Gutenberg-e Prize Winners, 2003

The 2003 Gutenberg-e Prizes competition was in the field of the women's history and the history of gender

The names of the prizewinners are followed by the current institutional affiliation, dissertation title, the institution where the PhD was awarded, and a precis of the prize committee's recommendations.

Joshua Greenberg (University of Miami)

“Advocating 'The Man': Masculinity, Organized Labor and the Market Revolution in New York, 1800-1840,” American University, 2003.

In his “thorough, and imaginative exploration” of the relationship between masculinity and the young labor movement in the Jacksonian era, Greenberg examines diverse sources, such as plays, debates about birth control and comic valentines. He argues that “domestic issues and concerns guided workplace and political reactions to the new industrial economy.”

Timothy Hodgdon (Duke University)

“Manhood in the Age of Aquarius: Masculinity in Two Countercultural Communities, 1965-83,”Arizona State University, 2002.

This is a study “full of rich interpretation” that explores the diverse forms of masculinity found in counter cultural radicalism. Hodgdon argues that conceptions of masculinity developed along two main lines: anarchism and mysticism. These are explored by examining the communities of the Diggers of San Francisco, and The Farm in Tennessee.

Daniella J. Kostroun (Stonehill College)

“Undermining Obedience in Absolutist France: The Case of the Port Royal Nuns, 1609-1709,” Duke University, 2000.

In “a gripping story, well written,” Kostroun answers the question: why, in 1709, did Louis XIV have two hundred soldiers destroy a convent that was home to only twenty-two elderly nuns? While answering that question, she examines how women became the “vanguard of the Jansenist resistance to Louis XIV.”

Erika Lauren Lindgren (Wabash College)

“Environment and Spirituality of German Dominican Women, 1230-1370,” University of Iowa, 2001.

Lindgren compares “Sister-Books,” the literature written in the female Dominican monasteries, with the material culture of the women’s surroundings. She examines the ways in which spirituality becomes culturally constructed and the roles of physicality in religious behavior. She develops a “holistic view of the intersection between materiality and spirituality in female monasteries.”

Jeri L. McIntosh (independent scholar)

“Sovereign Princesses: Mary and Elizabeth Tudor as Heads of Princely Households and the Accomplishment of the Female Succession, 1516-1553,” Johns Hopkins University, 2003.

In her “very impressive” dissertation, McIntosh argues that Mary and Elizabeth did not succeed to the English throne simply because there were no male heirs. McIntosh assesses budgetary accounts, records of entertainment, numbers of important visitors, and political use of staff and retainers to show how Mary and Elizabeth established themselves as credible authority figures before their accessions.

Ann Elizabeth Pfau (New Jersey History Partnership Project at Kean University)

“Miss Yourlovin: Women in the Culture of American World War II Soldiers,” Rutgers University, 2001.

Pfau “extracted extraordinary materials from the World War II files in the National Archives” to complete her study. The work is a series of case studies that examine the women of the shared culture of World War II servicemen including the idealized wife, the promiscuous WAC, the seductive fraulein, the maternal bomber plane and the treacherous Tokyo Rose. Through these she examines the sources and consequences of an “ambivalent cult of American womanhood.”

Margaret Poulos (independent scholar)

“Arms and the Woman: Just Warriors and Greek Feminist Identity,” University of Sydney, 2003.

Poulos explores the intersections of militarism, nationalism, and feminism, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. She argues that the essentially ambiguous nationalist imagery of a woman warrior has not been entirely efficient in the women’s emancipation agenda. The result is “an ambitious, interesting, and successful dissertation.”

Kirsten S. Rambo (Emory University)

“’Trivial Complaints:’ The Role of Privacy in domestic Violence Law and Activism in the U. S.” Emory University, 2003.

Rambo traces the strategies of the battered women's movement in her “analytically astute and well-argued piece of legal history.” She focuses on the role of cultural and legal notions of privacy in litigation and activism in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Maria Rentetzi (Polytechnic of Athens)

“Gender, Politics, and Radioactivity Research in Vienna, 1910-1938,” Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 2003.

Rentetzi’s dissertation is “a complex, creative, and fascinating study” of women in Vienna working as independent researchers. She includes documentary research, material culture and built environment analysis, and oral histories to examine the culture of women in the unique positions of radioactivity researchers during the early twentieth century.

The Gutenberg-e Prizes, launched in 1999, are intended to encourage and support publication of the best history dissertations, especially in fields where the traditional monograph has become endangered. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation gave a generous grant to support this program, which allows the AHA to award six prizes a year through 2004. Each prize consists of a $20,000 fellowship to be used by the author for converting the dissertation into an electronic monograph of the highest quality, to be published by Columbia University Press.

Return to the Gutenberg-e Prizes page.

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Last Updated: May 7, 2007