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William H. Ellison Prize

The William H. Ellison Prize, awarded in memory of William H. Ellison, Professor of History from 1925 to 1948, recognizes the best History graduate seminar paper, as determined by the History Prizes committee.

Present and previous recipients:

(Prior to 1990, this prize was administered by the History department)

2023

Bridge McWaid

2022
Tannishtha Bhattacharjee, “Spatial Orders and the Affective Architecture of a New Nation: Making of the Burrabazar Colony for Displaced Sylhetis in post-Partition Shillong.”

2021
Jenny Meissner, “Protestant Boys Behaving Badly: Youth, Masculinity, and Negotiation at the Collège and Académie de Saumur, 1613-1673,”

2020
Nick Cohen, “From Crisis to Consensus: US Commercial Banks, International Debt, and the Making of a “Washington Consensus,” 1973-1989″

2019
Mattie Webb, “People before Profit”

2018
Neil Johnson, “‘Technique for Tomorrow’: Business, Labor and the Postwar Debate over Automation, 1952-1975,”

2017
Sasha Coles, “‘A Nation’s Wealth Surrounds a Worm’: Mormonism, Consumer Politics, and Utah’s Silk Industry, 1850s-1906.”
Rana Razek. Trails and Fences: Syrian Migration and Immigration Restriction, 1885-1911.”

2016
Ben Ma, “Scribes and Assistants in Qin and Early Western Han China.”

2015
Brian Griffith, “Bringing Bacchus to the People: Viticulture, National Identity, and the Politics of Consumption in Fascist Italy, 1922-1945.”

2014
Samir Sonti, “The Rise of the Right: Financialization, Globalization, and the Defeat of American Labor.”

2013
Samir Sonti, “The Political Economy of Inflation in the Nixon Administration, 1969-1972.”

2012
Kalina Yamboliev, “Approximating the Truth: Questions of Power and Domination.”

2011
Nikki Goodrick: “Buzurg and the Dragons: the Lost Semiotics of the Sea.”
Eric Massie: “Europe and the Safavid Empire: Cultural Interaction and Diplomacy in the Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries.”

2010
Tracey Watts: “Beyond the Pleasure Garden: Urban Agriculture in the Ancient Mediterranean.”

2009
Seong Hee Lim: “The 1938 Los Angeles picketing ordinance: The Bona Fide Labor Dispute and Spatial Restrictions”

2008
Andrea Gill: “Moving to Integration?: The Origins and Limits of Chicago’s Gautreaux Assisted Housing Program”
Rachel Winslow: “Immigration, Improvised Policy, and Race in the Making of International Adoption, 1948-1961”

2007
Elizabeth Tandy Shermer: “A New Phoenix Rising: The Conservative Mobilization in and Re-Envisioning of Phoenix, AZ.”

2006
Lee Goodwin: “Contestation of Power in a Northern Frontier Province of New Spain: Texas, 1807 to 1812.”

2005
Leandra Ruth Zarnow

2004
Jason Dormady: “A New Jerusalem for a New Mexico: Religious Community in Post-Revolutionary Mexico”

2003
Anil Mukerjee

2002
Erin Edmonds:
Corinne Wieben: “Dare beccare alle serpi: The Political Life of Verdiana da Castelfiorentino”

2001
Matthew Sutton: “Re-envisioning Evangelicalism Through Pentecostal Eyes”

2000
Laura Nenzi: “The Province of Sagami: A Preferred Package Tour for Edo-Period Travellers”

1999
Jacob Hamblin

1998
Kenneth Osgood: “Sputnik Reconsidered: National Security and the Origins of U.S. Outer Space Policy.”

1997
Michael Adamson

1996
Elizabeth DePalma Digeser: “Lactantius and Constantine’s Policy of Religious Toleration.”

1995
Kathryn Statler

1994
Richard Barton: “Aristocratic Experience of Anger in Medieval France, 800-1200.”

1993
Douglas Lumsden: “Domine, fiat: Positive Eschatology in the Latin West during the Carolingian Period.”

1992
No prize awarded.

1991
Heather J. Tanner: “The Expansion of the Power and Influence of the Counts of Boulogne under Eustace II.”

1990
Janet M. Pope: “Some Observations on Tenth-Century Anglo-Saxon Monastic Land Transactions.”

1989
Jan Ryder: “Testimonio multorum: Miracles and Their Verification, England, 700-1202.”

1988
Lois Lynn Huneycutt: “The Office of Queenship in the Central Middle Ages.”

1987
Will Donley: “The Panamanian Riots of 1964.”
Sean O’Neill: “French Jesuit Missionaries’ Motives for Baptism on the Frontier of 17th and 18th Century New France.”

1986
Marylou Ruud: “Episcopal Reluctance: Lanfranc’s Resignation Reconsidered.”

1985
Cassandra Potts: “Norman Dukes and their Nobles’ Monastic Patronage before the Conquest.”

1984
Kimberly daCunha: “Montenegro at the Paris Peace Conference 1919-1920.”

1983
Corinne Vause: “Pope Innocent III and the Medieval Preaching Tradition.”

1982
Katharin R. Mack: “The Great Thegns in Council: Aristocratic Participation in Late Saxon Government.”

1981
RaGena C. DeAragon: “In Pursuit of Aristocratic Women: A Key to Success in Norman England.”

1980
Rick Mayberry: “Monarchy and Provincial Governance in the Late-Saxon Kingdom.”
Robin Fleming: “A Statistical Study of the Domesday Holding of the Confessor and the Godwinesons.”

1979
Stephanie Mooers: “Backers and Stabbers: Problems of Loyalty in Robert Curthose’s Entourage.”
Jeffrey K. Stine: “Nelson P. Lewis and the City Efficient: The Rise of the Municipal Engineer in City Planning.”

1978
Elizabeth Hodes: “Commitment to Internationalism: British and American Scientists’ Response to Nazi Policies Affecting Science, 1933-1939.”

1977
John H. Culley: “Clarence H. Venner and the Development of American Corporation Law.”

1976
Marc Meyer: “Women and the Tenth Century English Monastic Reform.”

1975
Ronald L. Nye: “Philanthropy and Unemployment in Santa Barbara, 1930-1932.”

1974
David S. Spear: “William Bonne Ame, Archbishop of Rouen (1079-1110): A Medieval Sketch.”

1973
Sally Vaughn: “The Influence of Robert of Meulan in the Rise of the Anglo-Norman State.”

1972
Horst M. Lorscheider: “The German Economic Penetration of the Balkans, 1871-1914.”

1971
Thomas K. Keefe: “The Feudal Inquests of Henry II.”

1970
Eric Hansen: “Pierre Dubois and the Secularization Process of the Fourteenth Century.”
Edwin O. Dix., Jr.: “When the World Came to Chicago: The World’s Columbian Exposition, 1893.”

1969
William A. Bullough: “”It is better to be a country boy’: Education Responses to Urbanization in the Gilded Age, 1876-1906.”

1968
No prize awarded.

1967
Anthony D. Branch: “The American Civil War and Internal French Opposition to the Second Empire.”