Subject Guide: History

Excellence in New Media Award

This award recognizes annually a digital born or based historical project that contributes to a broader understanding of the federal government created by any agency or unit of the federal government. Nongovernmental organizations, including federal contractors, who performed eligible activities on behalf of a unit of the federal government, will also be considered. Click Society for History in the Federal Government for more information about the sponsor of this prize.

2024  National Park Service, Harpers Ferry Center’s NPS History Collection Tour.
2023  Arlington National Cemetery (ANC) History Office’s Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Centennial program (Tomb 100)
2022  National Park Service, Harpers Ferry Center’s "Dressing the part : a portfolio of women's history in the National Park Service"

Henry Adams Prize
This annual award is given for an outstanding major publication on the federal government's history. Entries may be narrative histories, edited collections of articles or essays, or any other published historical work of comparable scope. Entries are judged for value in furthering the understanding and history of the federal government; quality and thoroughness of research; style and appropriateness of presentation; suitability and rigor of methodology; and use of original and primary materials. This prize seems to be dormant. Click Society for History in the Federal Government for more information about the sponsor of this prize.

2021  The deportation machine : America’s long history of expelling immigrants by Adam Goodman
2020  Origins of 21st-century space travel : a history of NASA's Decadal Planning Team and the vision for space exploration, 1999-2004 by Glen R. Asner and Stephen J. Garber
2019  Containing addiction : the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and the origins of America's global drug war by Matthew R. Pembleton
2018  The INS on the line : making immigration law on the US-Mexico border, 1917-1954 by S. Deborah Kang.
2017  Defenseless under the night : the Roosevelt years and the origins of Homeland Security by Matthew Dallek
2016  The war on alcohol : Prohibition and the rise of the American state by Lisa McGirr
2015  On democracy's doorstep : the inside story of how the Supreme Court brought "one person, one vote" to the United States by J. Douglas Smith
2014  Wilson by A. Scott Berg
2013  Seward : Lincoln's indispensable man by Walter Stahr
2012  The Monitor boys : the crew of the Union's first ironclad by John V. Quarstein
2011  Roosevelt's purge : how FDR fought to change the Democratic Party by Susan Dunn
2010  Vietnam : the history of an unwinnable war, 1945–1975 by John Prados
2009  Old world, new world : Great Britain and America from the beginning by Kathleen Burk
2008  Lincoln’s rise to the presidency by William C. Harris
2007  Thomas Paine : enlightenment, revolution, and the birth of modern nations by Craig Nelson
2006  The interpreter by Alice Kaplan
2004  Goldberger's war : the life and work of a public health crusader by Alan Kraut; American empire :  Roosevelt's geographer and the prelude to globalization by Neil Smith
2003  An army at dawn : the war in North Africa, 1942-1943 by Rick Atkinson (Co-Winner); Harry Truman and civil rights : moral courage and political risks by Michael R. Gardner (Co-Winner)
2002  A river running west : the life of John Wesley Powell by Donald Worster
2001  Creating the secret state : the origins of the Central Intelligence Agency, 1943-1947 by David F. Rudgers
2000  Warmaking and American democracy : the struggle over military strategy, 1700 to the present by Michael D. Pearlman
1999  Building the national parks : historic landscape design and construction by Linda Flint McCelland
1998  Argonne National Laboratory, 1946-1996 by Jack M. Holl, Richard G. Hewlett, and Ruth R. Harris
1997  Explicit and authentic acts : amending the U.S. Constitution, 1776-1995 by David E. Kyvig; Beyond the broker state : federal policies toward small business, 1936-1961 by Jonathan J. Bean
1996  Shaping the Eighteenth Amendment : temperance reform, legal culture, and the polity, 1880-1920 by Richard F. Hamm
1995  Structures in the stream : water, science, and the rise of the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers by Todd A. Shallat
1994  Inside NASA : high technology and organizational change in the U.S. space program by Howard E. McCurdy
1993  The medical department : medical service in the European theater of operations by Graham A. Cosmas and Albert E. Cowdrey
1992  Press gallery : Congress and the Washington correspondents by Donald A. Ritchie
1991  Rocky Mountain spotted fever : history of a twentieth-century disease by Victoria Angela Harden
1990  Atoms for peace and war, 1953-1961 : Eisenhower and the Atomic Energy Commission by Richard G. Hewlett and Jack M. Holl; Public affairs : the military and the media, 1962-1968 by William M. Hammond (honorable mention)
1989  The Senate, 1789-1989 : addresses on the history of the United States Senate by Robert C. Byrd
1988  Forging the atomic shield : excerpts from the office diary of Gordon E. Dean by Roger M. Anders; Aviation in the U.S. Army, 1919-1939 by Maurer Maurer (honorable mention)
1987  A machine that would go of itself : the Constitution in American culture by Michael G. Kammen
1986  Prelude to the total force : the Air National Guard, 1943-1969 by Charles Joseph Gross
1985  History of the Office of the Secretary of Defense : volume 1: the formative years, 1947-1950 by Steven L. Rearden
1984  A patron for pure science : the National Science Foundation's formative years, 1945-57 by J. Merton England

