Fellowship

The John H. Daniels Fellowship supports researchers at the National Sporting Library & Museum (NSLM), a research library and fine arts museum dedicated to preserving, promoting and sharing the literature, art and culture of equestrian, angling and field sports.

Application Deadline for 2027 Fellowships is October 31, 2026.

The National Sporting Library & Museum (NSLM) in Middleburg, Virginia, is recruiting John H. Daniels Fellows for the 2027 calendar year. Ideal candidates possess innovative ideas and groundbreaking perspectives on subjects related to the NSLM mission, dedicated to preserving, promoting, and sharing the literature, art, and culture of equestrian, angling, and field sports and commitment to education and advocacy for the conservation of open space and waterways integral to these pursuits. NSLM offers Fellows unlimited access to world-class collections of sporting literature and art, free residency in a fully furnished cottage, and a generous stipend.

The John H. Daniels Fellowship (began in 2007) was established in honor of its namesake, who was an avid sportsman and book collector. Daniels’ sporting library of more than 4,000 titles forms most of the NSLM’s F. Ambrose Clark Rare Book Room’s holdings.

Since the Fellowship program serves to promote awareness of, and innovative, scholarly use of the institution's unique collections focused on equestrian and field sports, and the spaces necessary for their pursuit, applications should include significant connections between the proposed research project and the NSLM’s collections.

All submitted applications with original topics will be considered. Based on institutional need, three areas have been identified as prime subjects for broader and deeper research.

Conservation – The preservation of land and waterways is a significant aspect of the NSLM mission. At least one Daniels Fellowship will be awarded to a proposal pertaining to the preservation (either historic or contemporary) of land and waterway habitats associated with traditional field sports. The Applicant may choose to focus on—but is not limited to—a particular location, event, or individual involved in the conservation process, or other foundational ideas that further our understanding of the conservation movement. A particular species may be studied in depth, across time, or from a particular era.

Angling – The NSLM possesses one of the largest publicly accessible collections of Izaak Walton's masterpiece, The Compleat Angler (1653). With over 100 different editions, this is a text that has resonated with every successive generation. Additionally, the NSLM possesses the Chapman Family Fly Fishing Collection (donated 2011) that contains over 2,000 publications and extensive archival holdings dedicated to documenting the history of the angle.

Wingshooting - With texts from the 16th to 21st centuries, the NSLM's Library contains an overview of wingshooting literature, in addition to works of fine art, and periodicals. Researchers may choose to focus on rewilding efforts, breeding of sporting dogs, history of firearms, etc.

Ideal applications will include a plan for conveying discoveries with the NSLM sporting community and beyond. This platform may come in the form of a publication, educational program, lecture, exhibit, tour, article, and/or book—or a combination thereof.

For more information and to apply, please visit: https://form.jotform.com/200295702445148

Application Deadline for 2027 Fellowships is October 31, 2026

Please pass this opportunity along to all interested parties.

Former Fellows

2026

Peter Brookes, “Fly Fishing in Virginia: A Short History”

Mary Fesak, “Thoroughbred Landscapes, Racing Humans: How Equestrian Landscapes and Culture Remade Class, Race, and Gender at the Turn of the Century”

Kathleen Fraser, “Awaken the Warrior a tale of Virginia’s Equestrian, Sporting, and Military Heritage, 1862–1865”

2025

Jessica Dallow, “Reassessing and Re-presenting Alexander Mackay-Smith’s Manuscript on Henri Delattre’s Equine Paintings”

Elizabeth Leet, “Enlightenment Horsemanship and Bourbon Power: Spurs and Bits in the Encyclopedic Tradition and Portraiture of 18th-century France”

Eliza McGraw, “Horse Country: An American History in 25 Horses”

Joseph Semkiu, “Autumn Serenade: Andrew Wyeth’s The Hunter on the Home Front”

2024

Jessica Dallow, “Stable Architecture in the South”

2022

Taylor Culbert, "Embodied and Affective responsivity between humans and non-human animals in early modern European and transatlantic traditions of live performing animals"

Chad Ferguson, “Comprehensive bibliography of literary texts on hunting”

Elizabeth Kuenzli, “Setting the Record: Cañonero II and the Politics of Horse Racing in the U.S. and in Latin America”

2021

Patricia Akhimie, “Riding Double: Courtship and Travel for Marriage”

