AHA–NEH Grants to Sustain and Advance the Work of Historical Organizations

The AHA’s Grants to Sustain and Advance the Work of Historical Organizations Program provided $2.5 million to support dozens of small history-related organizations adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. These grants, ranging from $10,000 to $75,000, funded short-term projects that explore new ideas or build on experiments initiated during the pandemic—from virtual programming or online publications to using new technologies or expanding audiences and accessibility. We encouraged proposals for both ambitious new initiatives as well as smaller projects that address problems that have arisen because of the pandemic. See the list of recipients.

Alexis De Tocqueville Prize (1979–89)

The de Tocqueville Prize was intended as a quinquennial prize for the best published work in any language on the history of the United States by a foreign scholar. The prize was created by Council in 1974 to be awarded initially in 1979. No award was made in either 1979 or 1984, however, due to a lack of quality submissions. The future of the prize was discussed in the fall 1985 meeting of the Research Division and the consensus was that it should be offered once more before being discontinued. However, no award was made in 1989.

Congressional Fellows (1980–86)

The Congressional Fellows program was funded by a grant from the Mellon Foundation for three years, renewed for another three, and by the Rockefeller Foundation for two years for a single fellow each year. Postdoctoral historians were assigned to the offices of congressional members or to committee staff for a full year, with salary paid by the AHA from grant funds.

1985–86
David Farber
Heather Huyck, Office of Rep. Bruce Vento (Subcommittee on Parks)

1984–85
Timothy P. Maga (Rockefeller), Office of Rep. Mervyn Dymally (HFAC)
Jeffrey Stine, House Committee on Science and Technology
Marta Wagner, House Committee on Economic Stabilization (Banking, Finance)

1983–84
Lois A. Aroian (Rockefeller), Office of Rep. Mervyn Dymally
David Corbin, Office of Sen. John Glenn (Democratic Policy Committee)
Marc Levine, Joint Economic Committee

1982–83
Harley Balzer, Office of Rep. Lee Hamilton (HFAC)
Edward R. Long, Office of Rep. Thomas Harkin

1981–82
David W. Reinhard, Office of Rep. Joseph McDade
Edward Abrahams, HR Interior Committee

1980–81
Rosalie Schwartz, Office of Rep. Lee Hamilton (HFAC)
Duane Tananbaum, Office of Sen. Claiborne Pell (SFRC)

First Books Program (1977–83)

The First Books Program was designed to provide younger historians with publication outlets in an effort to overcome the high cost of publishing and other pressures on junior faculty members. The program was created by a committee consisting of Lewis Hanke, David Horne (then director of the Univ. Press of New England), Nancy Roelker, and Paul Schroeder. It was inaugurated in 1975 in collaboration with the American Association of Univ. Presses and administered by the Research Division. The program was opened to entries in 1977, when 11 manuscripts were received but none recommended for publication. The quality of submissions was still low in 1978, and the program was overhauled for the 1979–80 competition. In that year, 22 manuscripts were received, of which two were recommended for publication. The following year saw 11 more manuscripts entered, one of which was subsequently published. For the next two years, seven and four entries were received, none of which were published. In December 1982, Council voted to terminate the program on the basis that it had not proved a particularly useful way of getting manuscripts published, judges had been hard to secure, and historians were finding other publication outlets.

1980
Edward H. Judge, LeMoyne Coll., The Russia of Plehue: Repression and Reform in Imperial Russia, 1902–1909 (Syracuse Univ. Press)

1979
Daniel Czitrom, Mount Holyoke Coll., Media and the American Mind: From Morse to McLuhan (Univ. of North Carolina Press)
Michael E. Hobart, Lafayette Coll., Science and Religion in the Thought of Nicholas Malebranche (Univ. of North Carolina Press)

AHA/Folger Shakespeare Library Fellowship (2012–15)

The American Historical Association/Folger Shakespeare Library Fellowship was sponsored jointly by the AHA and the Folger Shakespeare Library. It was awarded for research on 17th- and 18th-century western European history as a one-month fellowship taken at the Folger Shakespeare Library.