George Pendleton Prize

This annual award was given for an outstanding major publication, on the federal government's history produced by or for a federal history program. It had the additional requirement that the publication nominated must have been produced by a federal historian(s) or for a federal history program, including history offices in the federal agencies and history-related programs in other federal entities. This prize is dormant. Click Society for History in the Federal Government for more information about the sponsor of this prize.

2017  National Park roads : a legacy in the American landscape by Timothy Davis
2016  Toward "thorough, accurate, and reliable" : a History of the Foreign relations of the United States series by William B. McAllister, Joshua Botts, Peter Cozzens, and Aaron W. Marrs
2015  A very principled boy : the life of Duncan Lee, Red spy and cold warrior by Mark A. Bradley
2014  The American Senate : an insider's history by Neil MacNeil and Richard A. Baker
2013  Yamashita's ghost : MacArthur's justice, and command accountability by Allan Ryan
2012  1812 : the Navy's war by George C. Daughan
2011  The long road to Annapolis : the founding of the Naval Academy and the emerging American republic by William P. Leeman
2010  Transplanting the great society : Lyndon Johnson and Food for Peace by Kristin L. Ahlberg
2009  Sex, sin, and science : a history of syphilis in America by John Parascandola
2008  Electing FDR : the New Deal campaign of 1932 by Donald Ritchie
2007  The House : the history of the House of Representatives by Robert V. Remini
2006  Breaking the color barrier : the U.S. Naval Academy’s first black midshipmen and the struggle for racial equality by Robert J. Schneller, Jr.
2005  America's national park roads and parkways : drawings from the Historic American Engineering Record, edited by Timothy Davis, Todd A. Croteau, and Christopher Marston; Salt of the earth, conscience of the court : the story of Justice Wiley Rutledge by John Ferren
2004  Sky and ocean joined : the U.S. Naval Observatory, 1830-2000 by Steven J. Dick
2003  History of the Office of the Secretary of Defense : volume 3 : strategy, money, and the new look, 1953-1956 by Richard M. Leighton
2002  Capitol builder : the shorthand Journals of Montgomery C. Meigs, 1853-1859, 1861 : a project to commemorate the United States Capitol bicentennial, 1800-2000, edited by Wendy Wolff
2001  Training to fly : military flight training, 1907-1945 by Rebecca Hancock Cameron
2000  Before this decade is out-- : personal reflections on the Apollo Program by Glen E. Swanson
1999  CIA and the Vietnam policymakers : three episodes, 1962-1968 by Harold P. Ford
1998  History of the Office of the Secretary of Defense : volume 4 : into the missile age, 1956-1960 by Robert J. Watson

Thomas Jefferson Prize
This award recognized the editor(s) of a documentary history project publishing either a single volume or one or more volumes in a project that contributes significantly to our understanding of the history of the federal government.  It also recognized the creator(s) of an outstanding research aid (e.g., an inventory, an index, a finding aid, a biographical directory, or a bibliography) that facilitated the work of those doing research in the history of the federal government. This prize appears to be dormant. Click Society for History in the Federal Government for more information about the sponsor of this prize.

