Lewis E. Atherton Prizes - The State Historical Society of Missouri

The Lewis E. Atherton Prizes, named in honor of a former trustee and president of the Society and a longtime professor in the University of Missouri-Columbia Department of History, annually recognize an outstanding master’s thesis and doctoral dissertation on Missouri history or biography. Master’s thesis winners receive $500 and a certificate; doctoral dissertation winners receive $1,000 and a certificate. Departments of history nominate the theses and dissertations, and no more than two nominations for each prize can be made annually by a department. Nominees must have completed the master’s degree or the doctoral degree between July 1 of the preceding year and June 30 of the current year. The deadline for submission of nominations is July 1, 2013, and the winners are announced at the fall annual meeting. A letter of nomination and three copies of the thesis or dissertation should be sent to:

Gary R. Kremer
Executive Director
State Historical Society of Missouri
1020 Lowry Street
Columbia, MO
65201-7298

Atherton Prize Recipients

2012

Megan Boccardi — “Remembering in Black and White: Missouri Women’s Memorial Work, 1860-1910” (PhD dissertation, University of Missouri)
Sarah McCune — “With the Intention of Destroying Her Life: Women, Suicide and the Limits of Respectability in St. Louis, Missouri, 1875-1900” (MA thesis, University of Missouri)

2011

April E. Holm — “A Kingdom Divided: Border Evangelicals in the Civil War Era, 1837-1894” (PhD dissertation, Columbia University)
Steven P. Stuckey — “Fighting for Family: French Kin Networks and the American Revolution in the Illinois Country, 1780-1781” (MA thesis, University of Missouri-St. Louis)

2010

Keona Ervin — “‘A Decent Living Out of Our Work’: Black Women’s Labor Activism in St. Louis, 1929-45” (PhD dissertation, Washington University)

2009

Adam Arenson — “City of Manifest Destiny: St. Louis and the Cultural Civil War, 1848-1877” (PhD dissertation, Yale University)
Peter K. Johnson — “The Origins and Nature of Indian Slavery in Colonial St. Louis” (MA thesis, University of Central Missouri)

2008

Ken Mueller — “Benton and the People: White Nationalism on the Jacksonian Frontier, 1782-1848” (PhD dissertation, St. Louis University)
Benjamin Israel — “Putting Black in Blue: The Struggle to Put Uniformed African American Police Officers on the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department” (MA thesis, University of Missouri-St. Louis)

2007

Amahia K. Mallea — “Rivers Running Through: An Urban Environmental History of the Kansas Cities and the Missouri River” (PhD dissertation, University of Missouri-Columbia)
Joseph M. Beilein Jr. — “‘The Presence of These Families is the Cause of the Presence There of the Guerrillas’: The Influence of Little Dixie Households on the Civil War in Missouri” (MA thesis, University of Missouri-Columbia)

2006

Michele Lansdown — “The Defeat of the 1914 Missouri Woman Suffrage Initiative” (MA thesis, Missouri State University, Springfield)

2005

Diane Mutti Burke — “On Slavery’s Borders: Slavery and Slaveholding on Missouri’s Farms, 1821-1865” (PhD dissertation, Emory University)

2004

No nominations received

2003

Lisa Guinn — “‘Building Useful Women’ from the Depths of Poverty: A Social History of the Girls’ Industrial Home and School in St. Louis, Missouri, 1853-1935” (PhD diss., Oklahoma State University)

2002

Amahia Mallea — “Progressive Kansas City and the Missouri River” (MA thesis, University of Missouri-Columbia)

2001

Jay H. Buckley — “William Clark: Superintendent of Indian Affairs at St. Louis, 1813-1838” (PhD diss., University of Nebraska-Lincoln)

2000

Petra DeWitt — “Fighting The Kaiser at Home: Anti-German Sentiment In Missouri During World War I” (MA thesis, Truman State University)