The State Historical Society of Missouri is awarding three Gary R. Kremer Center for Missouri Studies fellowships in 2026. The 2026 fellows are Deborah Cohen, associate professor of history at the University of Missouri–St. Louis; Brian Frehner, professor and chair of the University of Missouri–Kansas City Department of History; and Cory Haala, assistant professor of history at the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point.
Cohen received her fellowship award for her proposed study, “Welcome Japanese Students! Accommodation and Conflict in the St. Louis Region during World War II.” She will examine the experience of thirty students who freed themselves from wartime internment camps for Japanese Americans by enrolling in a government program that allowed them to study at Washington University in St. Louis. Cohen will explore how the students and the influx of Japanese American families who followed them affected the St. Louis region.
Frehner’s proposed study, “Imperial Kansas City: Railroads and Expansion into the West, 1890-1930,” considers how railroads enabled Kansas City’s rapid growth from a small river town to an industrial and commercial center—a transformation that depended on abundant energy resources, particularly coal, to fuel locomotives, power factories, and support the rise of an urban population center. He will assess the hidden costs behind the economic prosperity sustained by the steady combustion of fossil fuel.
In his proposal, “Conflict and Community: Rural Missouri in the 1980s Farm Crisis,” Haala will examine the ways in which rural Missouri organizers, as well as allied politicians, addressed the Farm Crisis and built “people power” through protest, organizing, and elections. Centering on a protest in Chillicothe led by the Missouri Rural Crisis Center, his study will explore community conflicts among farmers, bankers, consumers, and others, while also considering the belief of politicians that community-oriented policies could rebuild rural and urban communities alike by confronting the problems in Missouri’s and America’s political economy of the 1980s.
Each fellowship includes a $5,000 stipend. Recipients are offered an opportunity to write an article for publication in the Missouri Historical Review, a scholarly journal published by the State Historical Society. They are also invited to make a public presentation of their work. The fellowships are named after recently retired SHSMO executive director Gary R. Kremer. Cohen, Frehner, and Haala will hold their appointments for the 2026 calendar year.