2017  The papers of Andrew Jackson, volume X, 1832, edited by Daniel Feller, Thomas Coens, and Laura-Eve Moss
2016  No award
2015  Land and labor, 1866–67 (Freedom : a documentary history of Emancipation, 1861–1867 : series 3, volume 2), edited by René Hayden, et al.
2013  Documentary history of the First Federal Congress of the United States of America, March 4, 1789–March 3, 1791 : Correspondence: Second Session, Volumes 18-20, edited by Charlene Bangs Bickford, Kenneth R. Bowling, Helen E. Veit, and William C. diGiacomantonio
2012  Guide to research in Federal judicial history, edited by Jonathan White
2011  Foreign relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume VIII: Vietnam, January–October 1972, edited by John M. Carland
2010  World War II : guide to records relating to U.S. participation, compiled by Timothy P. Mulligan
2009  The papers of Joseph Henry : volume 11 : the Smithsonian years : January 1866–May 1878, edited by Marc Rothenberg
2008  Historical statistics of the United States : earliest times to the present. Millennial edition, edited by Susan B. Carter, Scott S. Gartner, Michael B. Haines, Alan L. Olmstead, Richard Sutch, Gavin Wright
2007  Foreign relations of the United States : 1969-1976, Vol. XVII : China, 1969-1972, Office of the Historian, Department of State, Steven E. Phillips, ed., and Edward C. Keefer, gen.ed.
2006  No prize awarded
2005  Documentary history of the First Federal Congress of the United States of America, March 4, 1789-March 3, 1791 : volume 15 : correspondence : March-May 1789; volume 16 : correspondence : June-August 1789; volume 17 : correspondence : September-November, 1789, edited by Charlene Bangs Bickford, Kenneth R. Bowling, William Charles diGiacomantonio, and Helen E. Veit; The Dolley Madison Edition (available to subscribers only), edited by Holly Shulman (certificate of commendation)
2004  United States Army unit and organizational histories : a bibliography by James T. Cantrovich
2003  The papers of George Washington, Presidential Series, volume 11 : August 1792-January 1793, edited by Philander D. Chase and Christine Sternberg Patrick (non-scholarly edition here)
2002  Historic U.S. court cases : an encyclopedia, edited by John W. Johnson
2001  Exploring the unknown : selected documents in the history of the U.S. civil space program, volume 4 : accessing space, edited by John M. Logsdon, Ray A. Williamson, Roger D. Launius, Russell J. Acker, Stephen J. Garber, and Jonathan L. Friedman (online access available here)
1999  Letters of delegates to Congress 1774-1789 : volume 25 : March 1, 1788-July 25, 1789, edited by Paul Hubert Smith and Ronald M. Gephart
1998  Guide to federal records in the National Archives of the United States.  National Archives and Records Administration
1997  The emerging nation : a documentary history of the foreign relations of the United States under the Articles of Confederation, 1780-1789, Mary A. Giunta, editor-in-chief, and others
1996  The Trans-Mississippi West, 1804-1912, compiled by Robert M. Kvasnicka; The Hot Springs of Arkansas through the years, 1803-1996 by Sharon Luvois Shugart; and, Finding aid to the Hot Springs National Park Architectural/Technical Drawing and Map Collection, 1875-1990 by Sharon Luvois Shugart
1995  The wartime genesis of free labor : the upper South (Freedom, a documentary history of emancipation, 1861-1867; series 1, volume 2), edited by Ira Berlin
1994  Unlocking the files of the FBI : a guide to its records and classification system by Gerald K. Haines and David A. Langbart; Historic U.S. court cases, 1690-1990 : an encyclopedia, edited by John W. Johnson (2nd edition (2001) here)
1993  The naval war of 1812 : a documentary history, volume 2 : 1813, edited by William S. Dudley
1992  W. Averell Harriman : a register of his Papers in the Library of Congress, prepared by Allan Teichroew and others.  (online version, revised in 2001, available here)
1991  The wartime genesis of free labor : the lower South (Freedom, a documentary history of emancipation, 1861-1867; series 1, volume 3), edited by Ira Berlin
1990  United States. Congress. Biographical directory of the United States Congress, 1774-1989, the Continental Congress, September 5, 1774, to October 21, 1788, and the Congress of the United States, from the First through the One Hundredth Congresses, March 4, 1789, to January 3, 1989, inclusive (up-to-date version here)
1989  Documentary history of the First Federal Congress of the United States of America, 4 March, 1789-3 March, 1791, volume 9 : the diary of William Maclay and other notes on Senate debates, edited by Kenneth R. Bowling and Helen E. Veit
1988  A reference guide to United States Department of State special files by Gerald K. Haines
1987  The destruction of slavery (Freedom, a documentary history of emancipation, 1861-1867; series 1, volume 1), edited by Ira Berlin