2025-26 Research grants announced
The Virginia Center for Civil War Studies and Virginia Tech’s Special Collections and University Archives has announced the recipients of the 2025-26 Virginia Center for Civil War Studies Research Grants. Each grant recipient will visit Virginia Tech’s Special Collections and University Archives in order to conduct research on some aspect of the American Civil War era.
2025-26 Research Grant Recipients
Dr. Jewel Parker’s research project, “The Intercultural Origins of Health Care in the Antebellum South,” explores how interactions between American Indians, Africans, and Europeans influenced medical practices and shaped the development of medicines in the southern United States from the 1600s to the 1800s. Euromerican doctors actively sought out knowledge from other cultures to find the most effective treatments. Recognizing these diverse contributions to southern medicine helps highlight the important roles American Indians and Africans played in that history and opens the door for exploring other ways that different cultures shaped life in the South prior to and during the American Civil War. Parker is a full-time lecturer at Appalachian State University.
Madelaine Setiawan is a PhD student at Texas A&M University. Her research aims to construct a complete picture in the ways Southern Unionist women contributed to the wartime effort and were honored, remembered, or forgotten afterward. She explores how Union soldiers, prisoners of war, politicians, and the collective public commemorated Southern Unionist women.