Louis Pelzer Memorial Award Winners

The Louis Pelzer Memorial Award was first given in 1949 for the best essay in American history by a graduate student. The prize is $500, a medal, a certificate, and publication of the essay in the Journal of American History. The essay may be about any period or topic in the history of the United States, and the author must be enrolled in a graduate program at any level, in any field. Entries should not exceed 10,000 words (including endnotes) and should be mailed to the office of the Journal of American History, 1125 E. Atwater, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47401. The deadline is November 30. Louis Pelzer was president of the Mississippi Valley Historical Association 1935–36 and was editor of the Mississippi Valley Historical Review 1941–46. The year noted for the award is the year in which the award was given. Submissions were received during the year prior to that year. The winning essay is published in the Journal of American History.

2012 Hidetaka Hirota, Boston College, "The Moment of Transition: State Officials, the Federal Government, and the Formation of American Immigration Policy" (scheduled to appear in JAH, March 2013)

2011 Christine M. DeLucia, Yale University, "The Memory Frontier: Uncommon Pursuits of Past and Place in the Northeast after King Philip’s War (1675–78)" (JAH, March 2012)

2010 Nora Doyle, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, "'The Highest Pleasure of Which Woman’s Nature is Capable': Breastfeeding and the Sentimental Maternal Ideal in America 1750–1860" (JAH, March 2011)

2009 Joseph L. Yannielli, Yale University, "George Thompson among the Africans: Empathy, Authority, and Insanity in the Age of Abolition" (JAH, March 2010)

2008 Sarah Keyes, University of Southern California, "'Like a roaring lion': The Overland Trail as a Sonic Conquest" (JAH, June 2009)

2007 Andrew W. Kahrl, Indiana University, "'Why the Police at No. 4 'Get Busy' When They Hear the Whistle of the ‘Razor Beach’ Boat': Steamboat Excursions, Pleasure Resorts, and the Emergence of Segregation Culture on the Potomac River, 1890–1920" (JAH, March 2008 - Title: "The Slightest Semblance of Unruliness": Steamboat Excursions, Pleasure Resorts, and the Emergence of Segregation Culture on the Potomac River)

2006 Wendy Anne Warren, Yale University, "'The Cause of Her Grief': The Rape of a Slave Woman in Early New England" (JAH, March 2007)

2005 Kevin Dawson, University of South Carolina, "Enslaved Swimmers and Divers in the Atlantic World" (JAH, March 2006)

2004 Danielle McGuire, Rutgers University, "'It Was Like All of Us Had Been Raped': Black Womanhood, White Violence, and the Civil Rights Movement" (JAH, December 2004)

2003 Margot Canaday, University of Minnesota, "Building a Straight State: Sexuality and Social Citizenship under the 1944 G. I. Bill" (JAH, December 2003)

2002 Lauren Rebecca Sklaroff, University of Virginia, "Constructing G. I. Joe Louis: Cultural Solutions to the ‘Negro Problem’ during World War II" (JAH, December 2002)

2001 Christopher Capozzola, Columbia University, "The Only Badge Needed is Your Patriotic Fervor: Vigilance, Coercion, and the Law in World War I America" (JAH, March 2002)

2000 Constance Areson Clark, University of Colorado, "Evolution for John Doe: Pictures, the Public, and the Scopes Trial Debate" (JAH, March 2001)

1999 Elizabeth Anne Fenn, "Biological Warfare in Eighteenth-Century North America: Beyond Jeffrey Amherst" (JAH, March 2000)

1998 Mae M. Ngai, "The Architecture of Race in Immigration Law: A Reexamination of the Immigration Act of 1924" (JAH, June 1999)

1997 Richard C. Rath, "Echo and Narcissus: The Afrocentric Pragmatism of W. E. B. DuBois" (JAH, September 1997)

1996 Jeffrey P. Moran, "'Modernism Gone Mad': Sex Education Comes to Chicago, 1913" (JAH, September 1996)

1995 Steven A. Reich, "Soldiers of Democracy: Black Texans and the Fight for Citizenship, 1917–1921" (JAH, March 1996)

1994 Pamela Grundy, "'We Always Tried to Be Good People': Respectability, Crazy Water Crystals and Hillbilly Music on the Air, 1933–1935" (JAH, March 1995)

1993 Scott A. Sandage, "A Marble House Divided: The Lincoln Memorial, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Politics of Memory, 1939–1963" (JAH, June 1993)

1992 Margaret T. McFadden, "'America’s Boyfriend Who Can't Get a Date': Gender, Race, and the Cultural Work of the Jack Benny Program, 1932–1946" (JAH, June 1993)

1991 Jodi Vandenberg-Daves, "Pursuing a Partnership between the Sexes: The Debate over Programs for Women and Girls in the Young Men’s Christian Association, 1914–1933," (JAH, March 1992)

1990 Leslie J. Reagan, "'About to Meet Her Maker': Dying Declarations, Inquests, and the Investigation of Criminal Abortion Deaths, Chicago, 1895–1940," (JAH, March 1991)

