Allan Sharlin Memorial Award

Sharlin Award Recipients, 1984-1994

Students who received the Sharlin award during the past ten years have told us in their own words what the fellowship meant to them.

Note: This text was written in 1993. For descriptions of more recent fellows' dissertation research, please see Sharlin listings on the "Past Fellows at the Institute of International Studies" page.

1984-1985
Mark Steinberg

Assistant Professor, Department of History, Yale University

As a historian, receiving the award did much to encourage me to think seriously and creatively about the interdisciplinary study of society, especially across the boundaries between social science and the humanities. Tangibly, the award helped support my work on my dissertation, based on research in the Soviet Union, which I have since much revised and published as Moral Communities: The Culture of Class Relations in the Russian Printing Industry, 1867-1907 (University of California Press, 1992). Also based on this work is "Culture and Class in a Russian Industry: The Printers of St. Petersburg, 1860-1905," Journal of Social History (Spring 1990). My current research on working-class intellectuals in Russia from 1907 to 1927 remains committed to principles of interdisciplinary and theoretically-informed empirical work that the Sharlin grant encouraged.

Since 1989 I have been an assistant professor in the Department of History at Yale, following two years in the Department of History at Harvard. In addition to teaching courses on nineteenth- and twentieth-century Russia and on methods of social and cultural history, I am Director of Undergraduate Studies in Russian and East European Studies. Besides continuing my study of working-class intellectuals in revolutionary Russia, I am also preparing, together with a Russian scholar, a collection of archival documents on the Russian revolution.

1984-1985
Patrick Galloway

Associate Specialist, Department of Demography, University of California at Berkeley

The Sharlin Award provided some of the financial support I needed to pursue my research on the relationship between annual variations in vital events, living standards, and weather in pre-industrial Europe. This research was incorporated into my dissertation, from which I was able to publish a number of articles. Today I am engaged in research concerning the demographic transition in Germany and the demographic reconstruction of populations in pre-industrial Europe.

1985-1986
Laird Boswell

Department of History, University of Wisconsin at Madison

The Allan Sharlin Memorial Award provided me with crucial funding for the writing-up stage of my dissertation on "Rural Communism in France, 1920-1939: The Example of the Limousin and the Dordogne." I had recently returned from two years of research in France and found myself quickly bogged down working as a teaching assistant with little time to write. Thanks to the award, I was able to devote myself full time to writing, and it was as a Sharlin Fellow that I completed the first two chapters of the thesis. I defended the dissertation in June of 1988 and have since published an article summarizing some of the arguments in the Journal of Interdisciplinary History (Spring 1993).

Between 1988 and 1991 I was a Mellon Postdoctoral Instructor in History at the California Institute of Technology, and in 1992 I taught on a visiting basis at the Department of History at the Université de Provence (Aix-en-Provence, France). I am currently completing revisions for the publication of the dissertation and am beginning research on problems of cultural and social identity in twentieth century Alsace-Lorraine.

1986-1987
Jasna Capo

Researcher, Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research, Zagreb, Croatia

The Allan Sharlin Award was an extremely valuable support for my project, "Comparative Research on Socioeconomic and Cultural Underpinnings of Four Croatian Parishes." It enabled me to continue working, especially to travel in search of archival documents kept in places other than Zagreb, my home city. This search was indispensable because I needed very fine, micro-level data for my research. The rich documents that were located at these sites, their transcription, and computer processing, which were all made possible by the award, were later incorporated into my doctoral dissertation, "Economic and Demographic History of Peasant Households on a Croatian Estate, 1756-1848." In 1991 I published an abridged version of the dissertation in Croatia.

Before my present position, I was a visiting lecturer from 1990 to 1992 in sociocultural anthropology at the Department of Ethnology at the University of Zagreb. My current research interests are twofold: I continue investigations in Croatian historical demography, especially in the history of family and household, and I do research into popular religion, especially into pilgrimage and ritual. Although I work in Croatia with Croatian data, I place all my research in a comparative European context. So far I have published a book, about a dozen papers, and an equal number of reviews. I have participated in several conferences in Croatia and abroad.

1986-1987, 1987-1988
Richard Biernacki

Department of Sociology, University of California at San Diego

My dissertation compared the cultural construction of factory practices in nineteenth-century Germany and Britain. Upon completion, this project received the 1989 American Sociological Association's Dissertation Award. As a book now--The Fabrication of Labor: A Comparison of Germany and Britain, 1640-1914--it is in press with the University of California.

I taught one year at the University of Chicago as an assistant professor before transferring to the University of California at San Diego to focus on instruction in historical and cultural sociology. With support from the Social Science Research Council and the MacArthur Foundation, I have undertaken a new project comparing the interplay between national cultures in the German-Polish and U.S.-Mexican borderlands.

1988-1989
Stephen Kotkin

Assistant Professor, Department of History, Princeton University

The Allan Sharlin Memorial Award enabled me to complete my dissertation more rapidly than otherwise would have been the case. I took advantage of the extra time gained to travel to Russia in the spring and summer of 1989 for six months of new research before taking up employment at Princeton. My dissertation is scheduled to be published as a book next year under the title Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization (University of California Press). The research I conducted in 1989 after completing my dissertation led to the book Steeltown, USSR, published in 1991.

