The Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture offers a biennial, $3,000 cash prize to an exceptional book-length scholarly manuscript pertaining to the histories and cultures of North America from circa 1450 to1820, including related developments in the Caribbean, Latin America, Europe, and Africa in this period. To be eligible for the Prize competition, an author must not previously have published a scholarly book and may not be a current or past holder of an Institute postdoctoral fellowship. All other first-book manuscripts accepted for publication by the Institute are considered.  

A three-person committee chosen by the Chair of the Institute Council’s Publications Committee evaluates submissions and awards the prize to a manuscript whose scholarly contribution to the field of early American history and culture the committee considers to be outstanding. Should no manuscript meet that qualification, the Committee will not confer the Prize. Each two-year competition cycle begins on May 1 and continues until April 30 of the second year following.

To submit a manuscript to the Institute for the Jamestown Prize, please first send a letter of inquiry with a book prospectus and current curriculum vitae to the Editor of Publications, OIEAHC, P.O. Box 8781, Williamsburg, VA 23187-8781. The Institute will then invite the authors of all promising proposals to send their complete work. The version of the manuscript entered in the competition will be the copy that is first sent out for peer review.

The cash prize is awarded in addition to all royalties earned on sales of the winning book. Funding for the prize comes from the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, the University of North Carolina Press, and the Institute’s sponsors: The College of William and Mary and the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.

Rules for the Prize appear on the Institute’s website: www.wm.edu/oieahc/pub/jp_rules.html. Preliminary questions may be directed to the Associate Editor: mcglad@wm.edu.