Athan Biss

BIAAS granted $1,188 in order research the cultural diplomacy of Edith Sampson, an African American delegate to the United Nations who traveled throughout Austria in 1951 as part of America’s cultural offensive to win the support of the Austrian people. The project involved research at Harvard’s Schlesinger Library to examine the Edith S. Sampson Papers collection and to Washington D.C. to visit the National Archives State Department Records. The research contributed to a chapter of Biss’s dissertation as well as resulted in a presentation on Sampson at an American Historical Association session in January of 2016.

Athan Biss is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at the University of Wisconsin writing on Race and U.S. Foreign Affairs.