Matthew Sivils Awarded Research Fellowship

The Council of the American Antiquarian Society has awarded Dr. Matthew Wynn Sivils a Justin G. Schiller Fellowship to support his study of environmental literature for a book project entitled, The Rise of American Environmental Literature, 1782–1847. The fellowship will allow Sivils to spend one month in residence at the American Antiquarian Society (AAS) in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he will take advantage of the Society’s impressive archives of manuscripts, books, newspapers, and other literary and historical materials.

Sivils’ project traces the development of U.S. environmental literary thought, from formative works of natural historians, social commentators, and children’s authors, through the first stirrings of environmental fiction. He is examining how key (and now largely forgotten) works of early environmental thought contributed to a growing conception of the role of the environment, animals, and natural processes in the identity of the fledgling nation. From the American Antiquarian Society’s Website: “The American Antiquarian Society (AAS) is an independent research library founded in 1812 in Worcester, Massachusetts. The library's collections document the life of America's people from the colonial era through the Civil War and Reconstruction. Collections include books, pamphlets, newspapers, periodicals, broadsides, manuscripts, music, graphic arts, and local histories.”