Western History and Genealogy

Environmental History Fellowship Program

The Denver Public Library Western History/Genealogy Department is pleased to announce the granting of two Fellowships in Environmental History for 2007-2008 through the generosity of Joy Hilliard.

Megan Jones will be conducting research using the Student Conservation Association and the National Parks Conservation Association records. Her dissertation is entitled A Worthwhile Summer: The Student Conservation Association, National Parks, and the American Environmental Movement, 1953-1970.

Sara Dant Ewert received her Ph.D. in History from Washington State University with a major in United States and Environmental History. With Hal Rothman, she authored The Encyclopedia of American National Parks, and has recently signed a contract with Harlan-Davidson publishers to write an environmental history of the American West. Her current area of research interest is the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act of 1965.

The 2006 award recipient was Barry Muchnick, Ph.D. candidate, who is pursuing a joint degree at Yale University through the Department of Forestry and Environmental Studies and the Department of History. Other past fellowship recipients include John Miles, Michael Yochim, William Philpott, Hal Rothman, and Sarah Thomas.

Over the past forty years, the Denver Public Library's Conservation Collection has become a major repository of Environmental History. Manuscript material, books, serials and photographs document critical aspects of the conservation movement in the 20th century United States. Organizations such as The Wilderness Society, Izaak Walton League of America, The Nature Conservancy, American Rivers, and American Farmland Trust have designated the Denver Public Library as the official repository for their records. The papers of many individuals are also represented in the collection, such as Olaus Murie, Ira Gabrielson, Howard Zahniser, Arthur Carhart, Enos Mills, William Vogt, Wild Horse Annie (Velma Johnston), Charles Lathrop Pack, George Laycock, and Lois Crisler.

The next opening for applications will be February 2009.

For more information contact Claudia Jensen, Archivist for the Conservation Collection at 720-865-1906 or email at cjensen@denverlibrary.org

Back to top

Red Rocks Lake [between 1900 and 1920].