May 6, 1998
Contact: Bob Brickhouse
	 (804) 924-6856

TWO U.VA. HISTORIANS ARE AWARDED GUGGENHEIM FELLOWSHIPS

	Two University of Virginia historians are among 168 artists,
scholars and scientists chosen from more than 3,000 applicants around
the country to receive prestigious 1998 fellowships from the John Simon
Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the foundation has announced.  The
fellowships, which provide a cash prize to allow recipients time to
further their work, are awarded "on the basis of unusually distinguished
achievement in the past and exceptional promise for future
accomplishment." 
	Professor Lenard R. Berlanstein, an authority on France and
modern European social history, will use his fellowship to complete a
book on the important role of women in the theater during the 18th and
19th century in France.
	Professor Nelson Lichtenstein, an expert on labor history and
20th century America, will be writing a history of the United States
since 1941, with a central focus on the capitalist economic system.
	Berlanstein, who has taught at U.Va. since 1973, is the author
of five previous books, including "The Industrial Revolution and Work in
Nineteenth Century Europe" (1992) and "The Working People of Paris,
1871-1914" (1984).  His current project examines the social and cultural
history of 18th and 19th century France and the history of actresses,
among the most prominent women of their day in a period when stage
production evolved from an aristocratic pastime to mass entertainment.
	Lichtenstein, who has taught here since 1989, is the author,
among other writings, of the highly acclaimed 1995 book, "The Most
Dangerous Man in Detroit: Walter Reuther and the Fate of American
Labor," a biography of the influential longtime president of the United
Automobile Workers.  His current project will be a volume tentatively
titled "The Work and Wealth of a Nation, the United States 1941-2000,"
in a Viking/Penguin history of the United States. 
	Both historians will be on research leave during the coming
academic year.  Berlanstein	
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also has received a National Endowment for the Humanities grant.
Lichtenstein will spend part of next year at the Rockefeller
Foundation's Bellagio Study Center at Lake Como, Italy.
	The last previous Guggenheims awarded to U.Va. faculty members
were in 1996.
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