Newberry Library Short-Term Fellowships

The Newberry Library provides numerous short-term fellowships to enable scholars to work on projects related to the Newberry’s Core Collection. Researchers with short-term fellowships spend one to two months investigating specific collection items that are essential to their scholarship. These fellowship opportunities are open to scholars at the ABD stage and beyond. Short-term fellowships include:

General fellowships supporting scholars working in any field:

• Newberry Short-Term Resident Fellowships for Individual Research
• Fellows’ Fellowships
• The John S. Aubrey Fellowships

Topic specific fellowships:

• Newberry Library-American Musicological Society (AMS) Fellowship. Preference will be given to a scholar working in music or musicology.
• Newberry Library-American Society for Environmental History (ASEH) Fellowship.
• American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ASECS) Fellowship for research on the period 1660–1815.
• Rudolph Ganz Fellowship for research using the Rudolph Ganz Papers and other late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century materials related to Chicago music in that period.
• Charles Montgomery Gray Fellowship for all areas of study appropriate to the library’s collection. Preference will be given to those working in the early modern period or Renaissance, as well as in English history, legal history, or European history.
• Arthur and Janet Holzheimer Fellowship in the History of Cartography for projects related to the history of cartography, or which focus on cartographic materials in the Newberry’s collection.
• Midwest Modern Language Association (MMLA) Fellowship supporting scholars working on projects in literary and cultural criticism.
• Newberry Library-Jack Miller Center Fellowship for scholarship in those fields of study that will contribute to a deeper understanding of America’s founding principles and history and wider traditions that influenced its development.
• Society of Mayflower Descendants in the State of Illinois Fellowship for projects related to early American or Trans-Atlantic History.

Fellowships for scholars of North American Indian Heritage:

• Susan Kelly Power and Helen Hornbeck Tanner Fellowship for citizens of American Indian heritage to conduct research in any field in the humanities using the Newberry collection.
• The Frances C. Allen Fellowships supporting women of American Indian heritage. Preference for this award is given to non-tenured women working in any graduate or pre-professional field. Scholars working in all fields are welcome to apply.

Special note for Chicago residents: 

If you live or work in the Chicago metropolitan area, you may be eligible for a short-term fellowship at the Newberry. Several short-term fellowships may be awarded to scholars from the Chicago area who meet one or more of the following criteria:

• Graduate students at the all-but-dissertation, or ABD, stage (those who have completed all required coursework and successfully passed their qualifying exams and prospectus defense)
• Adjunct, non-tenure track, or part-time faculty
• Faculty whose teaching load is three courses or higher each semester/quarter throughout the academic year
• Community college or teaching track faculty
• Tenured or tenure-track faculty at Minority Serving Institutions
• Independent scholars
• Early career scholars, defined as scholars within five years of receiving their PhD

Eligibility:

Short-term fellowships are open to faculty members and postdoctoral scholars; PhD candidates with “All But Dissertation” (ABD) status; and scholars with terminal degrees in areas that do not offer a PhD, such as an MFA, MLIS, MSW, or JD.

The majority of Newberry fellowships are open to scholars of any nationality.

Deadline:

The deadline for short-term fellowships is December 15.