Kevin M. Kruse was among 168 to receive fellowships from a pool of almost 3,000 applicants—a diverse group of scholars, artists and scientists—appointed on the basis of prior achievement and exceptional promise. Fellow Princeton university faculty member, Ilya Vinitsky, professor of Slavic languages and literatures, also received a 2019 Guggenheim Fellowship.
Kruse studies the political, social and urban/suburban history of 20th-century America. Focused on conflicts over race, rights and religion, Kruse has particular interests in segregation and the civil rights movement, the rise of religious nationalism, and the making of modern conservatism.
He was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship to complete archival research for his next book, The Division: John Doar, the Justice Department, and the Civil Rights Movement. Doar was a point man for civil rights during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations and was a vital actor in the civil rights movement.