Tracy Barnett, “Men and Their Guns: the culture of self-deputized manhood in the south, 1850-1877”

Mary Fesak, “Architectural and social history approach to late 19th and early 20th century thoroughbred racehorse breeding and training landscapes”

Ignacio Arellano-Torres, “A critical edition of Libro de Exercicios de la Gineta (1600)"

2020

Adelaide de Savray, “Women's equestrian portraits, 16th - 20th century”

David Gerleman, “My Companion in All Places: Horses and Horsemanship in the Civil War Era, 1850-1865”

Elizabeth McCague, “The Evolution of Equestrian Culture in Central Virginia”

Jane Desmond, "Animals and the Imaginative Ethnography of Poetry"

Michael Cronin, “James Brendan Connolly--The First Olympian”

2019

Katrin Boniface, “A Horse of a Different Color”

Charles Caramello, “Horsemen, Horse Soldiers, and Grand Illusions”

2018

Joanna Gohmann, “Living Together: Representations of Animals and Elite Identity in 18th-century France”

Matthew Lockhart, “The Ecology of Early American Duck-Shooting Preserves”

Elizabeth McGraw, “American Horsewomen”

Kathryn Waldo, “Origins of Classical Horsemanship”

2017

Charles Caramello, “Riding to Arms: A History of Horsemanship and Mounted Warfare”

Kathleen Crandell, “A Historical Perspective on the Use of Dietary Supplements in the Horse”

Fran Jurga, “Forging Ahead: 500 Years of Equine Hoof Care in America”

Klazina Botke, “Reflections of Horses: Jan van der Straet’s Equile, seu speculum equorum series in the context of early modern horse imagery, and anatomical studies”

Robert DeMott, “Flight Birds: A Brief on Woodcock”

Christopher Oakford, “Biography of Joseph B. Thomas, Jr.”

2016

Vyta Baselice, “Camera Hunting: Equestrian Photography in Family Albums”

Katherine Dashper, “Horse shows and leisure society in USA”

John Head, “Wallace Nall Biography”

John Ott, “African-American Jockeys in Eadweard Muybridge's Animal Locomotion”

Ingrid Steiner, “William Byrd III and His Horses: Racing and the Westover Stud”

Jennifer Strotz, “Norman Bobins Collection of Sporting Prints (exhibition)”

Ulrike Weiss, "Side-saddle or astride? Ladies on horseback, ca. 1500-1840"

Martha Wolfe, "Biography of Harry Worcester Smith"

John Head, "Wallace Nall: Finding Clues in a Painter's Photographic Archive"

John Ott, "Race Forms: African-American Jockeys in Eadward Muybridge's Animal Locomotion' and Gilded Age Philadelphia"

2015

Matthew (Duke) Biscotti, "A Bibliography of Foxhunting"

Jim Casada, "Archibald Rutledge: Sage of the South Santee"

Kathleen Crandell, "Historical Perspective of Laminitis Treatment and Management"

Louise Curth, "The Pocket Farrier: Veterinary Texts in Late Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century America"

Charles Little, "Asia’s First Olympic Sport? Investigating the Absence of Polo’s Asian Heritage from Perceptions of the Sport"

Collin McKinney, "From Warrior to Gentleman: Masculinity and Sport in the Nineteenth Century"

Andrew McLean

Peter McNeil, "Taking the Dust: Macaroni Men and English Equine Fashions c1760-1790"

Erica Munkwitz, "The Master is the Mistress: Female Masters of Hounds in Britain Before, During, and After the First World War"

Lucas Rubin, "Trotting in Brooklyn, ca. 1800 to 1868"

Maryanna Skowronski, "View: A Pictorial History of the Elkridge-Harford Hunt"

2014

Dean Allen, "English Sport in America: Locating the Hidden Diaspora"

Andrew Baker, "Suburbanizing the Countryside: Politics, the Environment and Metropolitan Expansion in the Modern South"

Kathleen Crandell, "A Historical Perspective on Equine Feeding Management"

Charles List, "The Wholesome Machinery of Excitement: The Evolution of the Sportsman Thesis from Gentleman to Conservationists"

Jonathan Silverman

Brian Tyrell, "Breeding the Bluegrass: Thoroughbred Breeding, Land Use, and Place in Kentucky"