2014
Rita Costa-Gomes, Towson Univ.,  A Cartographer's Tale: Boazio's 1588 View of Santiago

2013
Amy Froide, Univ. of Maryland, Baltimore County, Women's Financial Literacy in Early Modern England

2012
Paul P. Musselwhite, Dartmouth Coll., Conceiving the Plantation Town: Civic Structure in English Atlantic Debate

James Hazen Hyde Prize (1948)

The short-lived James Hazen Hyde Prize was established to acknowledge the best work on Franco-American relations or on the history of France in the nineteenth century. The prize was created with a bequest amounting to $1,000 in 1946 by James Hazen Hyde, a historian of 19th-century Franco-American relations and a life member of the AHA. Council originally intended to offer the prize at regular intervals, but it transpired that the award was granted only in 1948.

1948
Louis R. Gottschalk, Lafayette Between the American Revolution and the French Revolution (Univ. of Chicago Press)

J. Franklin Jameson Fellowship (1977–2022)

The J. Franklin Jameson Fellowship in American History was sponsored jointly by the AHA and the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress. It was awarded annually to support significant scholarly research in the collections of the Library of Congress by scholars at an early stage in their careers in history. PhD degree or equivalent were required. Applicants must have received this degree within the past seven years. The fellowship had a stipend of $5,000 that will be awarded for two to three months to spend in full-time residence at the Kluge Center at the Library of Congress. See the list of past recipients.

Jusserand Medal (1924–38)

The Jusserand Medal was instituted in 1924 by Council to acknowledge the best work on international intellectual progress, in particular vis-à-vis relations between the United States and Europe. The medal was established to honor Jean Jules Jusserand, French ambassador to the United States and President of the American Historical Association in 1921. Although intended as an annual award, it became an occasional offering first given in 1925 and then in 1930, 1932, 1933, and 1937. The Jusserand Medal was discontinued by Council in 1938.

1937
Samuel Eliot Morison, The Founding of Harvard College (Harvard Univ. Press)

1933
Gilbert Chinard, in recognition of several works on intellectual relations between the United States and France

1932
Howard Mumford Jones, America and French Culture, 1750–1848 (Univ. of North Carolina Press)

1930
Otto Vossler, Die Amerikanischen Revolutionsideale in ihrem Verhaltnis zu den Europaischen (Oldenbourg)

1925
Bernard Fay, L’Esprit revolutionnaire en France et aux Etas-Unis a la fin du dixhuitieme siecle (Champion)

Military History Prize (1915), then Robert M. Johnston Prize in Military History (1920)

The Military History Prize was created as a one-time award in 1913 by a gift of $250 from Professor Robert M. Johnston for the best monograph in the field of military history. A prize of $200 was to have been awarded in 1915, but Council deemed the entries unworthy of the prize and postponed the competition until 1918. Ironically, war intervened, and the prize was postponed until 1920. In the latter year the award was renamed the Robert M. Johnston Prize in Military History in honor of the man who had organized support for it in 1913. It was awarded to Thomas Robson Hay and thereupon discontinued.

1920
Thomas Robson Hay, Hood’s Tennessee Campaign

Robert Livingston Schuyler Prize (1951–91)

A quinquennial prize established by the Taraknath Das Foundation (Columbia Univ.), the Schuyler Prize recognized the best published work in the field of modern British, British imperial, or British Commonwealth history written by a citizen of the United States. The prize is named in honor of Robert Livingston Schuyler (d. 1966), president of the Association in 1951, a historian of British legal history at Columbia University and a life member of the AHA. The Schuyler Prize was superseded by the Forkosch Prize in 1993.

1991
Theodore Koditschek, Univ. of Missouri-Columbia, Class Formation and Urban Industrial Society Bradford, 1750–1850 (Cambridge Univ. Press)

1986
Stephen Koss, Columbia Univ. (posthumous), The Rise and Fall of the Political Press in Britain, 2 vols. (Univ. of North Carolina Press)

1981
Martin J. Wiener, Rice Univ., English Culture and the Decline of the Industrial Spirit, 1850–1980 (Cambridge Univ. Press)

1976
John Clive, Macaulay: The Shaping of the Historian (Alfred A. Knopf)

1971
W.K. Jordan, Edward VI: The Young King and The Threshold of Power, 2 vols. (Belknap Press of Harvard Univ. Press)

1966
Philip D. Curtin, The Image of Africa: British Ideas and Actions, 1780–1850 (Univ. of Wisconsin Press)

1961
Mark H. Curtis, Oxford and Cambridge in Transition, 1558–1642 (Oxford Univ. Press)

1956
David Harris Willson, James VI and I (Jonathan Cape)

1951
Howard Robinson, Britain’s Post Office (Oxford Univ. Press)

Theodore Roosevelt-Woodrow Wilson Public Service Award

Named for the two former AHA presidents who were also presidents of the United States—Theodore Roosevelt (AHA president in 1912) and Woodrow Wilson (AHA president in 1924)—this honorific award recognized individuals outside the historical profession who have made a significant contributions to the study, teaching, and public understanding of history.

