University Libraries Welcomes ACE-Mellon Fellow Melissa Benbow Flowers

Montclair State University Libraries welcomes Dr. Melissa Benbow Flowers, an American Conservation Experience Mellon Fellow, as a Research Associate through August 2026. The American Conservation Experience (ACE) is a partner in the Mellon Humanities Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, which supports humanities scholars. Fellows conduct research, create interpretive products, and pursue career development while working on projects related to the humanities.

Dr. Flowers is a scholar of late nineteenth-century literature and culture. Her interests include African American art and literature, Black diasporic cultures, museum curation, and museum education. She earned a Ph.D. in English with a certificate in Museum Studies from the University of Delaware. Her dissertation, “Before Black Bohemia: Edmonia Lewis In the Post-bellum, Pre-Harlem Period,” explores the career of artist Edmonia Lewis, paying particular attention to her visits to the United States and her contributions to African American culture. Melissa joins the Montclair State University community to complete her ACE-Mellon Fellowship, titled The Lives of Domestic Workers at Glenmont, Thomas and Mina Edison’s home, during which she will research the lives of the six generations of predominantly female domestic workers in the Edison household and place their experiences into broader social contexts. In collaboration with the University Libraries, she will develop educational and interpretive products to share this research with the public.

“We’re excited to work with Dr. Flowers through next summer, as there is so much we will be able to learn from each other”, said Dean O’Shea, especially at this pivotal time when access to our national parks and the stories that they tell about the history of our country is limited during the government shutdown. The Libraries’ goals in bringing Dr. Flowers to Montclair State University include creating opportunities for students to engage with archival research and local history, and building connections that bring scholars to Glenmont and other local house museums and help them understand the University Libraries Archives and Special Collections, and the Thomas Edison National Historical Park as spaces where humanities and social science scholarship is possible. Dr. Flowers is interested in collaborating with faculty and students across disciplines on projects related to labor, women’s history, immigration and assimilation, technology and history, race, space, and community change.

Dr. Flowers can be reached at her Montclair email address, flowersm@montclair.edu. She will be working in collaboration with Darren Sweeper (sweeperd@montclair.edu), the Government Documents and Research Services Librarian, and others in the University Libraries.