Apply for a Research Fellowship with the BPL’s Special Collections Department

The Boston Public Library is proud to announce two new research fellowships to support the use of special collections:

• The Telling Boston's Stories Fellowships is a four-week fellowship, intended to support research projects whose focus is on the people and communities of Boston that are commonly left out of the historical narrative.
• The Surfacing Overlooked Stories Fellowship is an eight-to-ten-week fellowship intended to highlight often overlooked voices and narratives in our collections. The theme for the 2025-2026 Surfacing Overlooked Stories fellowship will be looking into Black life and culture from Boston’s founding in 1630 through Boston’s incorporation as a city in 1822.

We are currently accepting applications for both fellowships; applications are due on Monday, March 3, 2025. Details on how to submit an application can be found at the bottom of this post.

Telling Boston Stories Fellowship

The Boston Public Library's Special Collections Department is offering a four-week fellowship intended to support research projects whose focus is on the people and communities of Boston that are often left out of the historical narrative.

This fellowship can support a wide variety of projects, both academic and artistic. Successful topics for this fellowship could include projects looking at Boston’s Chinatown neighborhood and its history of community activism, the rise of Boston’s Little Syria neighborhood, the campaign from Villa Victoria residents to save their community from urban renewal displacement, or other projects that applicants may be interested in researching further.

Fellows will receive a $4,500 stipend, with the first half dispensed at the start of the fellowship and the second at the completion of the fellowship. Fellows will be expected to spend four weeks working with collections, primarily at the Boston Public Library and Northeastern University, though trips to other Boston cultural heritage institution or research centers may be included in the four weeks. The weeks do not have to be consecutive.

In addition to their research time, fellows will be asked to:

• Write a blog post on their research topic and collections utilized, to be published on the Boston Public Library’s website
• Work with the Community History Department at the Boston Public Library to create a workshop or program based on their research experience

Fellows will work with the Community History Department to run a program at a neighborhood branch of the Boston Public Library within four months of completing their research time. This program will use the fellow’s research experience as a launching point to encourage other community members to delve into their own research. Suggested formats include a short talk paired with a community discussion or story sharing session. The Programming & Outreach Librarian for Community History will support the fellow in developing a program.

Artists, independent scholars, graduate, and doctoral students are all encouraged to apply, as well as academics, community activists, and library, archives, and museum professionals. We particularly welcome applications from artists, scholars, and researchers who belong to the community or neighborhood they wish to study.

Surfacing Overlooked Stories Fellowship

The Boston Public Library's Special Collections Department is offering an eight-to-ten-week fellowship intended to highlight often overlooked voices and narratives in our collections.

The theme for the 2025-2026 fellowship will be looking into Black Bostonians from Boston’s founding through Boston’s incorporation as a city in 1822. Suggested collections for research include the Boston Town Records, Elijah Adlow Collection of Boston Legal History, Mellen Chamberlain Autograph Collection, and Boston Tax Records, 1780-1821, as well as city directories and newspapers held in our research collections.

Fellows will receive a $9,500 stipend, with the first half dispensed at the start of the fellowship and the second at the completion of the fellowship. Fellows are expected to research at the Boston Public Library's Special Collections Department for eight to ten weeks within their fellowship year, though these do not have to be consecutive weeks. Supplementary research with the Boston Public Library’s Research Collections will also count towards the research time.

In addition to their research time, fellows will be asked to:

• Give an informal talk to Research & Special Collections staff midway through their fellowship about their research
• Give a public talk at the Central Library in Copley Square on their research topic and collections they utilized at the end of their research time
• Create a narrative guide to identifying the voices of Black Bostonians in the collections they utilized

Fellows will work with the Special Collections Public Services Supervisor to create this narrative guide within four months of completing the research residency, to be published digitally by the Boston Public Library on a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 license. Fellows are welcome to publish, present with, or otherwise use their written work elsewhere and retain the copyright for their work. The fellow will not be processing collections or creating archival description or finding aids for materials. Staff may choose to augment collection description based on findings from this fellowship at a later date.

Masters and doctoral students, post-doctoral, academic, and independent scholars, and artists as well as curators and other library, archive, and museum professionals are welcome to apply. We particularly welcome applications from students and scholars who identify in groups that have been historically unrepresented in academia. We will look for fellows whose expertise and research interests align with our chosen theme of the year and whose research projects would be supported and informed by the collections they utilize during their research at the Boston Public Library.

How to apply for a fellowship

Fellowship applications are due on Monday, March 3, 2025. To apply for this fellowship, please email specialcollections@bpl.org. Please include in the subject line which fellowship you are applying to. Please also include the following documents:

• Cover letter
• Curriculum vitae or resume
• Writing sample (maximum 400 words, preferably public-facing; excerpts from larger works are fine)
• Project proposal, including explanation of how this fellowship would support and inform the project
• Proposed research dates and collection materials
  • For the Telling Boston Stories Fellowship include any other institutions and collections you would hope to use during the fellowship

If you have any questions about the fellowship or application process, please write to Special Collections Public Services Supervisor Kathleen Monahan at specialcollections@bpl.org. Please identify yourself as an applicant for a fellowship in your email.

The Associates of the Boston Public Library provides critical funding to support the long-term preservation and enhanced public access to BPL Special Collections, including this fellowship. Learn more about the Associates at https://www.associatesbpl.org/