News

The 59th annual Allan Nevins Prize is awarded to Jonathan Lande for his dissertation, “Disciplining Freedom: U.S. Army Slave Rebels and Emancipation in the Civil War.”

Newly elected to the Executive Board for the term beginning 6 May are Jelani Cobb, Lynn Novick, T.J. Stiles, Jean Strouse, and Isabel Wilkerson.

Alice Kessler-Harris, R. Gordon Hoxie Professor Emerita of American History in Honor of Dwight D. Eisenhower at Columbia University, will take office as president at the end of the annual dinner, and Megan Marshall, biographer and Charles Wesley Emerson College Professor at Emerson College, will become vice president.

We are delighted to welcome the following newly elected members of the Society:

Jennifer Egan

The 58th annual Allan Nevins Prize is awarded to Julia P.R. Mansfield for her dissertation, “The Disease of Commerce: Yellow Fever in the Atlantic World, 1793-1805.”

Ann Fabian, Distinguished Professor of History and American Studies, emerita, at Rutgers University, takes office as president of the SAH.

Assuming the vice presidency is Jan Lewis, Professor of History and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers University-Newark.

Newly elected members of the Executive Board are Mia Bay, Beth Bailey, David Blight, Eric Foner, James Grossman, Christine Heyrman, and Alice Kessler-Harris.

The 61st annual Francis Parkman Prize is awarded to Christina Snyder for Great Crossings: Indians, Settlers & Slaves in the Age of Jackson (Oxford University Press). Great Crossings recounts the remarkable history of a complex encounter between Native Americans, African-Americans and Anglo-Americans, through a powerful narrative that dramatically alters our understanding of Jacksonian borderlands even as it expands our picture of nineteenth-century American society writ large.

May 22, 2017, NEW YORK, N.Y.—Three prizes honoring historical writing of exceptional literary merit are awarded by the Society of American Historians (SAH) at Columbia University today at its annual dinner at The Century Association in New York City. The Society, founded in 1939 by Allan Nevins, an American journalist and historian, encourages and promotes literary distinction in the writing and presentation of American history.

The Society congratulates past SAH president Mary Beth Norton on her new position as president-elect of the American Historical Association. She will become AHA president in 2018.

Three prizes honoring historical writing of exceptional literary merit are awarded by the Society of American Historians at Columbia University today at its annual dinner at The Century Association in New York City. The Society, founded in 1939 by Allan Nevins, an American journalist and historian, encourages and promotes literary distinction in the writing and presentation of American history. The Society’s members consist of scholars, journalists, documentarians, filmmakers, essayists, novelists, biographers and poets, by invitation only.

Submissions are now being accepted for the 2016 Francis Parkman and Allan Nevins prize competitions. See "How to Submit," under the "Prizes" tab, for details.

Read at Ene's memorial service at Faculty House.

The Society of American Historians does not normally make note of the death of members.  The most fitting tribute for a writer is the words and books he or she leaves to posterity.

But the officers of the Society have asked that I share a few words on Ene Sirvet, who died last month.  For nearly fifty years Ene served as the secretary for the Society.