Donald Johnson, NDSU associate professor of history in NDSU's School of Humanities, has been awarded a six-month fellowship sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities to conduct historical research at the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston, Massachusetts.
The highly selective fellowship will support research and writing on Johnson's book project, entitled "The Popular Politics of American Independence." The book-in-progress recounts the tumultuous year and a half before July 1776 from the perspective of local revolutionary leaders in small towns and rural communities, highlighting the crucial role these little-known patriots played in the coming of independence.
With the help of the NEH fellowship and smaller research grants from the John Carter Brown Library in Providence, Rhode Island, and the International Center for Jefferson Studies in Charlottesville, Virginia, Johnson will devote the entire 2024-25 academic year to research and writing, with the aim of submitting the manuscript to press by the summer of 2025 and the ultimate goal of publication by the end of 2026 to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
