The John E. Rovensky Fellowships in U.S. Business or Economic History

Marcelo Bucheli has been the chair of the John E. Rovensky Fellowship in US Business or Economic History since 2015. John E. Rovensky grew up in Pittsburgh in a family of modest circumstances, entered the banking profession, and moved to New York City. There he became the youngest vice president of the National Bank of Commerce, at the time the second largest bank in New York City. He later served with the Bank of America and National City Bank of New York. At the close of a very successful banking career, Mr. Rovensky became chairman of the executive committee of American Car and Foundry Company (later ACF Industries) and subsequently chairman of the board. Retiring from active business interests in 1954, he still retained a lively interest in economics, public affairs, and the academic profession. He died in 1970.
The fellowships arise from a substantial gift, which Mr. Rovensky made to the Lincoln Educational Foundation in 1961 thanks to the encouragement of Donald L. Kemmerer, his long-time friend, Professor of Economics at the University of Illinois, and president of the Lincoln Educational Foundation. The Lincoln Educational Foundation was founded in 1951 by Mr. Alexander Whiteford, an executive of Union Carbide, to promote recognition of the role of private business and entrepreneurship in America’s growth and development.
When the Lincoln Educational Foundation was liquidated in 1984, Professor Kemmerer ensured that the remaining funds were transferred to the University of Illinois where he had been a faculty member since 1937, becoming Professor Emeritus in 1973. He died in 1993. The monies and the Fellowship program are now administered by the University of Illinois Foundation.

Recent Rovensky Fellows
2022
Alexander Parry, Johns Hopkins University. Dissertation title: “Injured America: Home Accidents and Consumer Product Saftey, 1920-1980.

Lauren Ruhrold, University of Minnesota. Dissertation title: “No Standard Definition: Constructing the US Medical Device Industry1900-1980.

2021

Samuel Ehrlich Backer, Johns Hopkins University. Dissertation title: “A Nation of Stages: The Political Economy of American Culture, 1870-1920.”

Derek Vouri-Richard, College of William & Mary. Dissertation title:»American Business and Culture: How the National Cash Register Company, the General Motors Corporation, and the Jam Handy Organization Built a White Middle-Class Identity through Media and Spectatorship, 1884-1967″

2020

Mark Boxell, University of Oklahoma. Dissertation title: “Red Soil, White Oil: Indian Territory, Oklahoma, and Petroleum’s Rise in Progressive America”
Misty Peñuelas, University of Oklahoma. Dissertation title: “To Draw a Warrant for the Same: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Fiat Economy in the Long Nineteenth Century.”

2019

Asthon Merck, Duke University. Dissertation title: “The Fox Guarding the Henhouse: Coregulation and Food Safety in Meat and Poultry, 1946-2002.

Alastair Su, Stanford University. Dissertation title: “Capitalism and Opium: The Transpacific Drug Economy, 1814-1881.”

2018

Ben Zdencanovic, Yale University. Dissertation title: “From Cradle to Grave: Visions of the Welfare State in an Age of US Global Power, 1941-1952.

Peter Labuza, University of Southern California. Dissertation title: “When a Handshake Meant Something: The Emergence of Entertainment Law and the Constitution of Hollywood Art, 1944-1967.

2017

Emilie Connolly, New York University. Dissertation title: «Indian Trust Funds and the Routes of American Capitalism.»

Devin Kennedy, Harvard University. Dissertation title: «Computing’s Economy: Technology and the Making of Modern Finance, 1930-1975.

2016

Liat Spiro, Harvard University. Dissertation title: “Drawing Capital: Depiction, Machine Tools, and the Political Economy of Industrial Knowledge1824-1914.”

Daniel Platt, Brown University. Dissertation title: “Race, Risk, and Financial Capitalism in the United States, 1880-1940.”

2015

Rudi Batzell, Harvard University. Dissertation title: “The Global Reconstruction of Capitalism: Class, Corporations, and the Rise of Welfare States, 1870-1930.”

Sean Vanatta, Princeton University. Dissertation title: “Constituting Credit Capitalism: The Political Economy of Bank Credit Cards in Postwar America.”