2024 Winner Essays

1^st Place: Abigail Gratzol, "'The Journey of a People:' The Potawatomi of Indiana After the Trail of Death"

2^nd Place: Josie Lyons, "The American Woman Suffrage Movement: Connecting the Pieces between Suffragettes, Indiana, and College Campuses"

3^rd place: Thomas J. Slowinski, "Dangerous Deregulation: The Human Cost of the Milwaukee Road's Bankruptcy Proceedings"

Honorable mentions:

Collin Lierman, "Alive to the Responsibility: American Imperialism, the Monroe Doctrine, and the Venezuelan Crisis of 1895"

Kathleen Donoho, "Hoosier Homespun: The Gender Division of Textile Production Labor in Early-19th Century Indiana"

Sam Kidder, "The Indiana Sanitary Commission: Neglected from Hoosier History"

Elijah Eckert, "How Female Activists Shaped the Story of Indiana's Wetlands"

2023 Winner Essays

1^st Place: Tony Wilson, “Terre Haute and the Equal Rights Amendment”

2^nd Place: Caitlyn Garcia, “Morgan’s Raid in Versailles, Indiana”

Honorable mentions:

Taylor Vachon, “The Conservative Feminist: Joan Gubbins, Indiana Politics, and the ERA”

Conner Van Scycoc, “Evolving Social Groups in Middletown: Fraternal Orders of Muncie, Indiana, 1870-1910”

2022 Winner Essays

Emma Croxford, “Indianapolis and Taipei: A Relationship Forged for Democracy?”

Olivia Hackett, "‘I’m Going to Shake the Whole Nation:’ Jim Jones, the Peoples Temple, and the Indianapolis
Human Rights Commission"

Audrey Messinger, "'We Won’t Go Back Until Emerson is White': The Emerson School Strike of 1927 and the
Press"

2021 Winner Essays

Ian Smith, "The Point of No Return: The Exponent's Coverage of Purdue University's 1969 Fee Hike"

Kelsey Green, "President Nixon's Favorite Mayor: Richard G. Lugar's Mayoral Years and Rise to National Politics"

Taylor Cash, "Women's Hours Versus Campus Conservatism: Feminism's Limits at Purdue by 1970"

2020 Winner Essays

Ellyn Mendenhall, "'Good Luck, and Stay Black:' A History of Blackface at Indiana University"

Jarrod Koester, "Reitz or Wrong: An Industrial, Environmental and Cultural Analysis of Evansville's 'Lumber Baron'"

Taylor Dickerson, "'When I Die, Please Don't Bury Me in Kokomo:' Ryan White's Contribution to the History of AIDS in the United States"

2019 Winner Essays

Johnathon Carter, "A Man Worth Knowing: George W. Julian, Irvington, and the Sincerity of Radicalism"

Reagan Kurtz, "Pharmaceutical Innovation: Eli Lilly and Company, the University of Toronto, and the Development of Insulin"

Honorable Mentions:
Carrie M. Griffin, "The Complexity of German-American History during World War I"

Addy McKown, "The Forgotten Women Who Saved the Union: Lucinda Burbank Morton and the Establishment of the U.S. Sanitary Commission in Indiana"

2017 Winner Essays

Christina Kovats, “Indiana’s Magdalene Laundry”

Honorable Mentions:
Noah Sandweiss, “Outcasts of all Nations: The Rise and Decline of French and Indian Relations in the American Midwest 1665-1851”

Haley Steinhilber, “Insight into the Hoosier Ku Klux Klan:  The Fiery Cross and Indiana Newspapers of the 1920s”

Molly Whitted and Michelle Williams, “Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis of the Initial Cohort of Girls at the Indiana Reformatory Institution for Women and Girls”

2016 Winner Essays

Emily Lyon, "'All Quiet on the Muscatatuck:' Finding Information in Rural Indiana during the Civil War"

Liz Hilt, "'The Way to Go is to Integrate:' The Politics of Integration at Crispus Attucks High School"

Claire Crane, "The Most Thrilling Life of Her Generation: Mary Early Holliday and the Vanguard of the First World War’s Home Front"

Soren Rasmussen, "Race and the Mobility of Capital and Labor in Gary, Indiana"

2015 Winner Essays

Leeann Sausser, "Friend of the Slave, Enemy of Emancipation: Indiana Quakers and the Abolition Question, 1826-1857"

Katie Martin, "'We Can Take It!' Race and the Civilian Conservation Corps in Indiana, 1934-1941"

Rachel Fulk, "'Perhaps This Will Reinstate Me in the Eyes of the Community:' An Indiana Woman's Experience in the 1960s Army Nurse Corps"

Claire Crane, "The Most Thrilling Life of Her Generation: Mary Early Holliday and the Vanguard of the First World War’s Home Front"

2014 Winner Essays

Rebekah Cunningham, "I'm Supposed to be Free: Edna Johnson and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Indiana"

Sara Elaine Jackson, "Reigniting Revolution: An Attempted Rape, A Judge's Comments, and the Resulting Feminist Firestorm"

Abigail Neuman, "Protecting the Fairer Sex: Indiana's Failure to Improve the Lives of Working Women"

Kristine Ruhl, "DePauw Women during World War I: Female Citizenship and Higher Education in Early 20th Century America" 

* 2014-2017 content originally hosted by Manchester University's History Department.