The Mary Maples Dunn Prize will honor the best article in early American women’s history by an untenured scholar published in the William and Mary Quarterly that uses gender as a primary analytical category.
All untenured writers are eligible—graduate students, independent scholars, non-tenure-track instructors, and untenured faculty members. The prize committee especially welcomes essays that are innovative in their choice of subjects or methodologies and/or present significant new evidence or fresh interpretations. Submissions will be evaluated by the Quarterly according to the usual process (see guidelines); the external prize committee will consider articles once they have been accepted. The award will include a cash prize of $1,000 and an announcement in the William and Mary Quarterly.
Mary Maples Dunn has served as a professor of history and dean at Bryn Mawr College, as a leading contributor to the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians, as President of Smith College, as the Director of the Schlesinger Library, as the first Dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and most recently as the co–Executive Officer of the American Philosophical Society. As a women’s historian and historian of early America, she is well known for her scholarship as well as for her lifelong efforts to advance other women’s careers in the academy, as students, faculty members, and administrators. In keeping with her legacy of generous assistance to younger scholars, the Mary Maples Dunn Prize is specifically designed to help untenured scholars establish themselves professionally and to provide funds to assist with their research. And in keeping with her pioneering work as a women’s historian, the prize is designed to encourage the creation of more excellent scholarship in women’s and gender history.
If you would like to make a contribution, please make your check out to the Mary Maples Dunn Prize and send it to the Mary Maples Dunn Prize, c/o Ann M. Little, Treasurer, Department of History, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523-1776. Questions should be addressed to amlittle@colostate.edu.