School of History PhD student Anne Rees has been awarded an Endeavour Research Fellowship to support her forthcoming fieldwork in the United States.

The Fellowship, worth up to $23,500, will allow Anne to spend four months overseas pursuing her research on Australian women who lived, worked and studied in America between 1910 and 1960.

This research will investigate what drew hundreds of women – including artists, actresses, scientists, interior decorators and librarians – to cross the Pacific at a time when most of their contemporaries yearned for the ‘Mother Country’. By throwing a spotlight on the women who pursued this unconventional travel trajectory, Anne’s project aims to offer a new perspective on a formative period in trans-Pacific relations, one which stresses the importance of interpersonal encounters and individual experience alongside diplomatic and cultural connections.

Anne will be based at the Center for Australian and New Zealand Studies at Georgetown University from mid-February until mid-June 2013. She will also visit archives and libraries located elsewhere in the US, including the Rockefeller Archive Center, Columbia University, Smith College, UCLA, UC Santa Barbara and the University of Southern Illinois.

The Endeavour Awards are an internationally competitive scholarship program funded by the Australian government. They provide opportunities for international students to study within Australia, and also fund Australians to undertake study, research and professional development abroad.