lehrman fellowship
Adolescence in the Early Republican South: Conceptions of Age, Communities of Knowledge, and Youth Cultures.