1988-1989
Anita Tien

Assistant Professor of History, Wellesley College

I first heard of Allan Sharlin in my first year of graduate school, when I was taking a course on historical demography. Because aspects of my own work include family reconstitution and historical demography, it meant very much to me, four years later, that the research for my dissertation, "'To Enjoy Their Customs': The Cultural Adaptation of Dutch and German Families in the Middle Colonies, 1660-1832" was supported in part by an Allan Sharlin Award. It was then, and it is now, an honor to benefit from his intellectual legacy and the award that bears his name.

Today at Wellesley, I teach courses in colonial and revolutionary America, immigration, and family history. I am currently working on a book based on my dissertation and entitled Relocating Ethnicity: The Importation of Dutch and German Culture in the Middle Colonies, 1660-1832.

1989-1990
Carl Ipsen

Visiting Professor, Istituto di Richerche sulla Popolazione (Institute of Population Research), Italian National Research Council

I used the Sharlin award while in Italy researching my doctoral dissertation, "Dictating Demography: The Problem of Population in Fascist Italy," filed at the Department of History in August, 1992. I was particularly pleased to receive the Sharlin award because I intend to use my dissertation research to write a book which will be of interest to both historians and demographers, as well as those in other disciplines. In this research, I consider both basic historiographical questions regarding fascist Italy and also the statistical and theoretical activities of demographers in the period. Indeed, the initial inspiration of this project was to consider the scientific activities of demographers in the political context of fascism. As the project has developed, this latter aspect has not been abandoned, though the demographic policy itself has come to dominate.

In my present position, in addition to attending various historical and demographic conferences, I have given a series of seminars here at the institute and at the University of Rome. I have also begun a new study of postwar Western European population polcies (family, migration, and intergenerational transfer policy) while continuing to prepare my dissertation for publication.

1989-1990
Peter Hoffenberg

Assistant Professor of History, California State University at Chico

The generosity of the Allan Sharlin Memorial Award Committee enabled me to complete my research on machinery, displays, and the introduction of industrialism at international exhibitions in Australia, England, and India. The archival research (in Britain, Australia, and the United States) and reproduction of illustrated materials (including slides) resulted in a conference paper delivered to the annual meeting of the Society for the History of Technology in October, 1990, and completion of the dissertation chapter entitled "'Machines-in-Motion' and the Introduction of Industrialism."

Today I teach courses on Modern Britain, the British Empire, the Twentieth-Century World, European Cinema, and Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Europe. I also oversee master's examinations in Modern European and British History. I filed my dissertation in the spring of 1993; its title is "To Create a Commonwealth: Empire and Nation at English, Australian, and Indian Exhibitions, 1851-1914."

1990-1991
Lawrence Glickman

Assistant Professor of History, University of South Carolina

It was a great honor to receive the Allan Sharlin Memorial Award. It enabled me to devote the spring semester of that year exclusively to writing my dissertation. The time off from teaching also allowed me to complete some necessary final research. I filed my dissertation, "A Living Wage: Gender, Political Economy, and Consumerism in American Culture, 1880-1925" in July, 1992, thanks in large part to the Sharlin award. I am very grateful to the family of Allan Sharlin for the honor of holding a fellowship in his name.

I am now completing my first year as an assistant professor, specializing in American History since the Civil War.

1991-1992
Nancy Quam-Wickham

Doctoral Candidate, Department of History, University of California at Berkeley

Receiving the Allan Sharlin Memorial Award enabled me to undertake research critical to my dissertation. This work involved completing a study of the social backgrounds, work histories, and union membership of several thousand workers in the California oil industry between 1920 and 1935. This research was not only very productive, but has added important dimensions to my study: it has helped me both to explain why workers joined an industrial union before the New Deal era, and to document the existence of working-class centered suburban communities in the Los Angeles area before World War II. It is with deep appreciation that I thank the Sharlin family and the Allan Sharlin Memorial Award Committee for their generous support.

I expect to complete my dissertation, "Oil Workers and the Southern California Working Class, 1917-1940" and receive my Ph.D. in May of 1994.

1992-1993
Christopher Vaughan

Doctoral Candidate, Department of History, University of California at Berkeley

The Allan Sharlin Memorial Fellowship has enabled me to travel to the Philippines to research my dissertation, "Obfuscating a New Other, Defining a New Self: Public Discourse and the Colonization of the Philippines, 1898-1908," in which I examine images produced and consumed by Americans and Filipinos in the context of changing cultural norms and technological changes in communications. Special attention is paid to developing notions of American and Filipino identity. The project examines cross-cultural perspectives and the tension between official and unsanctioned discourse, particularly as revealed in popular media and culture as their importance grew at the turn of the century. I plan to finish the dissertation by the spring of 1994.

1993-1994
Ricardo Samuel

Doctoral Candidate, Department of Sociology, University of California at Berkeley

My dissertation, "From the First to the Second Scientific Revolution: Boundary Demarcations, Boundary Formations, and the Development of Mathematical Communities in England, 1703-1840: A Case Study on the Rise of Modern Science" postulates that the powerful presence of science in modern society rests on its achievement in drawing boundaries around its work, thus differentiating itself from other activities. My research investigates historically the drawing of those boundaries in the crucial case of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century English mathematics, which contributed greatly to the rise of modern science. In a larger sense, I will examine the conditions for the emergence and growth of expert knowledge.

The Allan Sharlin Memorial Fellowship funds enable me to conduct archival research in the United Kingdom, either at the Archives of the Royal Society of London or in the British Library. I hope to complete my archival work in February of 1994 and file my thesis in the spring semester of 1995.

See also Allan Sharlin's biography and Allan Sharlin's bibliography and awards.