Student wins Gilder Lehrman History Scholar Award
St. Olaf College student Emily Sackett ’16 has received a history scholar award that will enable her to spend five days in New York City this summer meeting with prominent scholars and touring some of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History’s archives.
The Gilder Lehrman History Scholar Award recognizes undergraduates who have demonstrated academic and extracurricular excellence in American history or American studies and a commitment to public service and community involvement.
Throughout her undergraduate career at St. Olaf, Sackett has had ample opportunity to expand on her history coursework. When she studied abroad at the University of Oxford through St. Olaf’s Oxford Harris Manchester College Off-Campus Program, she was able to use the university’s archives of the Virginia Company to research women who came to the American colonies.
She worked in the St. Olaf Archives and has also volunteered in several historical societies, guiding tours, working in the archives, and helping with exhibits. Last summer she did a fellowship in Historic Deerfield, a restored colonial town in Massachusetts that focuses on New England material culture.
The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History is a nonprofit organization devoted to the improvement of history education and has received awards from the White House, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Organization of American Historians.
“I’ve gotten a lot of support from the St. Olaf History Department in applying for this award,” Sackett says. “Professor Hahn and Professor Fitzgerald guided me through the whole process.”
This fall Sackett will begin graduate work at the University of Virginia, where she will study colonial history with a focus on women in the southern United States.