1989 W. Jeffrey Bolster, "'To Feel Like a Man': Black Seamen in the Northern States, 1800–1860," (JAH, March 1990)

1988 Lucy Salyer, "Captives of Law: Judicial Enforcement of the Chinese Exclusion Laws, 1891–1905" (JAH, June, 1989)

1987 Gordon H. Chang, "jfk, China and the Bomb" (JAH, March, 1988)

1986 Michael A. Bellesiles, "The Establishment of Legal Structures on the Frontier: The Case of Revolutionary Vermont" (JAH, March, 1987)

1985 Mark Peel, "On the Margins: Lodgers and Boarders in Boston, 1860–1900" (JAH, March, 1986)

1984 Wayne K. Durrill, "Producing Poverty: Local Government and Economic Development in a New South County, 1874–1884" (JAH, March, 1985)

1983 Lacy K. Ford, "Rednecks and Merchants: Economic Development and Social Tensions in the South Carolina Upcountry, 1965–1900" (JAH, September, 1984)

1982 James L. Leloudis, II, "School Reform in the New South" (JAH, March, 1983)

1981 David E. Hamilton, "Herbert Hoover and the Great Drought of 1930" (JAH, March, 1982)

1980 Cindy S. Aron, "'To Barter Their Souls for Gold': Female Clerks in Federal Government Offices, 1862–1890" (JAH, March, 1981)

1979 Ellen Nore, "Charles A. Beard's Act of Faith: Context and Content" (JAH, March, 1980)

1978 John R. Nelson, Jr., "Alexander Hamilton and American Manufacturing: A Reexamination" (JAH, March, 1979)

1977 David A. Corbin, "Betrayal in the West Virginia Coal Fields: Eugene V. Debs, the Socialist Party of America, 1912–1914" (JAH, March, 1978)

1976 Deborah L. Haines, "Scientific History as a Teaching Method: The Formative Years" (JAH, March, 1977)

1975 Theodore M. Hammett, "Two Mobs of Jacksonian Boston: Ideology and Interest" (JAH, March, 1976)

1974 Charles W. McCurdy, "Justice Field and the Jurisprudence of Government-Business Relations: Some Parameters of Laissez-Faire Constitutionalism 1863–97" (JAH, March, 1975)

1973 Kenneth Kusmer, "The Functions of Organized Charity in the Progressive Era: Chicago as a Case Study" (JAH, December, 1973)

1972 Christopher G. Wye, "The New Deal and the Negro Community: Toward a Broader Conceptualization" (JAH, December, 1972)

1971 Robert L. Buroker, "From Voluntary Association to Welfare State: The Illinois Immigrants’ Protective League, 1908–1926" (JAH, December, 1971)

1970 Pete Daniel, "Up From Slavery and Down to Peonage: The Alonzo Bailey Case" (JAH, December, 1970)

1969 Rita Werner Gordon, "The Change in the Political Alignment of Chicago’s Negroes During the New Deal" (JAH, December, 1969)

1968 William B. Hixson, Jr., "Moorfield Storey and the Struggle for Equality" (JAH, December, 1968)

1967 Edward A. Purcell, Jr., "Ideas and Interests: Businessmen and the Interstate Commerce Act" (JAH, December, 1967)

1966 James P. Johnson, "Drafting the NRA Code of Fair Competition for the Bituminous Coal Industry" (JAH, December, 1966)

1965 Stanley K. Schultz, "The Morality of Politics: The Muckrakers’ Vision of Democracy" (JAH, December, 1965)

1964 Jerold S. Auerbach, "The La Follette Committee: Labor and Civil Liberties in the New Deal" (JAH, December, 1964)

1963 No award given.

1962 G. Cullom Davis, "The Transformation of the Federal Trade Commission, 1914–1929" (JAH, December, 1962)

1961 No award given..

1960 No award given.

1959 No award given.

1958 No award given.

1957 Clifford S. Griffin, "Religious Benevolence as Social Control, 1815–1860" (JAH, December, 1957)

1956 No award given.

1955 Mary E. Young, "Creek Frauds: A Study in Conscience and Corruption" (JAH, December, 1955)

1954 Holman Hamilton, "Democratic Senate Leadership and the Compromise Corruption" (JAH, December, 1954)

1953 Roy N. Lokken, "Has the Mystery of 'A Public Man' Been Solved?" (JAH, December, 1953)

1952 Robert Johannsen, "Secession Crisis and the Frontier: Washington Territory, 1869–1861" (JAH, December, 1952)

1951 David W. Noble, "The New Republic and the Idea of Progress, 1914–1920" (JAH, December, 1951)

1950 Ted Worley, "Control of the Real Estate Bank of the State of Arkansas, 1836–1838" (JAH, December, 1950)

1949 Bruce Staiger, "Abolitionism and the Presbyterian Schism of 1837–1838" (JAH, December, 1949)