December 8, 2021

New Grassroots Public History Award

We are pleased to announce the creation of a new award: the NCPH Grassroots Public History Award. This award reflects NCPH’s commitment to acknowledging the diverse array of work public historians do, particularly outside of larger, and predominately white, institutions, and is the realization of one of the pillars of our 2020 Vision endowment-building campaign. For the purpose of this award, grassroots is defined as an effort spearheaded by people on-the-ground that supports the community(ies) where they may live, work, or represent. The award comes with a $750 cash prize and up to three complimentary registrations to the NCPH Annual Meeting. Additionally, the project or organization that receives the award will have the opportunity to showcase their work by presenting at the annual meeting in some form (as a session, tour or site visit, or as an exhibit in the exhibit hall, whether virtual or in-person).

The Grassroots Public History Award will be an annual award, regionally-focused around the annual meeting host city. For example, with the 2022 Annual Meeting scheduled to be held in Montreal, Quebec, the award will go to an individual, group, or organization doing work in the province of Quebec, Canada. For this first year, the award will be considered internally between the Grassroots Public History Award Committee and the 2022 Local Arrangements team. We hope this gives the committee members a chance to see the kinds of work being done, consider how to finesse the criteria for the award, and provide an example for future years. Starting in the 2022-2023 awards cycle, we will gather submissions from the public history community with a due date of December 1, 2022.

Thank you to the public historians who agreed to serve on the inaugural Grassroots Public History Award Committee:

  • Liz Ševcenko (2021-2024, Co-Chair), Humanities Action Lab – Rutgers University-Newark
  • Romeo Guzmán (2021-2024, Co-Chair), Claremont Graduate University/South El Monte Arts Posse
  • Brittani Orona (2021-2024), Hoopa Valley Tribe/University of California Davis
  • Mayela Caro (2021-2024), University of California Riverside

For more information on the award visit https://ncph.org/about/awards/grassroots-public-history-award/. This award is funded through the NCPH Endowment, and was made possible by the many generous donations we received during the 2020 Vision Campaign.

Contact us at [email protected] for more information and questions.