Awards

 

Award Nominations

The Missouri Conference on History encourages great new scholarship through its annual awards. Awards with cash prizes are granted to outstanding books, articles, and student papers each year. Award winners are announced at the Missouri Conference on History. Details for nominations for these awards can be found below. All award winners will be announced at the 2025 Missouri Conference on History.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2024 Book Award Recipient

Book Award

The Book Award will be given to the best volume on any historical topic written by a Missouri resident and published in 2024. The winner will receive a $500 prize.

To nominate a book for this award, please send a letter stating the author's name and affiliation with Missouri, the title of the book, the name of the publisher, and a brief explanation of the book's merits. Four review copies of the book are required from the publisher. Nominations for this prize may be submitted to:

John Brenner
Managing Editor
State Historical Society of Missouri
605 Elm Street
Columbia, MO 65201
brennerj@shsmo.org

Nominations for the award will close after December 31, 2024. Advance copies of books published by the end of 2023 will be accepted. Please include complete contact information with your submission.

Lawrence O. Christensen

Dr. Lawrence O. Christensen

Lawrence O. Christensen Article Award

Articles eligible for nomination must relate to a Missouri history topic and be published during the 2024 calendar year (no restriction on residence of the author). The author of the winning article will receive a $250 prize. Please include complete contact information with your submission.

To nominate an article for this award, please send a letter that briefly describes the article's merits, as well as a copy of the article that includes the name and volume/issue number of the journal in which it is published. Electronic submissions such as a PDF are preferred, but print copies will also be accepted. Nominations for this prize may be submitted to:

John Brenner
Managing Editor
State Historical Society of Missouri
605 Elm Street
Columbia, MO 65201
brennerj@shsmo.org

The deadline for receipt of nominations is December 31, 2024.

Student Papers

Cho-Chien Feng

Cho-Chien Feng, 2020 Student Paper Prize Recipient

Petra DeWitt Student Paper Prize

The Missouri Conference on History presents a $250 prize for the best student paper presented at each year's conference.

Papers nominated for this award may not exceed 3,500 words in length. Students who wish to be considered for the 2025 prize should submit an electronic version of the completed paper to:

John Brenner
Managing Editor
State Historical Society of Missouri
605 Elm Street
Columbia, MO 65201
brennerj@shsmo.org

Nominations for this prize will close after February 21, 2025. Please include complete contact information with your submission.

Shannon C. Mason

Shannan C. Mason, 2020 Morrow Prize Recipient

Lynn and Kristen Morrow Missouri History Student Prize

The annual Morrow Missouri History Student Prize is a $175 prize for the best student paper on an aspect of Missouri history presented at the conference.

Papers nominated for this award may not exceed 3,500 words in length. Students who wish to be considered for the 2025 prize should submit an electronic version of the completed paper to:

John Brenner
Managing Editor
State Historical Society of Missouri
605 Elm Street
Columbia, MO 65201
brennerj@shsmo.org

The deadline for receipt of nominations is February 21, 2025.


 

Award Recipients

The Missouri Conference on History is proud to offer awards with cash prizes to outstanding efforts in the study of history. The past recipients of these awards and prizes are listed below.

Book Award

The Book Award is given to the best volume on any historical topic written by a Missouri resident and published within the preceding year.

YearRecipientAffiliationBook TitleBook Publisher
2024Greg OlsonIndependent ScholarIndigenous Missourians: Ancient Societies to the PresentUniversity of Missouri Press
2023Michael A. VerneyDrury UniversityA Great and Rising Nation: Naval Exploration and Global Empire in the Early US RepublicUniversity of Chicago Press
2022Brooks BlevinsMissouri State UniversityA History of the Ozarks: Volume 3, The OzarkersUniversity of Illinois Press
2021Daniel MandellTruman State UniversityThe Lost Tradition of Economic Equality in America, 1600–1870Johns Hopkins University Press
2020Brooks BlevinsMissouri State UniversityA History of the Ozarks, Volume 2: The Conflicted OzarksUniversity of Illinois Press
2019Diane Mutti Burke, Jason Roe, and John HerronUniversity of Missouri-Kansas City (Burke, Herron), Kansas City Public Library (Roe)Wide-Open Town: Kansas City in the Pendergast EraUniversity Press of Kansas
2018Howard Wight MarshallUniversity of Missouri-ColumbiaFiddler's Dream: Old-Time, Swing, and Bluegrass Fiddling in Twentieth-Century MissouriUniversity of Missouri Press
2017James W. Endersby and William T. HornerUniversity of Missouri-ColumbiaLloyd Gaines and the Fight to End SegregationUniversity of Missouri Press
2016Benjamin LookerSaint Louis UniversityA Nation of Neighborhoods: Imagining Cities, Communities, and Democracy in Postwar AmericaUniversity of Chicago Press
2015Lorri GloverSaint Louis UniversityFounders As Fathers: The Private Lives and Politics of the American RevolutionariesYale University Press
2014Jeffrey L. PasleyUniversity of Missouri-ColumbiaThe First Presidential Contest: 1796 and the Founding of American DemocracyUniversity Press of Kansas
2013Thomas C. DanisiIndependent ScholarUncovering the Truth about Meriwether LewisPrometheus Books
2012Michael Jan RozbickiSaint Louis UniversityCulture and Liberty in the Age of the American RevolutionUniversity of Virginia Press
2011Diane Mutti BurkeUniversity of Missouri-Kansas CityOn Slavery's Border: Missouri's Small-Slaveholding Households, 1815-1865University of Georgia Press
2010Brooks BlevinsMissouri State UniversityArkansas/Arkansaw: How Bear Hunters, Hillbillies, and Good Ol Boys Defined a StateUniversity of Arkansas Press
2009Shannon L. FoggMissouri University of Science & TechnologyThe Politics of Everyday Life in Vichy France: Foreigners, Undesirables, and StrangersCambridge University Press

