Past Winners
2023
Willow Tomkovicz, "Cairo Street: America's Tangled Embrace of Arab-Islamic Egypt at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition"
2022
Meghan Flannery, "Chicago's Bicentennial Spirit: Chicago's Celebrations of the United States 200th Birthday, 1975-1976"
2021
Anthony Stamilio, "Divorce and Melodrama in the Civil War"
2020
Sean Jacobson, “Boundaries of Authority: Survivor Leadership at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center”
2019
Cate LiaBraaten, “Playing Properly: Adult Supervision and Gender in Chicago’s Progressive Era Playgrounds”
2018
Janette Clay, “Peace Bodies: Women at the Seneca Encampment for a Future of Peace and Justice”
2017
Marie Pellissier, “Crossing Many Borders: Joseph Brant, John Norton, and the Iroquois in Upper Canada, 1783-1810”
Kelly Schmidt, “’Without Slaves and Without Assassins’: Transnational Jesuits and the Challenge of Race and Slavery in Antebellum Cincinnati”
2016
Ruby Oram, "'They Taught Us To Be Ladies’: The Forgotten History of Flower Tech, 1927-1960”
2015
Katya Maslakowski, "Cathedrals of Surgery: St. Bernard's, teaching hospitals and the struggle for the soul of Fin de siecle Britain"
2014
Steven Catania, "Physicians and Courtiers: Gatekeepers of Information During the Long Eighteenth Century"
2013
Matthew Janeczko, “We Desire Death, War, Terror, and the Chechen Jihad”
2012
Matthew Janeczko, “Deliverer or Destroyer: 19th Century Perceptions of the Russian Peasantry”
2011
Kaitlin Pontzer, “The Conduct of Enemies: Emotions in Partisan Politics During the Reign of Queen Anne”
2010
Thomas Greene, "De filii irae facit filios Dei": Emotional Transformation in the Carolingian Baptismal Ritual”
2009
Joel F. Yoder, “A Philosopher of the Future Herbert Spencer and His American Audience, 1850–1885”
2008
Adam Shprintzen, "Poets of Bran and Pumpkins: Grahamism, the American Vegetarian Society and the Rise of Personal Political Consciousness in the Antebellum North”
2007
Daniel O’Gorman, “Elevating Edmund, 869–1200: Developing the Cult of an Anglo Saxon Saint”
2006
Marc Dluger, “The Cultural Impact of Star Wars Action Figures”
2005
Dejan Kralj, “National Unity or Disarray: Ethnonational Identity and Construction Among the Bosnian, Croat and Serb Diaspora”
2004
Dejan Kralj, “Atom Bombs and Cold Wars: Ray Bradbury and the Emergence of Dystopia in Post-World War II America”
2003
Jilana Ordman, “Viriliter et sine Timore: Fear and Courage Among the First Crusaders, 1095 to 1099"
2002
Nona P. Martin, “Race to the Finish: The Story of Loyola 1963 Basketball Season and Its Place in the Civil Rights Movement”
2001
Tim Lacy, “Toward the Great Books: the Early Thought of Mortimer Adler”
2000
Matthew P. Szromba, "The Civil Courts of the Verge: the Marshalsea and the Palace Court” Alan G. Zola, "Pope Nicholas I and Monasticism in 863"
1999
David MacLaren, “Black Skin over Red Blood: African-American Protests during the Second World War”
1998
Mark Long, “Speaking of Disease: The Black Lung Movement and the Tradition of Social Medicine”
1997
Michael O’Malley, “Local Relief During the Great Irish Famine 1845–50: The Case of Castlebar, County May, 1846–1947"
1996
Scott Newman, “Preferred Customers: Social-Group Identities in the Chicago Department-Store Advertising, 1900–1930"
1995
Joseph O’Grady, Chicago’s Reaction to the Tet Offensive: The Cover of the City’s Three Major Newspapers After the January, 1968 Communist Attacks”
1994
David Groeninger, “Chicago: Ben Hecht Style”
1993
Lana Kubiatowski, “Crime in Ireland During the Great Famine: Acts of Rebellion or Acts of Survival?”
1992
Catherine Candy, “Margaret Cousins, ‘Mother India’ and the Ideal ‘Femaculine’: an Irish Orientalism Feminist in India”
1991
Julia Foulkes, “The Theatre Ascends as Chicago Grows 1837–71"
1990
Kathleen Toerpe, “Shopping Centers: The New Town Squares”
