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The Sally Kress Tompkins Fellowship, a joint program of the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) and the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), permits a graduate student in architectural history or a related field to work on a 12-week HABS history project during the summer. The Fellow will prepare a written history that focuses on a significant U.S. building or site for the permanent HABS collection at the Library of Congress. The Fellow’s research interests and goals will inform the building or site selected for documentation. The Fellow is usually stationed in the HABS Washington, D.C., office. The Fellow will be selected by a jury of two SAH members and one HABS representative. The Fellowship is administered by SAH, with project guidance provided by HABS staff.

To Apply:

The award consists of a $12,000 stipend and travel, hotel accommodation, and registration for the annual conference up to $1,000. The successful applicant will be notified in late January and will be recognized onscreen at the SAH 79th Annual International Conference in Mexico City in April 2025. The award will be announced in the SAH Newsletter.

Applicants should be pursuing graduate studies in architectural history or other related fields. You do not have to be a member of SAH to apply for this fellowship, but membership is strongly encouraged.

In addition to the final project/written history, recipients are required to upload a minimum of 50 images documenting their summer HABS project to the SAHARA image archive prior to completion of the fellowship.

Applications for the 2026 HABS-SAH Sally Kress Tompkins Fellowship are due December 31, 2025. 

You will need:

  1. Cover letter including current mailing address, school affiliation, email, and phone
  2. Resume/CV
  3. College transcript (unofficial transcripts are acceptable)
  4. Writing sample: an unpublished paper, not to exceed 40 pages, demonstrating primary research and a command of secondary sources, in architectural history or an aspect of the built environment
  5. Letter of recommendation from a faculty member or recent employer (can be submitted separately or with application pdf)

Applicants will be informed of award decisions in late January. More information is available on the NPS website.

2025 Fellow

Devin Jernigan

Devin Jernigan is a doctoral candidate in the History and Theory program at Yale University's School of Architecture. 

Jernigan's research focuses on the American traveling circus from the early nineteenth to the twentieth century, and especially the technologies this nomadic and popular spectacle used to enclose space. He received an honorable mention for the 2024 HABS Peterson Prize for documenting a circa-1890s Parson's family concessions tent likely used on the Ringling Bros.' World's Greatest Shows' midway.

His fellowship project will continue this theme as he documents Ca’ d’Zan, John and Mable Ringling’s "opulent winter home" in Sarasota, Florida. Architect Dwight James Baum designed Ca' d'Zan, an eclectic and unique building that only a circus impresario could have dreamt up. Jernigan will investigate its development, document what was produced, and situate it more broadly within architectural history.

Past Recipients

2022: Kennedy Dold
2021: Charlette M. Caldwell
2020: Travis Olson
2019: Mary Fesak
2018: Vyta Pivo
2017: Camille Westmont
2016: Amber Bailey
2015: Samuel R. Palfreyman
2014: Rebecca Summer
2013: Kate Reggev
2012: Rachel Hopkin
2011: Kathryn Lasdow
2010: Kate M. Kocyba
2009: Susan C. Hall
2008: NO AWARD / FELLOWSHIP GiVEN
2007: Mroszczyk, Lisa
2006: Amott, David
2005: LaDale C. Winling
2004: Francesca R. Ammon

2003: NO AWARD / FELLOWSHIP GIVEN
2002: Rachel Leibowitz
2001: Kathryn Wollan
2000: Jon Lamar Wilson

Awardees 1990-1999 under research.


Background

This award was established by an agreement between SAH and HABS in 1989 in honor Sally Kress Tompkins, former Deputy Chief of the Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record, whose advocacy of historical research has had a significant impact on that program.

 

Header image: 1937 Dearborn Mosque (Masjid Dearborn), also known as the American Moslem Society Building, in Dearborn, Michigan. Photo by Dwight Burdette via Wikimedia Commons.