Philip Wedge, "Saving the Best of the Coveys: Sport in the Novels of Jane Austen"

Martha Wolfe, "Edward Troye and his Biographers; The Archives of Harry Worcester Smith and Alexander Mackay-Smith"

2013

Jennifer Brown, "Trout Culture: Fly Fishing and the Environment in the Rocky Mountains, 1860-1975"

Hannah Clark, "The Design and Material Culture of English Foxhunting, 1750-1850, with a focus on the town of Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire and the Quorn, Belvoir and Cottesmore Hunts"

Valerie Grash, "Horse Racing in Western Pennsylvania"

Matthew Harrison, "The Very Unbridled Use of Words: The Equine Poetics of Sir Philip Sidney"

Tabitha Hilliard, "For Want of a Bit, the Bridle was Lost: An Archaeological Approach to Understanding Horse Bits Through Time"

Julie Plax, "J.B. Oudry's Tapestry Series Les Chasses Royales, the Chasse a Courre and Royal Identity"

Jean Williams, "The Legacy of Equitation: The Writing of American, British and Irish Women Equestrians"

Martha Wolfe, "The Crowning Point of All: The Great Hound Match of 1905"

2012

Marcia Brody, "Alexander Mackay-Smith: Pioneering the Future of the Cleveland Bay Horse in North America"

Michael Del Vecchio, "The Scientific Angler: A Conservation Identity Forged through the Market"

Carolee Klimchock, "The Theatrics of Coach Driving in Late 19th- Century America"

Andrew G.F. Lemon, "The Steeplechasing Mind"

Judith Martin Woodall, "Witching the World with Noble Horsemanship: Riding in New York City, 1770-2007"

Earl Parker, "The U.S. Remount Service: Stallions Distributed Across America"

Corey Piper, "The Cast and Characters of the British Sporting Ring"

2011

Patricia Akhimie, "See you not a hawk?: The Visual Vocabulary of Early Modem Hunting, Fowling, & Hawking"

James Alsop, "Riding for Life: Equestrian Health and Fitness in Anglo-American History"

James Glisson, "The Hunter’s Eye in Martin Johnson Heade's Landscapes and Still Lives"

Alison Goodrum, "What a Dashing, Positively Smashing, Spectacle...' Context & Culture in Representations of Riding Apparel, People, & Places (1904 to 1949)"

Elizabeth Letts, "The Eighty-Dollar Champion: Snowman, the Horse that Inspired a Nation"

Pellom McDaniels, III, "The Prince of Jockeys: The Life & Career of Isaac Murphy"

Mikko Saikku, "Anglers & the Conservation of Atlantic Salmon Stocks in North America, 1850s-1950s"

Rebecca Splan, "In the Beginning: A Comparative Study of Early Stud Books"

2010

Charles Calhoun, "Going British: The Anglicizing of American Hunting with Hounds, 1865-1930"

Pia Cuneo, "Early Modern Horsemanship Manuals: A Comparative Study"

Elisabetta Deriu, "The International Fortune of an Early 17th c. Handwritten Horsemanship Treatise: Valerio Piccardini's "Scritti di Cavaleria""

Horace Laffaye, "The Evolution of Polo in the United States"

Glenye Cain Oakford, "The Golden Thread"

Dorothy Ours, "Battleship: A Daring Heiress, A Teenage Jockey, and America’s Horse"

Samuel Snyder, "Motivating the Flows of Angling Environmentalisms: from Utilitarian Conservation to Ecological Restoration"

2008

Perky Beisel, "Stable Design in the United States and Europe from 1865-1929"

Amy Freund, "French Hunting Portraiture and British Sporting Culture in the Long Eighteenth Century"

Mike Huggins, "Interaction of America and Britain in Horse Racing and Breeding, 1830-1900"

Susan McHugh, "Velvet Revolutions: Girls, Horses, and Stories of Professional Sports"

Noel Mullins, "The Literary and Artistic Partnership of Somerville and Ross, Foxhunting and Travels Abroad"

Elizabeth Redkey, "For the Improvement of the Breed of Horse: Thoroughbred Racing and National Security in the Age of Horsepower"

Martin Wallen, "Whose Dog Are You?: The Eighteenth Century Foxhound and the Rise of Canine Breeds"

2007

Elizabeth Tobey, "Translation of Federico Grisone's Gli Ordini de Cavalcare"