The recipient of the twelfth annual J. Franklin Jameson Fellowship in American History is Dr. Carole R. McCann of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. The fellowship is offered annually by the Library of Congress and the AHA to support significant scholarly research by young historians in the collections of the library. The selection was made by the AHA Committee on the Jameson Fellowship composed of Michael H. Ebner, Lake Forest College (chair); Richard J. M. Blackett, Indiana University; John Bodnar, Indiana University; James Hodges, College of Wooster; and Susan Ware, New York University.

Dr. McCann received her Ph.D. from the History of Consciousness program of the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1987 and is currently an assistant professor in the American Studies Department at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. She plans to spend the fall semester in residence at the Library researching "Race, Class and Gender in U.S. Birth Control Politics, 1920–1945." Her project is the first to examine the history of the birth control movement within the context of race and gender politics. She will examine the American movement to legalize contraception as it evolved from a feminist, free-speech movement to an institutional network of Planned Parenthood clinics. Dr. McCann's project addresses questions of how and why the movement's feminist goals were displaced by racialized goals and what this particular case can reveal about the connections between race and gender for American women's history in general. Dr. McCann's proposal states that "an analysis of this critical period of birth control history will contribute significantly to the growing body of feminist scholarship which reassesses the explanatory power of social control theory for understanding the development of American welfare state institutions."

The Jameson Fellowship is awarded for one semester or as much of an academic year that the fellow desires to spend in residence at the Library. The project in American history must be one for which the general and special collections of the Library offer unique research support. The application deadline for the 1990-91 competition is March 15, 1990. Further information may be obtained from the Executive Assistant at AHA headquarters, 400 A Street SE, Washington, DC 20003.