Ashley Schmidt '10 was one of fifteen students in the U.S. named a History Scholar for the five-week summer program at the Gilder Lehrman Institute in New York City. A history major from Jarrettsville, Md., Ashley was one of about 300 students to apply for this prestigious program.
Another fifty finalists for the program are invited to a one-week program at the institute. Samantha Bryant '11 of Lynchburg, Va., was accepted to the one-week program.
Ashley's research focuses on the status of free blacks in Central Virginia during slavery. She has been awarded a Schewel Faculty-Student Research Fund grant for fall 2009 for two research trips - one to the National Archives in Washington, D.C., and one to the College of William & Mary's special collections, the Virginia Historical Society, and the Library of Virginia.
The Gilder Lehrman History Scholars Program, inaugurated in 2003, is a competitive summer scholarship program in American history for outstanding college sophomores and juniors. The program is designed to reward undergraduates who have demonstrated superb research and writing skills in American history and to provide discussions with eminent scholars. Two LC students were finalists in 2007.
"For the past three years, we've been working with our students in history to push them to do more scholarly work, to participate in any and all external opportunities, and to apply for any and all programs, from basic internships to prestigious summer programs such as this one," said Dr. Kirt von Daacke, assistant professor of history. "All that work has paid off."
Hard work has paid off for Dr. von Daacke as well. He received a $2,000 Mednick Fellowship to work on his forthcoming book, Freedom Has a Face: Race, Community, and Identity in Jefferson's Albemarle, 1780-1865 (University of Virginia Press).
Dr. Von Daacke is using the funds for two week-long research trips to visit archives at the Library of Virginia and the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond. His book focuses on free blacks, race relations, identity, and social hierarchy in rural antebellum Virginia. Freedom Has a Face exposes the often wide gap between state legal prescriptions on free blacks and the actual practice concerning their treatment.