Nominees included persons who made a significant contribution to the support and encouragement of history through their actions. Such noteworthy actions included philanthropy, supporting or working for organizations that promote history in public life, helping to protect and preserve a national historical monument or park, or other work that cultivated public awareness of history. Previous honorees were Senator Robert C. Byrd (D-WV), Brian Lamb (C-SPAN president and CEO), Steven Spielberg (founding chair, Shoah Visual History Foundation), Congressman John Lewis (D-GA), Richard A. Moe (president, National Trust for Historic Preservation), Adam Hochschild (journalist and author), Lee H. Hamilton (director, Center on Congress at Indiana University, and former director of the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars), Sandra Day O'Connor (retired associate justice, Supreme Court of the United States), Richard Gilder (founder, Gilder Lehrman Institute), and David Rubinstein (The Carlyle Group).

See the list of past recipients.

Moses Coit Tyler Prize (1957–61)

The Tyler Prize was established in 1956 for the best manuscript in American intellectual history. This biennial prize carried an award of $1,500 and publication of the winning manuscript by the co-sponsor of the prize, Cornell U. Press. The prize was named for Professor Moses Coit Tyler of Cornell U., a founding member of the American Historical Association.

In the context of this competition, intellectual history was defined as “the history of agencies of intellectual life, movements of thought, and the biographies of intellectual leaders.” The prize was awarded for the first time in 1959, the 1957 competition having proved unsuccessful; after again failing to choose a winner in 1961 Council decided to abolish the prize.

1959
Hugh Hawkins, Amherst Coll., Pioneer: A History of the Johns Hopkins University, 1874–1889 (Cornell Univ. Press)

Watumull Prize (1945–82)

The Watumull Prize was established in 1944 by Council with a grant from the Watumull Foundation and first awarded in the following year. The prize recognized the best book on the history of India originally published in the United States, although in 1982 the latter stipulation was lifted. Also in 1982, however, was an end to the contributions of the Watumull Foundation, a circumstance that forced Council to discontinue it.

The prize seems to have wandered through a maze of inconsistency regarding the frequency of its award. Originally established on a triennial basis, the Watumull Prize Committee recommended in 1948 that it become biennial once again. In 1952, the prize was returned to its triennial basis, but in 1954—the first year of its renewed triennial status—Council returned it to its biennial format.

Always a relatively lucrative award, it carried a $500 prize from its inception, an amount doubled in 1972.

1982
Tapan Raychaudhuri (Univ. of Oxford) and Irfan Habib (Aligarh Muslim Univ.), eds., The Cambridge Economic History of India, Volume 1: c. 1200–c. 1750 (Cambridge Univ. Press)

1980
Joseph E. Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia (Univ. of Chicago Press)

1978
John R. McLane, Indian Nationalism and the Early Congress (Princeton Univ. Press)

1976
Michael Pearson, Merchants and Rulers in Gujarat: The Response of the Portuguese in the Sixteenth Century (Univ. of California Press)

1974
Leonard A. Gordon, Bengal: The Nationalist Movement, 1876–1940 (Columbia Univ. Press)

1972
Elizabeth Whitcombe, Agrarian Conditions in Northern India, vol. 1: The United Provinces Under British Rule, 1860–1900 (Univ. of California Press)

1970
Stephen N. Hay, Asian Ideas of East and West: Tagore and His Critics in Japan, China, and India (Harvard Univ. Press)
David Kopf, British Orientalism and the Bengal Renaissance: The Dynamics of Indian Modernization, 1773–1835 (Univ. of California Press)
Eugene F. Irschick, Politics and Social Conflict in South India: The Non-Brahman Movement and Tamil Separatism, 1916–1929 (Univ. of California Press)

