The Dorothy Mohler Research Grants help defray research and travel costs for those using the collections at the American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives here at the Archives. We are pleased to announce this year’s winners:

John Sharpe, currently an ABD Hagley Fellow in the History Department of the University of Delaware, received a Mohler grant to conduct research in the papers of John Ryan, George Higgins, and John Cort among others, toward the completion of his dissertation, currently titled: “The Owner-Operator Tradition: Reverberations of Catholic Teaching on Productive Property from the Early Republican Through and Beyond the Progressive Eras.” Mr. Sharpe is a 1993 distinguished graduate of the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, where he received a Bachelor of Science degree with honors in English, and emphases in political thought and history. Following graduation from Annapolis, he graduated from Naval Nuclear Power School (Orlando, Fla.), Naval Prototype Training (Charleston, S.C.), and Naval Submarine School (Groton, Conn.). Following his naval career, he received his Master of Arts in History from Old Dominion University (2010).

Robert N. Gross, a doctoral candidate in the Department of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, received a Mohler grant to conduct research in the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops/National Catholic Welfare Conference and the National Catholic Education Association records. Mr. Gross specializes in American social, legal, and educational history. His research is toward the completion of his dissertation, titled “Regulating the Educational Marketplace: School Competition and Choice in the Urban North, 1870-1929.” The project explores how public officials, intellectuals, parents, and children navigated and responded to the dramatic growth of urban Roman Catholic parochial schools in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era.