Submissions Are Closed

Deadline: May 15, 2025

Award Type

Award for Publications

To promote and honor outstanding historical writing, the American Historical Association offers each year the Beveridge Family Prize in American History. The award was established on a biennial basis in 1939 and has been awarded annually since 1945. It originally honored US Senator Albert J. Beveridge (Indiana, 1899–1911), a longtime member of the Association and an active supporter of history as both a lawyer and a senator.

The Beveridge Fund was created by a gift of $50,000 from Mrs. Catherine Beveridge in honor of her husband in 1927. Mrs. Beveridge wrote to the AHA of her desire for “a separate fund bearing my husband’s name and devoted to research in American history.” The fund was augmented by donations from friends of Senator Beveridge and the scope of the award was enlarged to encompass Latin America and Canada as well as the United States.

The award is given for a distinguished book in English on the history of the United States, Latin America, or Canada, from 1492 to the present. Books that employ new methodological or conceptual tools or that constitute significant reexaminations of important interpretive problems will be given preference. Literary merit is also an important criterion. The current prize amount is $1,000.

General rules for submission are:

  1. Biographies, monographs, and works of synthesis and interpretation are eligible; translations, anthologies, and collections of documents are not.
  2. Only books bearing a copyright of 2024 are eligible for the 2025 prize.
  3. Nomination submissions may be made by an author or by a publisher. Authors or publishers may submit the same book for multiple AHA prizes.
  4. Nominators must complete an online prize submission form for each book submitted. Once you fill out the form you will receive an email with the committee’s contact information.
  5. No more than five titles from any one publisher may be submitted.
  6. One copy of each entry must be sent to each committee member and clearly labeled “Beveridge Family Prize Entry.” Print copies preferred unless otherwise indicated. If only e-copy is available, please contact review committee members beforehand to arrange submission format.

Please Note: Entries must be received by May 15, 2025, to be eligible for the 2025 competition. Entries will not be returned. Recipients will be announced on the AHA website in October 2025 and recognized during a ceremony at the January 2026 AHA annual meeting in Chicago.

For questions, please contact the Prize Administrator.

Current Recipient

Dylan C. Penningroth, University of California, Berkeley

Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights (Liveright)