The Lewis Walpole Library is delighted to announce the recipients of this year’s Charles A. Ryskamp Travel Grants.
Yale seniors Tiraana Bains, History, and Mikko Salovaara, East Asian Studies and Economics, have each been awarded a Charles A. Ryskamp Travel Grant to support research at the Lewis Walpole Library in connection with their senior essays. Ms. Bains's project is entitled "Inter-racial Intimacies: The Evolution of British Attitudes towards Mixed Relationships in the Bengal Presidency, 1764-1793." She expects to focus on why inter-racial relationships in India were increasingly regarded as problematic by British authorities, as demonstrated by the restrictions imposed on the offspring of such relationships in the last decade of the eighteenth century, and through this she will shed light on the origins and development of racial stratification within the British Empire. Mr. Salovaara's research focuses on the unintended effects of the deliberate adoption of garden design styles in England and China, and he will seek to explain how well each culture's styles succeeded in their adopted societies.
The grant funds travel for the students between New Haven and Farmington, occasional accommodation at the Timothy Root House, an eighteenth-century residence on the Farmington campus, and Library staff are available to provide research consultation guidance throughout the period of study.
Charles A. Ryskamp, director of the Pierpont Morgan Library (1969-1986) and of the Frick Collection (1987-1997), was a long-time member of the Lewis Walpole Library Board of Managers from 1980 until his death in 2010. Mr. Ryskamp was a keen supporter of young scholars in the humanities, and the Charles A. Ryskamp Travel Grant was established to carry on his legacy by providing support to Yale undergraduates for work on their senior essays.
Applications are accepted during the period prior to or during the research phase of the senior essay project. All students whose senior essay projects would benefit from research conducted in the Lewis Walpole Library’s rich collections of materials from the British world of the long eighteenth-century are encouraged to apply.
For more information about the Charles A. Ryskamp Travel Grant, click here.