The current competition is now closed. Updated information will be available by May 2013.

Throughout his forty-year career as a professor of history at the University of Maryland, Horace Samuel Merrill earned the high regard of colleagues and students as a committed teacher, productive scholar, and caring mentor. An outstanding American political historian of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era periods, with interests extending through the New Deal, Professor Merrill took particular delight in assisting the younger scholars he met while conducting manuscript research at the Library ofCongress. With the assistance of Marion Galbraith Merrill, his wife andscholarly collaborator, Professor Merrill fostered and provided hospitality to several generations of younger historians, even beyond those who formally studied under his guidance. Many went on to their own productive and fulfilling careers with a deep appreciation of the Merrills for the intellectual and social sustenance that made a difference in the early years of their professional lives.

The Horace Samuel & Marion Galbraith Merrill Travel Grants in Twentieth-Century American Political History were first given in 1998 to promote access of younger (i.e., relatively new to the profession) scholars to the Washington, DC, region's rich primary source collections in late-nineteenth and twentieth-century American political history. The grants, which ranged from $500 to $3,000, also provided the opportunity for scholars to interview former and current public figures residing in the metropolitan Washington area. This program offered stipends to underwrite travel and lodging expenses for members of the Organization of American Historians who were working toward completion of a dissertation or first book.

List of Past Winners