William L. Thompson Collections Fellowship
For emerging museum and house museum professionals
The William L. Thompson Collections Fellowship for Emerging Museum Professionals and Graduate Students is a short-term residential fellowship designed for emerging museum professionals* and graduate students with an interest in a career focusing on collections and material culture within historic house museums. This fellowship is a program of the Richard Hampton Jenrette Foundation (formerly Classical American Homes Preservation Trust). Applicants who are emerging museum professionals are expected to be currently working in a collections-related museum position. Graduate student applicants will typically be completing a degree in art history, American studies, material culture, museum studies, public history, or a related field and should have completed at least one year of graduate study. Interested applicants for any Thompson Fellowship announcement on this page should submit a letter of interest and current CV via email to Grant Quertermous, the Jenrette Foundation’s Curator & Director of Collections.
This fellowship is named in memory of William L. Thompson, the longtime partner of our founder, Richard H. Jenrette. Thompson was instrumental in the restoration, furnishing, and landscaping of each of the Jenrette Foundation’s properties, and he played an important role in building our significant collection of American decorative arts and fine art.
Meet the newest Thompson Fellows
Spring 2025
Anne Boyd is a Ph.D. Candidate in the American Studies Program at Boston University. She is interested in Civil War memory from World War II through present day, as seen through a variety of physical representations including monuments, school-naming practices, and war reenactments. Her dissertation is primarily focused on how the Lost Cause developed outside of the South, and how heritage organizations such as the United Daughters of the Confederacy adjusted their messaging across time and space. This work sits at the intersection between history, material and visual culture, and popular memory. Anne earned her MA in American Studies from Boston University in 2022, and her BA in American Culture and Political Science from the University of Michigan in 2020.
Steven Baltsas is a Lois F. McNeil Fellow in the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture/University of Delaware interested in the junction of Southern European design and race in antebellum America. His master’s thesis studies the consumption of Renaissance Revival furniture in New York, New Orleans, and Paris between 1845–1861. Steven holds a BA in Art History and English from SUNY New Paltz. As an architectural historian, he has completed survey work on architecture and ironwork in the mid-nineteenth century Hudson Valley. He continues to research builders and craftspeople working in the region during the period.
Mya Rose Bailey (they/she) is a current graduate student at the Bard Graduate Center, completing their M.A. in Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture. Their master’s thesis, “A Sense of Enslavement: Experiences of Time and Sound in Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello and Poplar Forest,” merges their interests in multisensory anthropology, land and soundscape design, temporality, and memory in Black communities throughout American history. They hold a B.A. in Art History from SUNY New Paltz and have expanded interpretations of Black material culture and design within the Museum of Arts and Design, Historic Huguenot Street, and alongside author Lesa Cline-Ransome.
Grace Billingslea is the senior curatorial assistant for American art and arts of the Americas at the Brooklyn Museum where she most recently contributed to the development of Toward Joy: New Frameworks for American Art, the reinstallation of the American art galleries. In 2022, she earned her M.A. in decorative arts, design history, and material culture from Bard Graduate Center. Her research focuses on nineteenth-century American material culture and the role of museums in illuminating the artistic outputs and lived experiences of women, working class people, Black and Asian Americans, and other underrepresented groups through curation, display, and interpretation. She earned her B.A. in art history and politics from New York University. Prior to the Brooklyn Museum, Grace has worked within the curatorial departments of the American Federation of Arts and the Museum of the City of New York.
Meet some recent Thompson Fellows
Fall 2024
Emily Whitted, PhD Candidate, University of Massachusetts-Amherst: Emily Whitted (she/her) is a doctoral candidate in history at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her dissertation examines early American textile repair work as an integral, everyday practice completed with needles and thread to maintain fabric’s life cycles within homes, ships, and military camps. Her research has been funded through fellowships at the Winterthur Museum, the New England Regional Fellowship Consortium, the Library Company of Philadelphia, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the American Philosophical Society, and the Decorative Arts Trust. Her past professional work includes projects with the Porter-Phelps-Huntington House and the Mercer Museum and Fonthill Castle. She also holds an M.A. in American Material Culture from the Winterthur Program at the University of Delaware.
Matthew Monk, PhD Candidate, University of Delaware: Matthew Monk, a PhD candidate at the University of Delaware, specializes in Appalachian craft history and its intersections with cultural heritage preservation, mass tourism, commodification of the past, and the subsequent reinforcement of exclusionary, classist views of American history. His forthcoming dissertation, "A Useable Past: Appalachian Craft Revival and the Creation of a Regional American Cultural Identity, 1893-1961," explores the material history of the Appalachian Craft Revival, tracing its evolution from Progressive Era craft philanthropy to an internationally recognized ethno-nationalistic craft tourism model. Matthew holds an MA in Decorative Arts and Design History from the GW-Smithsonian program, an MA in Medieval Studies from the University of Toronto, and a BA in History and Medieval and Renaissance Studies from the University of Tennessee. Matthew works closely with the Southern Highland Craft Guild and other regional craft-affiliated organizations. He is a former Smithsonian Women's Committee Fellow and has done textile/coverlet cataloging and consultation for numerous museums, collections, and historic homes. Beyond his academic pursuits, he is an active spinner, novice weaver, knitter, and quilter, transforming raw fibers and fabrics into beautifully functional objects.
Hailey Chomos, Sobey Curatorial Assistant in European and American Art, The National Gallery of Canada: Hailey Chomos is a curatorial assistant in European and American art at the National Gallery of Canada. She received her master’s in art history from Queen’s University in 2023 where her research focused on the reception and collection of 19th century visual and material culture in North America. Hailey is interested in investigating the construction of the interior and its relationship to collecting practices of individuals and cultures. Her master’s thesis, funded by an Ontario Graduate Scholarship, was a case study of early American collectors of French modernism exploring their use of historic revival architecture and decoration as a performance of individual and national identity. While perusing her master’s Hailey completed a curatorial internship at the National Gallery of Canada and a research fellowship in partnership with the MUNCH Museum, Oslo. She also holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts in History and Art History from the University of Toronto.
Astrid Tvetenstrand, PhD, The Polly Thayer Starr Curatorial Fellow in American Art at the Boston Athenaeum: Dr. Astrid Tvetenstrand, PhD is the current Polly Thayer Starr Curatorial Fellow in American Art at the Boston Athenaeum. She is a graduate of Boston University's American & New England Studies program where she successfully defended her dissertation, "Buying a View: American Landscape Painting and Gilded Age Vacation Culture, 1870-1910," in 2023. Astrid's work focuses on the materiality of land and landscape painting alongside collecting histories. She is a specialist in American art and is fascinated by the social and cultural histories imbued in its production. Astrid also frames artists as businesspeople and thinks about the ways in which they crafted careers in the arts. Astrid's work has been supported by the New York Public Library, The Preservation Society of Newport County--Newport Mansions, the New England Regional Fellowship Consortium, the Peabody Essex Museum, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston