Anthony E. Kaye Memorial Essay Award

The Anthony E. Kaye Memorial Essay Award honors Tony Kaye (1962-2017), an innovative scholar of slavery at Penn State University and the National Humanities Center. Tony was an active member of the Society of Civil War Historians and one of the founding editors of the Journal of the Civil War Era. Tony’s contributions helped to make the journal an immediate success, engaging scholars across a wide variety of fields. The George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center, the Journal of the Civil War Era, UNC Press, and the Society of Civil War Historians created this award to honor Tony’s passion for putting scholars in disparate fields in conversation with each other to enrich our understanding of the past.

 

Congratulations to Lindsey R. Peterson!

The Journal of the Civil War Era is pleased to announce that Dr. Lindsey Peterson has been selected as the recipient of the Anthony E. Kaye Memorial Essay Award for 2023. Her  winning essay is titled, “‘Homebuilders’: Gender and Union Commemoration in the Trans-Mississippi West.” The prize selection committee, consisting of Dr. Beth Lew-Williams (chair), Dr. Paul Barba, and Dr. Antwain Hunter, wrote: “In this fascinating essay, Peterson explores the history of Civil War commemoration in the trans-Mississippi West, drawing out powerful connections between memorialization of war and the ongoing violence of settler colonialism. In addition to examining white Union veterans and their families, she spotlights the complicated role of Native peoples in this history, interrogating their incorporation into the pageantry (with or without their consent) in highly gendered, racialized, and exploitative ways. The result is an exemplary study of the Civil War’s legacies in the West.”

Dr. Peterson is the Digital Humanities Librarian at the University of South Dakota. She earned her PhD in December 2022 from the University of Southern Mississippi, where she studied in the Dale Center for the Study of War & Society. She also is the co-director of the Civil War & Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi project (CWRGM), which has digitized and edited over 22,000 documents written to Mississippi Governors during the American Civil War and Reconstruction (late-1859–1878).

Congratulations Lindsey and thanks to the awards committee for their service!

 

Call for Papers: Biennial Anthony E. Kaye Memorial Essay Award

The George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center, the Society of Civil War Historians, and the Journal of the Civil War Era invite submissions of unpublished essays from early career scholars (doctoral candidates at the writing stage and PhDs not more than two years removed from having earned their degree) for the Anthony E. Kaye Memorial Essay Award. Essays on any topic concerning the history of the Civil War era, broadly defined, will be considered. This is a biennial award. Submissions are accepted in odd-numbered years, and the award is presented in even-numbered years at the biennial conference of the Society of Civil War Historians (see submission information below).

The winning essay will earn the author a $1,000 prize and an additional $500 travel stipend to the Society of Civil War Historians conference.  Authors must be willing to attend the conference in order to be eligible for the award. The winning essay will be eligible for publication in the Journal of the Civil War Era.

Submission information: The submission deadline is June 1 of odd-numbered years. Submissions should be sent to the George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center (RichardsCenter@psu.edu) with the subject line “Anthony Kaye Memorial Essay Award.” Submissions should be double-spaced and not exceed 11,000 words, including notes. Submissions must include a cv. The award committee prefers submissions written according to The Chicago Manual of Style. The winning essay will be selected by a three-person panel chosen by the JCWE editor.

Past Winners

2021 – Bryan P. LaPointe, “A Right to Speak: Formerly Enslaved People and the Political Antislavery Movement in Antebellum America”

2019 – Robert Colby, “‘Negroes Will Bear Fabulous Prices:’ The Economics of Wartime Slave Commerce and Visions of the Confederate Future”