Each year, the Center for the Study of Women awards a set of grants that are available only to research scholars affiliated with CSW. Called the Tillie Olsen Grants, they honor of the memory of a writer who documented the silences imposed on women by family and work responsibilities and financial need (see page 17).

We are pleased to announce that this year’s recipients of Tillie Olsen Grants are Kathleen Sheldon, Ernestina Osorio, and Nancy Deren. Grants may be used to support participation in scholarly conferences, travel to research sites, purchase specialized research materials, or for procurement of technical services.
The Research Scholars Program supports local independent scholars conducting a research project related to women, gender, or sexuality. Acceptance to the program is based on the quality of the proposed research. Scholars receive formal affiliation with CSW, library privileges, stationery, email accounts, personal web pages, and opportunities to participate in CSW programs.

Modern architecture in Mexico and in the U.S.

Ernestina Osorio’s research project examines the role of women in the promotion and acceptance of modern architecture in Mexico and in the United States during the 1930s to 1960s. She will use the Tillie Olsen Grant to support travel to consult the Esther McCoy Papers at the Archives of American Art of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. She will closely study how McCoy sustained important cultural exchange in the mid-twentieth century.

Blue River Lake

Nancy Deren is writing a feature-length narrative film script inspired by communities that have been altered by the building of hydroelectric dams. Blue River Lake focuses on a mother and daughter whose stories embody their different historical placement: one who has lived through dislocation and lost community, the other growing up in a region typified by vacationing tourists and urbanite second homes. The film deals with issues of single motherhood, class and social status, political protest, and the paradox of progress. The Tillie Olsen Grant will be used to support further historical research for the script.

Diary of Sylvia Thankful Eddy

For the past few years Kathleen Sheldon (left), has been working with a diary written by her great-aunt, Sylvia Thankful Eddy, who was a nurse missionary with the Near East Relief in eastern Turkey. She kept a record of the first two years (1919–1920) of her work in Turkey, when she found herself in the middle of a conflict between Turkish and French forces and witnessed the lingering effects of Turkish persecution of Armenians. Her story counters the usual expectations of missionary women’s perspective, as she almost never mentions anything related to religion or faith and does not discuss the condition of Turkish and Armenian women in her city, but on the contrary frequently refers to social events with French soldiers, including teas, dance parties, and horseback rides at dawn. Sheldon will use the Tillie Olsen Grant to support two trips related to this research. The first is to the Western Association of Women Historians annual conference in San Diego in May where she will be presenting a paper in a panel on the travel diaries of American women. In June she will do some follow up research concerning Sylvia Eddy at the archives of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions at Houghton Library of Harvard University.