Fellowship Program

Promoting New Scholarship

Each year, the Buffalo Bill Historical Center offers a limited number of research stipends for promising and established visiting western scholars in our fellowship program. Scholars research, write, and develop ideas and manuscripts that expand the horizon of western studies. Fellows may pursue field research in the Cody area (i.e., the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem or the Big Horn Basin and Mountains), or work in the collections of the McCracken Research Library or one of our museum galleries.

Click here for Call for Proposals for our 2013 – 2014 Fellowships

For more information on fellowships:

E-mail Chris Searles or call her at 307.578.4089.

Areas of Research & Collections

• Western American art and artists
• William F. Cody and Buffalo Bill’s Wild West
• Western exploration, settlement, and the rise of American Western culture
• Plains Indian cultures
• History of firearms technology
• Western American literature and music
• Distribution, movements, and ecology of Greater Yellowstone Area wildlife in relation to environmental change and human dimensions of wildlife conservation and management in the American West

A glimpse of 2011 Fellow Gregory Hinton’s work:

Past Fellows

2012 – 2013 Fellows:

Emily Burns: The Native as Naive: Playing Indian in France

Maryrose Casey: Performing Native Americans: Buffalo Bill and the Embodiment of the Wild West

Karen Jones: The Bison in the Room: Taxidermy Animals, Storytelling, and the American West

Stephanie Knappe: Art Perpetuating Fame: The Posters of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West

David J. Silverman: Thundersticks: Firearms and the Transformation of Native America.

2011 – 2012 Fellows:

Chris Dixon (University of Strathclyde, Scotland): Buffalo Bill in Barcelona

Andrew Hershberger (Bowling Green State University): Photography and Geology: Interdisciplinary Readings on Early USGS-Era Photographers

Gregory Hinton (author, filmmaker, and independent curator): Out West at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center

Ashley Hlebinsky (University of Delaware): Westerns and Western (Classical) Theatre: The Glamorization and Demonization of Firearms in the Arts

Jameson Sweet (University of Minnesota): Indians, Dressed and Half Dressed and Undressed: Army Wives, Indian Women, and Clothing in the West, 1848 – 1890

2010 – 2011 Fellows:

Angela DeMontigny: 20 years experience in all aspects of the fashion industry from designing, manufacturing and marketing own line of apparel and accessories for wholesale and retail markets to creating, buying, merchandising, and marketing for own boutique; producing, coordinating, and exhibiting in international trade shows and producing fashion-related shows/events.

Chris Dixon: Senior Research Fellow, University of Strathclyde, Department of Modern Language. Researching book on “Buffalo Bill in Barcelona.”

Andre Kohler: Public Relations Manager, Karl-May-Museum, Deutschland, Germany.

Herb Thompson: Professor/Division Chair, Neff Education Center, Emory & Henry College. Research for book “The Edges of the West: A Literature of Hope for the Future.”

Laurel Wilson: Curate and teach Summer Institute program on “Dressed Just Right: An Evolution of Western Style from Function to Flamboyance.”

Lacy Winninger: To explore the intricacies of Western dress through researching the evolution of garment construction and materials using BBHC photographs and physical collections.

2008 – 2009 Fellows:

Jaime Allison III: University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia. “Life in the Semi-Sovereign Nation: Energy Development, Sovereignty, and Change Among the Crow and Northern Cheyenne.”

Gordon R. Andrus: Independent Scholar, Cody, Wyoming. “Saddle Making in the Northern Rocky Mountains and Plains Region.”

Patricia A. Billingsley: Independent Scholar, Williamsburg, Massachusetts. “Annotating the 1932-33 Valley Ranch Journal of Philip H. Cummings.”

Jim Garry: Independent Scholar, Cody, Wyoming. “Sights and Sounds of Yellowstone Archive.”

Robert D. Jakubowski: Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado. “Research for a Systematic Investigation of Museum Relevant Factors and Promoting Sustainability in a Four-Phase Approach.”

Jeremy Johnston: Northwest College, Powell, Wyoming. “Four-Toes, Three-Toes, Two-Toes, Wahb: Ernest Thompson-Seton and the Literary Creation of Renegade Bears in the Yellowstone Ecosystem.”

Mary L. Keller: University of Wyoming, living in Cody, Wyoming. “Wyoming Cultural Landscapes: The Big Horn Basin.”

Dorothy H. Patent: Author, Missoula, Montana. Children’s book on relationship between Plains Indian peoples and horses.

Marcy Lee Reiser: Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado. “Dendrochronology in the Greybull River Sustainable Landscape Ecology Program.”

Sandra Sagala: Independent Scholar, Erie, Pennsylvania. “William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody’s Movie – The Indian Wars – Filmed in 1913.”

2007 – 2008 Fellows:

Michael Amundson: Northern Arizona University. “Wyoming Time and Again Revisited: A Third Look at the Wyoming Scenes of Photographer Joseph E. Stimson.”

Margaret Ball: University of Colorado, Boulder. “‘A Barbarous Practice:’ Trophy-taking, race, and gender in America.”

Ken Blackbird: Independent photographer, Cody, Wyoming. European views of Native Americans.

Walter R. Echo-Hawk, Jr.: Attorney, Boulder, Colorado. Law & History dinner lecturer, 2008.

Jim Garry: “Yellowstone Bears and Bear People”

Mary Murphy: Montana State University. “Old Men, Friendship, and Photographs.”

Lynn Saltonstall: Yale University. “Fleeting Fixity and the Limits of Photography: William Henry Jackson’s Yellowstone Views.”

Michael Wise: Montana State University. “Five Minutes Work: Photography, Animals, and Oil in Progressive-era Montana.”