The DC History Center is excited to welcome two new Totman fellows: Emma O’Neill-Dietel and Morgan Forde. Emma and Morgan were selected through a competitive process managed by the DC History Center’s University Advisory Group. The Totman Fellowship, which launched in 2022 thanks to a generous donor, supports scholars undertaking new research in the fields of Black Washington and LGBTQ+ DC.
Emma O’Neill-Dietel will examine the experiences of women federal workers in DC during the Lavender Scare of the 1950s. Existing scholarship on the Lavender Scare, which was the McCarthy-era panic over and dismissal of gay government workers, often overlooks women and people of color due to their limited access to higher government roles. Emma examines how gender, race, and sexuality shaped their access to jobs, housing, and community—revealing distinct challenges from those faced by white gay men.
Emma is pursuing a Master of Arts in History at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She first became familiar with the DC History Center and its collections when she volunteered with the Rainbow History Project. She will be using these resources to demonstrate the role of women workers’ leadership in the LGBTQ+ movement, past and present, from a labor studies perspective. Emma made her debut at the DC History Conference in 2024 with her poster, “Signs of Pride: Deaf LGBTQ+ Activism in DC.”
Morgan Forde’s research will support her dissertation, “A Crisis of Victory: Revisiting Resurrection City.” Her research is focused on creating an urban history of the six-week 1968 encampment on the National Mall. Designed by the Poor People’s Campaign and a team of architects, the self-built community housed up to 5,000 people. Morgan explores Resurrection City as both an architectural experiment and a form of civil rights activism—an integrated, temporary urban space that embodied a radical reimagining of the city.
Morgan is beginning her fifth-year doctoral candidacy at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. She will be using her time in the Kiplinger Research Library to focus on two foundational aspects of the Resurrection City project: the overlapping regimes of sovereignty under which Resurrection City operated and its relationship to DC’s urban renewal context. Morgan made her debut at the DC History Conference in 2023 with her paper “Plywood Dreams: An Urban-Environmental Analysis of Resurrection City, Summer 1968.”
About the Totman Fellowships
Thanks to generous donor support, the DC History Center provides stipends, resources, and mentorship to foster new research to share with a public audience on Black Washington and LGBTQ+ DC. After initial summer research in the Kiplinger Research Library, at other local repositories, and in individually owned collections throughout the District, fellows each submit a project proposal for approval in the fall. They continue to engage with the DC History Center throughout the following academic year, culminating in a deliverable that might comprise of an article submitted to Washington History magazine, a presentation at a future DC History Conference, or a Context for Today public program.