Ahmanson Undergraduate Research Scholarships

Undergraduate scholarships are offered every year to support student research at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library. These are intended for UCLA upper-division students who enroll in a designated course (usually open to undergraduate students from any department). Program details, seminar topic, and application guidelines are announced each year.

2023–24 Ahmanson Undergraduate Scholarship Seminar
Painting by Sir David Wilkie, "Distraining for Rent" 1815

Poverty in Early-Modern England: Experience, Identity, and Image
History 191, Fall 2023
Thursday 10:00 a.m.12:50 p.m.
Directed by Professor Tawny Paul

Sessions held at the UCLA William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
The Clark Library is located 12 miles from campus in the West Adams neighborhood of Los Angeles. For directions and additional information, please visit http://clarklibrary.ucla.edu/visit/

ENROLLMENT BY INSTRUCTOR CONSENT ONLY (see below for application instructions)

Seminar description:

In early-modern England, poverty became more than a description of economic experience. Now, “the poor” were a permanent social class. This seminar addresses the question of what it meant to be poor during a period of early capitalism. How were the poor thought about, treated, institutionalized, and regulated? For mobile laborers, what did it mean to be unsettled? Perhaps most importantly, how can we access the voices and experiences of people who left very little behind? This seminar is held at the Clark Library, where students will work with archival materials.

How to Apply:

To apply, please submit a secure online application at https://sscucla.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_0kdOqvak2PgY8Rg by July 7, 2023. Questions may be addressed to Professor Tawny Paul at tpaul@history.ucla.edu. The class is limited in size. Subsidies for use of Lyft are provided for student transportation to and from the Clark Library. Undergraduate students who complete the seminar successfully are awarded a $1,000 scholarship, funded by the Ahmanson Foundation and administered through the Center for 17th- & 18th-Century Studies.


Enrollment in each Ahmanson Undergraduate Scholarship Seminar is typically limited to ten students.

Questions about the program:
Center for 17th- & 18th-Century Studies
c1718cs@humnet.ucla.edu
310-206-8552
302 Royce Hall, UCLA

Image: Wilkie, Sir David. Distraining for Rent, 1815. Oil on panel, Scottish National Gallery. Courtesy of www.nationalgalleries.org