Atlas Xu, a PhD candidate in Catholic University’s Department of History, has been awarded two competitive research fellowships. These awards will enable Atlas to undertake research for his dissertation, “Navigating Worthiness in America: White Attorneys, Chinese Immigrants, and Black Pensioners 1873-1910”, under the supervision of Professor Timothy Meagher. The dissertation examines white lawyers and their minority clients in the United States around the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The Huntington Library in San Marino, CA has awarded Atlas a Michael J. Connell Foundation fellowship. This short-term research grant will enable Atlas to spend one month studying immigration lawyers and the Chinese immigration community during the period after the U.S. Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. He is especially interested in two collections: the Hong Yen Chang Papers and the Chow Family Collection, which show the changing role of Chinese immigrants in the California bar during the exclusion era.
The other grant is a Doctoral Fellowship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Wilson Library. The fellowship will support Atlas for a month researching Civil War pension lawyers and their African American clients in the region. Several personal manuscript collections, such as the Charles S. Green Papers, the Marion Butler Papers, and the Munson Monroe Buford Papers, are of special interest.
Atlas says “I find it a humbling experience to receive these fellowships at an early stage of my dissertation research, especially when my arguments and narrative are constantly being reshaped by discoveries in the archives. The universe of historical research is sometimes exciting but always bewildering. My ability to carry on comes from the support of my teachers, my betters and my peers on this campus.”
Professor Michael Kimmage, Chair of the Department, adds “Atlas Xu’s fellowship successes come as no surprise to us here in Catholic University’s history department, but we are of course delighted for this exceptionally promising graduate student making such great strides. We are happy for him, and proud of him.”