Three Center for Mason Legacies scholars received well deserved recognition in spring semester 2026. In keeping with CML's teaching, mission and methodologies, their work elevates new sources and ways of examining them that shed light on the pasts of female, laboring class and non-White Virginians otherwise absent from the conventional archive. Their work not only reclaims seemingly lost narratives; it offers new insight into how Colonial Northern Virginia grew into the region of today. Read on for descriptions of their scholarship and how CML supported their work.
Elizabeth Paynter - Larry Levine Outstanding M.A. Thesis Award
For the best master’s thesis written in the previous calendar year in the M.A. program in History.
Elizabeth’s meticulously researched thesis—and its advising team—grew out of her experience in CML's Mason Family Account Book research course taught by Professor Cynthia A. Kierner, a faculty affiliate, and CML Director George Oberle. Both teachers (along with fellow historian Randolph Scully) helped her apply the digital humanities methods taught in that class to document the a local family of free Black watermen earning their living on the Potomac River. Over four generations, the Newman clan lived along the Virginia and Maryland riverbanks and transported agricultural produce to coastal markets. Elizabeth focused in particular on Benjamin (c. 1750-1815) and Bazil Newman (1779-1852), examining how they leveraged maritime skills and and community networks to survive and even prosper in an environment where the line between freedom and bondage could be tenuous. She drew on an impressive range of sources—court records, tax lists, ledgers, journals, and newspaper notices—to make the case that Newman family watermen both challenged and adapted to the constraints of their world, asserting autonomy in the face of racialized labor systems and escalating racial tensions.
Allessandra DelDonna - Randy Beth Clarke Endowed Fellowship in U.S. History
For a graduate student with excellent academic record and an interest in Civil War and/or women's history.
As a first-year doctoral student, Ally worked in 2025-2026 with Professor Cynthia Kierner on an important paper reflecting her interests in women's history and material culture. The paper, “An Agreeable Companion, Prudent Mother, and Humane Mistress: Ann Eilbeck Mason as the 'Planter’s Wife' in Eighteenth Century Virginia," draws on artifacts as sources for recovering the lives of both George Mason’s wife, Ann Eilbeck Mason, and the enslaved women who surrounded her in a plantation household. Ally's work explores the idealized identities of a plantation mistress and enslaver, and suggests how material culture presents opportunities to examine the archival silences of women in Colonial Virginia. She presented her work at the 2026 Virginia Forum and at the Fairfax County "Revolutionary Ideas" summit commemorating America250 and Virginia250.
Andrew Snowman - Evelyn Pugh Memorial Graduate Endowed Fellowship
Providing funding for a graduate fellowship in history.
Andrew has demonstrated exceptional academic merit in his coursework and his commitment to original research. Now a master's candidate, Andrew as an undergraduate first affiliated with CML through the Mason Family Account Book class co-taught by CML Affiliate Professor Cynthia Kierner and CML Director George Oberle. His original research with CML on the account book and on race history of Northern Virginia policing has afforded him numerous opportunities and awards, including internships at interned at the Fairfax County Circuit Court Historic Records Center, where he's become a regular fixture; presentations to historical societies, the 2025 and 2026 Virginia Forum conferences, and Fairfax County's "Revolutionary Ideas" America250 summit; and in his final undergraduate year, CML's 2025 Andy Smith Prize and the award for the Best Senior Seminar paper in history. An article by Andrew, “The Rescue at Spring Bank: Enslaved Resistance Meets White Power in Fairfax County,” appeared in the latest Yearbook (Vol. 34) of the Historical Society of Fairfax County.