The Library Company of Philadelphia Fellowships Program
Applications for 2024–25 research fellowships have closed. We expect to notify applicants of the selection committees’ decisions by mid-April.
Applications for 2025–26 will open later this year.
The Library Company, founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1731 and located in Center City Philadelphia, holds over half a million rare books and graphics that are capable of supporting research in a variety of fields and disciplines relating to the history of the United States and the Atlantic world in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. The holdings include the nation’s second largest collection of pre-1801 American imprints and one of the largest collections of 18th-century British books in the United States. Information about the subject strengths of the collections can be found here.
Several categories of research support are available: long-term postdoctoral fellowships, long-term dissertation fellowships, and short-term fellowships. Some fellowships support research in particular areas of study (e.g., African American history, women’s history, medical history, economic history, visual culture) while others are open to applicants who wish to draw on any area of the Library’s Company’s collections.
Many short-term fellowships are awarded in partnership with the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, which is located in adjacent quarters on Locust Street, and fellows are encouraged to make use of both institutions’ holdings.
Fellows share opportunities to participate in the Philadelphia region’s vibrant intellectual life while conducting research in the print, graphics, manuscript, and art and artifacts collections held by the Library Company and the significant archival resources held by our Fellowships Program partner, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Fellows present their work-in-progress at informal colloquia and spend time with each other in the Cassatt House, an adjacent townhouse with shared spaces for gathering.
The fellowship program began in 1987 and now has more than a thousand alums. A list of past fellows and their topics is available here, along with a list of publications resulting from their fellowship research. Past fellows frequently return to the Library Company to present their work; see our YouTube page for archived programs and visit the Events page on our website to learn about upcoming programs.
Generous support for the Library Company’s Fellowships Program has been provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Albert M. Greenfield Foundation, the Barra Foundation, the McLean Contributionship, William Reese Company, the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, the Terra Foundation, and the following individuals: Davida Tenenbaum Deutsch, Drew Gilpin Faust, Beatrice Garvan, the late William H. Helfand, Louise M. and Peter J. Kelly, Randall M. Miller, Steven J. Peitzman, Laura Rosenberg, Jessica Rosenberg, Leah Rosenberg, John C. and Christine K. Van Horne, and several anonymous donors.
Image: Chestnut Street and Fifteenth Street. City of Philadelphia (detail). Pen and ink, graphite, gouache, and watercolor. Signed D.K., May 1849. Library Company of Philadelphia, Graphic Arts Dept., drawings & watercolors – K [P.2008.34.15]