BLUE MOUNTAIN LAKE, NY – Adirondack Experience, The Museum on Blue Mountain Lake (ADKX) announces the establishment of three short-term research fellowships for the 2024-2025 academic year. The ADKX Research Fellowships were established to honor the memories of Julie and Warder Cadbury and Peter C. Welsh. The ADKX Director of Archives & Special Collections, Jenny Ambrose, will oversee the fellowship program and work with researchers on-site during the term of their fellowship.

Cadbury fellowships are open to scholars from any discipline who are researching projects in any area of study supported by the Adirondack Experience’s collections. Warder Henry Cadbury (1925-2004) had a lifelong interest in North Country history and art. He served as an associate researcher for the Adirondack Experience (then the Adirondack Museum) from its inception in 1957. Over nearly five decades, he helped the museum enlarge its historical collections, serving as a collector and unofficial agent. Warder authored a biography and catalogue of the works of landscape artist Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait. He wrote highly regarded articles on Adirondack history, most notably introducing readers to William H. H. “Adirondack” Murray in a 1970 reprint of Adventures in the Wilderness. He was a recipient of the Adirondack Museum's Founder’s Award (renamed the Harold K. Hochschild Award) in 1997.
 
Warder taught in the philosophy department at the University of New York at Albany from 1963 to 1994. He and his wife Julia summered at the Cadbury family camp on the shores of Indian Lake.
 
Julia “Judy” Margaret Graham Cadbury (1932-2013) was a leader in the Capitol Region’s arts community. She worked devotedly for many decades on behalf of the New York State Theatre Institute, now known as the Theatre Institute at Sage. Locally, she organized and funded theater trips to Albany and music programming for Indian Lake students.
 
The creation of research fellowships in their names continues the Cadbury’s generous support of students, scholars, and writers. It perpetuates Warder’s legacy of “dissolving time’s shadows and shedding new light on the art and literature of the Adirondacks.”

The Welsh fellowship is awarded to projects focused on environmental history interpreted broadly. Peter Corbett Welsh (1926-2010) was a historian of pre-industrial technology and American material culture in addition to being a respected museum curator and administrator. He came to the Adirondack Experience in 1986 as curator with primary responsibility for the museum’s logging exhibition Work in the Woods: Logging the Adirondacks. Research for the exhibition served as the foundation for his book Jacks, Jobbers, and Kings: Logging in the Adirondacks, 1850-1950, a regional history of logging with a focus on the Emporium Forestry Company near Tupper Lake.
 
Prior to relocating to the Adirondacks, Peter had a distinguished career in museums. He was the first Hagley Fellow at the University of Delaware, and was named the first coordinator of the program. He served as a curator at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, and was later promoted to the Assistant Director General of Museums. He was also editor of the Smithsonian Journal of History. In 1971, he was appointed the director of the New York State Historical Association and the Cooperstown Graduate Programs, and subsequently headed the Bureau of Museums at the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission in Harrisburg.
 
Peter was a dedicated supporter of the museum’s library. Memorial contributions in his honor established the fund for The Welsh Fellowship in Adirondack environmental history.

“The new fellowships are an exciting opportunity to support more in-depth research in our collections,” said Executive Director David Kahn. “As the largest repository of materials relating to the history and culture of the Adirondack region, our mission is to share these remarkable collections broadly. The fellowships contribute toward this fundamental goal.”

The museum invites applications from researchers of all levels including graduate degree candidates as well as post-doctoral and independent scholars to apply at: https://www.theadkx.org/adkx-fellowships/. The deadline for applications is February 1, 2024. Recipients of the fellowships will be selected by a committee of notable Adirondack scholars in conjunction with ADKX staff. Stipends in the amount of $5000 accompany the fellowship award. Announcement of the awards will be made on March 1, 2024.