Congratulations to our 2017-2018 prize winning graduate students

May 21, 2018

The following History graduate students were awarded Yale and department prizes this commencement weekend. Congratulations to all of our outstanding students!  See below for details on the prize winning dissertations and scroll to the end for prize descriptions.

Alice Baumgartner

Alice Baumgartner was awarded the Frederick W. Beinecke Prize for an outstanding doctoral dissertation in the field of Western American History.  Her work, Abolition from the South:  Mexico and the Road to the U.S. Civil War, 1821-67,  was also awarded the John Addison Porter Prize by the University.

Dissertation directors: David Blight and John Mack Faragher

Gabriel Winant

Gabriel Winant was awarded the George Washington Egelston Prize, which is awarded to a student who discovers new facts of importance for American history or reaches important new conclusions from existing data.  Crucible of Care:  Economic Change and Inequality in Postwar Pittsburgh, 1955-1995, was also awarded the John Addison Porter Prize by the University.

Dissertation director: Jennifer Klein

John Burden

John Burden was awarded the Hans Gatzke Prize for an outstanding dissertation in a field of European history for his work, Between Crime and Sin:  Penitential Justice in Medieval Germany, 900-1200.

Dissertation director: Anders Winroth

Amy Watson

Amy Watson was also awarded the Hans Gatzke Prize for her work, Patriot Empire:  The Rise of Party Politics in the British Atlantic, 1716-1748.

Dissertation director: Steven Pincus

Wendell Adjetey

Wendell Adjetey was awarded the Edwin W. Small Prize for outstanding work in the field of American history for his work, From the North Star to the Black Star:  African North Americans and the Search for a Land of Promise, 1919-1984.  Mr. Adjetey also received the Sylvia Arden Boone Prize and the Canadian Studies Prize.

Dissertation directors: Glenda Gilmore and Gerald Jaynes

Max Fraser 

Max Fraser was also awarded the Edwin W. Small Prize for his work, The Hillbilly Highway:  A Social History of Transappalachia, 1918-1972.  This work was a finalist for the Allan Nevins Prize from the Society of American Historians.

Dissertation director: Jennifer Klein

Andra Chastain

Andra Chastain was awarded the Arthur and Mary Wright Prize for an outstanding dissertation in a field of history outside the United States or Europe for her work, Vehicle of Progress:  The Santiago Metro, Technopolitics, and State Formation in Chile, 1965-1989.

Dissertation director: Gilbert Joseph

Cindy Ewing

Cindy Ewing was also awarded the Arthur and Mary Wright Prize for The Asian Unity Project:  Human Rights, Third World Solidarity, and the United Nations, 1945-1955.

Dissertation director: Ben Kiernan

Faizah Zakaria

Faizah Zakaria was also awarded the Arthur and Mary Wright Prize for Sacral Ecologies of the North Sumatran Highlands:  Converting Peoples and Landscapes, 1800-1928.

Dissertation director: Ben Kiernan


 
John Addison Porter Prize
The John Addison Porter Prize, named in honor of Professor John Addison Porter, BA 1842, is awarded for a work of scholarship in any field where it is possible, through original effort, to gather and relate facts or principles, or both, and to present the results in such a literary form as to make the project of general human interest.
 
Frederick W. Beinecke Prize
The Frederick W. Beinecke Prize is awarded upon the recommendation of the History Department for an outstanding doctoral dissertation in the field of Western American History.
 
George Washington Egelston Historical Prize
The George Washington Egelston Historical Prize, awarded to a graduate or undergraduate research student who discovers new facts of importance for American history or reaches important new conclusions from existing data.
 
Hans Gatzke Prize
The Hans Gatzke Prize is awarded upon the recommendation of the History Department of the outstanding dissertation or dissertations in a field of European history. 
 
Edwin W. Small Prize 
The Edwin W. Small Prize, in memory of Edwin W. Small, B.A. 1930, M.A. 1934. Awarded in recognition and furtherance of outstanding work in the field of American history. 
 
Arthur and Mary Wright Prize
The Arthur and Mary Wright Prize is awarded upon the recommendation of the History Department for the outstanding dissertation or dissertations in the field of history outside the United States or Europe.