AWARD BACKGROUND
In 2016, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awarded the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) a grant to administer the SAH/Mellon Author Awards. These awards were designed to provide financial relief to scholars who were publishing their first monograph on the history of the built environment and who were responsible for paying for rights and permissions for images or for commissioning maps, charts or line drawings in their publications. The publication of a monograph continues to be the most valued demonstration of scholarly competence for career advancement and recognition in the humanities. Unfortunately, many authors today must provide both a fully realized text and the financial resources for its image program. The cost for image rights and licensing, especially for digital publications, can be prohibitively expensive.
Through this grant, SAH provided awards to scholars to help defray the high costs of image licensing, reproduction, and creation of original drawings and maps for monographs on the history of the built environment. Awards were made once in 2016, once in 2017, and once in 2018 for print (hardcover, soft cover) and digital publications (eBook, DVD). Awardees were selected on the basis of the quality of their project and their demonstrated financial need.
SAH is grateful to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for their support of this award, which provided funding for 25 scholars over six years. This grant is now closed.