Patrick Henry History Fellowship 2025-2026 ($45,000 stipend) Deadline: 15 January, 2025

Applications are open for the Patrick Henry History Fellowship 2025-2026. The Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience invites applications for its full-time residential fellowship, which supports outstanding work on American history and culture by both scholars and nonacademic authors.

The Starr Center, located at Washington College in Chestertown, Md., is an interdisciplinary center dedicated to fostering innovative approaches to the American past, and to promoting excellent writing on history, for general as well as academic audiences. The 2025-2026 Patrick Henry Fellow will maintain full-time residence in Chestertown throughout the term of the award, although short-term research travel is permitted. The fellow will teach an undergraduate seminar at Washington College in the spring semester and give at least one public lecture or workshop related to his or her work. The fellowship must begin before September 15, 2025.

Benefits

The fellowship includes:

• Stipend: $45,000
• Health Benefits
• Book Allowance
• Faculty Privileges
• Nine-Month Residency in a historic 18th-century house in Chestertown, MD
• Office Space at the waterfront Custom House
• Opportunity to teach an undergraduate seminar and present a public lecture or workshop

Eligibility

• Applicants should have a significant project currently in progress — a book, film, oral history archive, podcast series, museum exhibition, or similar work. The project should address the history and/or legacy – broadly defined – of the U.S. founding era and/or the nation’s founding ideas. It might focus directly on early America, or on the myriad ways the questions that preoccupied the nation’s founding generation have shaped America’s later history. Work that contributes to ongoing national conversations about America’s past and present, with the potential to reach a wide public, is particularly sought.
• Applications from published writers and established scholars are welcome. Dissertation projects will not be considered; first-book projects are likewise discouraged unless the applicant has an otherwise extensive publication history.
• Candidates who have completed the majority of their research and are focused on the writing phase of their projects are especially encouraged to apply. 

Application

Applications should include the following:

• A cover letter;
• The applicant’s curriculum vitae, including a list of past publications, as well as the names and telephone numbers of at least three references;
• At least one substantial sample of the candidate’s writing (published or unpublished);
• A short (1-2 paragraph) description of a course that the candidate might teach;
• A brief but persuasive narrative description of the work-in-progress, its potential contributions to ongoing national conversations or debates, and the candidate’s plan for his or her fellowship year.

Applications may be submitted via email or a single PDF document mailed to: [email protected]

For more information, visit Patrick Henry History Fellowship.