Prestigious USC Fellowship & Grant Awarded to USC History’s William J. Cowan

Sheet music that shows effects of 1861-1862 flood courtesy of the Bancroft Library.

Congratulations to William J. Cowan who just received the USC Russell Endowed Fellowship and the USC Graduate School Summer Research Grant. Cowan is working on his Ph.D. in the USC History department and we asked him to share a few words about his research and this honor:

These funds will be used to continue my dissertation research about the Pacific Slope Superstorms’ of 1861-62. I will be exploring several archives in Oregon, notably the Special Collections in Eugene and the holdings of the the Oregon Historical Society in Portland. During that trip I will also be visiting several historic sites, including the “lost” towns of Canemah and Champoeg–both of which were destroyed in the Pacific Slope superstorms of 1861-62. I will also use this opportunity to venture to the Bay Area to visit the California Historical Society’s archival collections and to pay a return visit to the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley. These collections include key eye-witness accounts of the devastating winter of 62 and its aftermath.

I am humbled and grateful to be a recipient of the 2018-19 USC Russell Endowed Fellowship and the USC Graduate School Summer Research Grant. It’s an honor to represent the Department of History and the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences. I applaud this year’s nominees and congratulate my fellow Graduate School awardees. Many thanks to our department’s Directors of Graduate Studies, Steve Ross and Richard Fox for supporting my nomination, our Academic Advisor Melissa Borek Calderon for directing the submission process, and to Bill Deverell and Peter Mancall for their continued counsel and their confidence in me and my work.

You can follow Will Cowan’s research on Twitter at @williejcowan or contact him at wcowan@usc.edu.