Hello Prospective Students!

Many of you have already received emails from me but for those that are new, my name is Emily Harvey and I’m a second-year Master’s student and this year’s Admissions Ambassador. My research lies in 19th-century decorative arts with a focus on women and Russia. I am currently finishing up my Qualifying Paper (QP) proposal which is focused on the rise in popularity of visual aids in 19th-century women’s fashion. While I am planning to write a traditional research paper for my QP, students can also choose to design an exhibition or create a digital project.

This project stems from an idea for a research project for the course Medical Materialities taught by Professor Meredith Linn. While I am taking the course this semester, BGC allows for Qualifying Papers to stem from/build off of coursework that students have worked on in all previous semesters (you can see some recent QP titles here).

At this early stage of my project, I am excited to delve deeper into an often under-researched area of scholarship—women and material culture. By looking at portraits, photographs, and other visual and literary sources, I will be able to garner a fuller understanding of why women chose to start wearing their visual aids more in the latter half of the 19th century. A goal of mine for the expansion of the initial project into my QP is to look into and handle multiple extant versions of visual aids from the period. This hands-on research is possible because of BGC’s location in New York City and the close proximity it has to some of the greatest museum collections in the world.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions regarding anything BGC and I hope to see you in person at our next open house on November 13th and virtually on December 4th!

All the best,

Emily Harvey, ‘23
Admissions Ambassador
emily.harvey@bgc.bard.edu