Lawrence O. Christensen Article Award

The Lawrence O. Christensen Article Award is given to the best article on any Missouri-related historical topic published within the preceding year. There are no restrictions on the residence of the author.

YearRecipientAffiliationArticle TitleArticle Source
2024Jason McDonaldTruman State University"'Watch Adair Kounty Klan Grow': The Second Ku Klux Klan in Kirksville, Missouri, 1923-1925"Missouri Historical Review, October 2023
2023Kelly L. SchmidtWashington University"Slavery and the Shaping of Catholic Missouri, 1810-1850"Missouri Historical Review, January 2022
2022Patrick HuberMissouri University of Science and Technology"Remembering the Ste. Genevieve Race Riot of 1930: Historical Memory and the Expulsion of African Americans from a Small Missouri Town"Missouri Historical Review, January 2021
2021Zachary DowdleWilliam Woods University"Preventing a 'School of Nullification': Politics, Slavery, and the Presidency of the University of Missouri, 1839-1856"Missouri Historical Review, January 2020
2020Gregg AndrewsTexas State University“The Destruction of the Big Mound: Possessing and Defining Native American Places in Early St. Louis”Missouri Historical Review, April 2019
2019Patricia ClearyCalifornia State University, Long Beach“The Destruction of the Big Mound: Possessing and Defining Native American Places in Early St. Louis”Missouri Historical Review, October 2018
2018Taylor DeslogeWashington University, St. Louis"Creating the Lung Block: Racial Transition and the 'New Public Health' in a St. Louis Neighborhood, 1907–1940"Missouri Historical Review, January 2017
2017Sharon RomeoUniversity of Alberta"'The First Morning of Their Freedom': African American Women, Black Testimony, and Military Justice in Civil War Missouri"Missouri Historical Review, April 2016
2016Jeremy NeelyMissouri State University"'A Pure Son of Missouri': Freeman Barrows at the Crossroads of the Slaveholding Frontier"Missouri Historical Review, July 2015
2015Carl J. Ekberg and Sharon K. PersonIllinois State University (Ekberg) and St. Louis Community College (Pearson)"Tracking Pierre Laclède, 1763-66: A Trading Career Gone Wrong"Missouri Historical Review, April 2014
2014Todd BarnettUniversity of Missouri-Columbia"The 'Great Controversy': The Press, Religion, and Society in Gilded Age St. Louis"Missouri Historical Review, January 2013
2013Holly A. BaggettMissouri State University"The Creation of a Community: A History of Gay and Lesbian Springfield, 1945-2010"Springfield's Urban Histories: Essays on the Queen City of the Missouri Ozarks, ed. Stephen L. McIntyre, Moon City Press, 2012
2012Michael J. McVicarThe Ohio State University"Aggressive Philanthropy: Progressivism, Conservatism, and the William Volker Charities Fund"Missouri Historical Review, July 2011
2011Rebecca S. MontgomeryTexas State University"'With the Brain of a Man and the Heart of a Woman': Missouri Women and Rural Change, 1890-1945Missouri Historical Review, April 2010
2010Carolyn GilmanIndependent Scholar"LAnne du Coup: The Battle of St. Louis, 1780"Missouri Historical Review, April and July 2009
2009James N. GiglioMissouri State University"'Tom, You're Not Going to Get [It] On a Silver Platter': The Inaugural Senate Campaign of Thomas F. Eagleton"Missouri Historical Review, April 2008

Student Papers

Petra DeWitt Student Paper Prize

The Missouri Conference on History is presented for the best student paper presented at each year's conference.

