Old Knoxville City Hall, former home of the Tennessee School for the Deaf (Historic American Buildings Survey, HABS TN-5-1). Image from the Library of Congress

Fellow Fellows is a series that focuses on the increasingly important role fellowships play in architecture academia today. These prestigious academic positions can bring forth a fantastic blend of practice, research, and pedagogical cross-pollination, often within a tight time frame. They also, by definition, represent temporary, open-ended, and ultimately precarious employment for aspiring young designers and academics. Fellow Fellows aims to understand what these positions offer for both the fellows themselves and the discipline at large by presenting their work and experiences through an in-depth interview. Fellow Fellows is about bringing attention and inquiry to the otherwise maddening pace of academia, while also presenting a broad view of the exceptional and breakthrough work being done by people navigating the early parts of their careers. 

This week, we talk to Kelly Daviduke of the University of Washington, the recipient of the Society of Architectural Historians- and Athenaeum of Philadelphia-sponsored 2018 Charles E. Peterson Fellowship of the Buildings of the United States. Kelly chats with Archinect about her research and what led her to unearth important historical information linked to the deaf community. According to Daviduke, "schools played an important role in the unique cultural and linguistic development of deaf students and ultimately contributed to the formation of the deaf community and what we understand today as Deaf identity."

What fellowship were you in and what brought you to that fellowship?

I was the 2018 recipient of the SAH Charles E. Peterson Fellowship of the Buildings of the United States, a joint program with the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) and the Athenaeum of Philadelphia.  The program is a summer research fellowship intended to support a graduate student as they research and write about a specific topic for either the SAH Buildings of the United States series or the SAH Archipedia online encyclopedia. 

The fellowship was established in honor of Charles E. Peterson, who was the founder of the Historic American Buildings Survey. The fellowship projects that students undertake feature topics of American architecture prior to 1860. SAH does a really nice job highlighting the work of their graduate student recipients on their website each year, so I knew that previous fellowship recipients had done in-depth research on buildings in a specific state, or geographically-dispersed sites grouped around a thematic aspect. 

The Charles E. Peterson Fellowship appealed to me because I wanted an opportunity to develop my writing for a broader audience – something that graduate students may not be able to do in their program. Also, the majority of my coursework focused on the Twentieth Century. I knew that researching topics prior to 1860 required different skills than the type of historical research I had been doing as a graduate student, particularly when using primary sources. I felt that the fellowship would provide an opportunity for me to develop those skills while also contributing something meaningful.

I chose to research and write about early residential schools for the deaf [...] 

As I learned more about the topic, I felt the construction of these school buildings, at least in the formative years of deaf education, helped to legitimize the use of sign language and early efforts to educate the deaf. 

What was the focus of the fellowship research?

For my project, the editors presented me with a few different thematic topics to select from that had been drawn from the information I shared about my interests in my application materials. In my case, I chose to research and write about early residential schools for the deaf. 

I was fortunate that there is already an outstanding body of scholarship on deaf education, particularly in its earliest days, which provided valuable insights into the cultural significance of the residential school experience. I was grateful that early educators had taken measures to document their buildings and programs, and also that many libraries and archives had taken steps to digitize these historical records to make them available to as broad of an audience as possible. These efforts helped my research significantly and allowed me to use a portion of the fellowship to visit specific schools and repositories whose records I could only access in person.

As I learned more about the topic, I felt the construction of these school buildings, at least in the formative years of deaf education, helped to legitimize the use of sign language and early efforts to educate the deaf. The buildings represented a substantial financial investment, often by the state, and provided a place where deaf individuals could meet each other and communicate freely through the use of a common sign language. These schools played an important role in the unique cultural and linguistic development of deaf students and ultimately contributed to the formation of the deaf community and what we understand today as Deaf identity. For me, it seemed natural to want to know more about the buildings that housed this transformation and what that environment was like historically.

My fellowship period covered a narrow and unique period of time in deaf education from the founding of the first school around 1817 until about 1860. Even in this narrow window of time, my research revealed that the evolution of these school buildings was historically complex and architecturally varied. I felt very strongly by the end of my fellowship that it is very difficult to separate a building from its social context.

Whether you are earning a degree in architecture history or working as an architect, being aware of the historical context is important for understanding the environment that you’re working in...

How has the fellowship advanced or become a platform for your academic and professional career?

The fellowship supported my professional and academic development in a few different ways. Most notably, it enhanced my historical research skills. Early in my M.S. program, I wanted and needed more experience in how to conduct research for architectural study. Whether you are earning a degree in architecture history or working as an architect, being aware of the historical context is important for understanding the environment that you’re working in, but that information can be difficult to come by without the right skills.

The fellowship work afforded me opportunities to travel to a few different archives and repositories in different parts of the country, as well as the challenge of doing research remotely. It also allowed me to have the experience of locating historical primary source materials from the nineteenth century that described and documented America’s earliest deaf schools – everything from local newspapers to government records to original building plans. The research skills that I learned through my fellowship have proven helpful as I have continued gathering research for my M.S. thesis.

As a graduate student, there are limited opportunities (and time) to obtain experience writing about historical topics outside of your coursework. I am grateful to my advisors at the University of Washington, who were willing to provide guidance on my fellowship work over the summer. Archipedia is a widely-known resource, and I was happy to contribute my time and research in this way.

There has been some criticism that fellowships are a cost-effective way for institutions to appropriate potent ideas while leaving the fellow with little compensation, besides the year of residence and no guarantee of a permanent position. What is your position on this?

The fellowship that I applied for was a little bit different from the situation described here because it was a summer research fellowship tied to a specific project with a shorter timeframe.

In addition to being a graduate student, I am also an archivist for the University of Washington. As a working graduate student and still somewhat early in my career, I wasn’t in a position to move elsewhere for a longer time, nor could I take a substantial amount of time away from my graduate studies or my profession. I was happy to see that shorter opportunities like this existed and that they were available for students at different stages of their academic studies.

What are you working on now, and how is it tied to the work done during the fellowship?

I am currently writing my M.S. Architecture thesis in History and Theory at the University of Washington. The work that I did with the Charles Peterson Fellowship enhanced my thesis with the knowledge I needed to ground my research in the history of deaf education in the United States. The work I had been doing for my thesis focused on Olof Hanson, believed to be America’s first deaf architect. Hanson had attended Gallaudet University and briefly studied architecture at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts towards the end of the nineteenth century. He had a successful career in Minnesota, while also contributing designs for deaf schools elsewhere in the country. I came to know about Hanson because he settled in Seattle as his career moved westward and he eventually began working for the University of Washington. 

When I started my program, I had been thinking a lot about the contemporary context of designing for the senses, universal design, and also designing for specific communities, and that’s how I became interested in Hanson’s work.

I also work as the archivist for historic architectural drawings at the University of Washington. The work that I did with the fellowship helped inform my professional work. Most of the materials I work with are from the twentieth century, in part because the Pacific Northwest developed later than other areas of the country, but also because there’s much more available from the twentieth century. Because there wasn’t a lot that had been written about these school buildings as an architectural type, I relied on drawings and notes and other by-products of the design process to form an architectural understanding of deaf education. I think it’s important to remember that the business records or architectural drawings we create can hold a value beyond their original purpose.

Any advice for future fellows?

There are a lot of different fellowships and other unique opportunities that are out there for students, and some of them may not be directly associated with your school. In my case, I had seen this particular fellowship advertised through the Society of Architectural Historians. Keep an open mind, and don’t be shy in applying for something that looks interesting!