1968
John Broomfield, Elite Conflict in a Plural Society: Twentieth Century Bengal (Univ. of California Press)
Myron Weiner, Party Building in a New Nation (Univ. of Chicago Press)

1966
B.R. Nayar, Minority Politics in the Punjab (Princeton Univ. Press)
Thomas R. Metcalf, The Aftermath of Revolt: India, 1857–1970 (Princeton Univ. Press)

1964
Charles A. Drekmeier, Kingship and Community in Early India (Stanford Univ. Press)
Charles H. Heimsmith, Indian Nationalism and Hindu Social Reform (Princeton Univ. Press)

1962
George D. Bearce, British Attitudes Toward India, 1784–1858 (Oxford Univ. Press)
Stanley A. Wolpert, Tilak and Gokhale: Revolution and Reform in the Making of Modern India (Univ. of California Press)

1960
Michael Brecher, Nehru: A Political Biography (Oxford Univ. Press)

1958
William de Bary, ed., Sources of the Indian Tradition (Columbia Univ. Press)

1954
D. Mackenzie Brown, The White Umbrella: Indian Political Thought from Manu to Gandhi (Univ. of California Press)
W. Norman Brown, The United States and India and Pakistan (Harvard Univ. Press)

1951
T. Walter Wallbank, India in the New Era (Scott, Foresman)
Louis Fischer, The Life of Mahatma Gandhi (Harper)
Gertrude Emerson Sen, The Pageant of Indian History, vol. I (Longmans)

1945
Ernest J.H. Mackay, Chanhu-Daro Excavations, 1935–36 (American Oriental Society)

Justin Winsor Prize (1896–1930 and 1936–38)

The Justin Winsor Prize was the first prize established by the American Historical Association. Initially awarded in 1896, it was offered annually thereafter until 1906 and then biennially until 1930, when it was discontinued. The Winsor Prize was revived in 1936 only to be cancelled two years later when the Albert J. Beveridge Award was created.

Justin Winsor (1831–97), in whose honor the prize was created, was the third president of the Association (1886–87). The prize was established in recognition of his contributions to American history and historical geography and focused on the history of the Western Hemisphere. The prize sought to encourage and acknowledge previously unpublished authors and young scholars without an established reputation in the profession and carried the then-substantial award of $200.

1937
Carl Bridenbaugh, Cities in the Wilderness: The First Century of Urban Life in America, 1625–1742

1930
L.W. Labaree, Royal Government in America: A Study of the British Colonial System Before 1783 (Yale Univ. Press)

1928
Fred A. Shannon, The Organization and Administration of the Union Army, 1861–1865, 2 vols. (Arthur H. Clark)

1926
Lowell Joseph Ragatz, The Fall of the Planter Class in the British Caribbean, 1763–1833 (Century)

1924
Elizabeth B. White, History of Franco-American Diplomatic Relations

1922
Lawrence Henry Gipson, Jared Ingersoll: A Study of American Loyalism in Relation to British Colonial Government (Yale Univ. Press)

1920
F. Lee Benns, The American Struggle for the British West India Carrying Trade, 1815–1830 (Indiana Univ. Press)

1918
Arthur M. Schlesinger, The Colonial Merchants and the American Revolution, 1736–1776 (Longmans, Green)

1916
Richard J. Purcell, Connecticut in Transition, 1775–1818

1914
Mary W. Williams, Anglo-American Isthmian Diplomacy, 1815–1915

1912
Arthur Charles Cole, The Whig Party in the South

1910
Edward Raymond Turner, The Negro in Pennsylvania; Slavery—Servitude—Freedom, 1639–1861

1908
Clarence Edwin Carter, Great Britain and the Illinois Country, 1765–1774

1906
Annie Heloise Abel, The History of Events Resulting in Indian Consolidation West of the Mississippi River

1904
William R. Manning, The Nootka Sound Contorversy

1903
Louise Phelps Kellogg, The American Colonial Charter; A Study of Its Relation to English Administration, Chiefly After 1688

1902
Charles McCarthy, The Anti-Masonic Party

1901
Ulrich B. Phillips, Georgia and State Rights

1900
William A. Schaper, Sectionalism and Representation in South Carolina

1896
Herman V. Ames, The Proposed Amendments to the Constitution of the United States