YearRecipientAffiliationPaper Title 
2024Catherine HutinettUniversity of Missouri-Columbia“(Little) Dixie’s Daughters: A History of the United Daughters of the Confederacy in Missouri” 
2023Kay EllisMissouri Southern State University"How Silence and Subterfuge Ambushed a Senator" 
2022Jordan PelleritoUniversity of Missouri-Columbia"The Purpose of Place: The University of Missouri Campus, Identity, and Community" 
2021Candace BordersYale University"Towards a Method of Refusal: Black Women’s Public Housing Activism in St. Louis" 
2020Cho-Chien FengSaint Louis University“Order and Liberty: The Conservative Liberty in New York Loyalist Political Persuasion” 
2019Lawrence CelaniUniversity of Missouri-Columbia“‘Their Blood Has Flown and Mingled with Ours’: The Politics of Slavery in Illinois and Missouri in the Early Republic” 
2018Stuart MacKayCarleton University"'Let Us Agitate the Rights of White Men': B. Gratz Brown, Frank Blair, and the Ideological Foundations of the Missouri Republican Party, 1856–1860" 
2017Colby S. TurbervilleUniversity of Missouri-Columbia"Lothar I: Co-Emperor, Rebel, and King (817–855)" 
2016Sean RostUniversity of Missouri-Columbia"'The Department of Balderdash and Near Socialism': Herbert Blumer and the Burrall Bible Class Controversy" 
2015Paula HuntUniversity of Missouri-Columbia"'When You Think of Them, Be Thankful That You Were Not Born a Little Slave': The Politics of Family in The Slave's Friend" 
2014Danielle Nicole GriegoUniversity of Missouri, Columbia"Suicide and Misadventure in Coroners' Rolls for the City of Oxford in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries" 
2013Paula HuntUniversity of Missouri-Columbia"Elijah Lovejoy: Publishing, Faith, and Abolition in 1830s St. Louis" 
2012Sarah Lirley McCuneUniversity of Missouri-Columbia"Prostitution, Suicide, and Respectability: St. Louis, Missouri, Coroner's Inquests, 1875-1900" 
2011Michael A. Ridge Jr.University of IowaThe Future Great City of the World Seeks to Fulfill Its Destiny with Mexico, St. Louis and Mexico, 1878-1907" 
2010Joshua M. NygrenUniversity of Kansas"Making the Most Use of the Best Land: The Evolution of the Rural Zoning Idea in Northern Wisconsin, 1925-1945" 
2009Jeffrey D. HowisonBinghamton University'This Is Not a Cotton-Picker's Dream': The National Commission on Constitutional Government and the Formation of the 'New Right'" 

Lynn and Kristen Morrow Missouri History Student Prize

The annual Morrow Missouri History Student Prize is awarded for the best student paper on an aspect of Missouri history presented at the conference.

YearRecipientAffiliationPaper Title 
2024Elizabeth NahachTruman State University“The Foot in Jefferson City: An Ethnic Slum or Economically Robust Neighborhood?” 
2023Jisung LeeUniversity of Missouri-Kansas City"The Abandoned West: The First Year of the Western Sanitary Commission, 1861 to 1862" 
2022Conner KatsevWebster Groves High School"16 in Webster Groves: A Day in the Life of a High School Student in Webster Groves, 1919-1939" 
2021Elizabeth EikmannSaint Louis University"Un-Fair Images: The Gerhard Sisters Portrait Photography at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis" 
2020Shannan C. MasonSouthern Illinois University-Edwardsville“Nature Much Improved: The Curation of a Nineteenth-Century Neighborhood and Green Space” 
2019Lawrence CelaniUniversity of Missouri-Columbia“‘Their Blood Has Flown and Mingled with Ours’: The Politics of Slavery in Illinois and Missouri in the Early Republic” 
2018Donna M. MonnigUniversity of Central Missouri"Minor Proves Major: The Tax Revolts of Virginia Minor, Missouri Suffragist" 
2017Tanya L. JonesLindenwood University"The Impact of Jewish American Identity and Assimilation in the Reform Movement" 
2016Zachary DowdleUniversity of Missouri-Columbia"'Not in the Habit of Sleeping with Men': Politics and Masculinity in Antebellum Missouri" 
2015None 
2014Amy L. FlukerUniversity of Mississippi"'We Cannot Live on Memories': Missouri's Homes for Civil War Veterans, 1890-1950" 
2013Sarah Lirley McCuneUniversity of Missouri-Columbia"Dishonor, Desertion, and Suicide: Respectability and Death Investigations in Late Nineteenth-Century St. Louis" 
2012Luke RitterSaint Louis University"Racial Discrimination in the Open Housing Movement, St. Louis County, 1968-1977" 
2011Clinton McDuffieUniversity of Missouri-Kansas City"Sports and Nationalism: The 1904 St. Louis Olympics and National Identity" 

 

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