2023 Madison Ingram
"Chief Hope of Democracy:" Educational Influences on the Segregated Carnegie Libraries of Atlanta
2021 Dr. Jennifer Burek Pierce
”More Than a Room with Books: The Development of Author Visits for Young People in Mid-Century U.S. Public Libraries”
2020 Julie Park
”Infrastructure Story: The Los Angeles Central Library’s Architectural History”
2019 Steven Knowlton
”A Rapidly Escalating Demand: Academic Libraries and the Birth of Black Studies Programs”
2018 Not Awarded
2017 Alexander Ames
”The ‘Spirit of the Fatherland’: German-American Culture and Community in the Library and Archive of the German Society of Pennsylvania, 1817-2017”
2016 Steven Knowlton
"Since I was a citizen, I had the right to attend the library: the key role of the public library in the civil rights movement in Memphis"
2015 Sharon McQueen
"The Feminization of Ferdinand: Perceptions of Gender Nonconformity in a Classic Children’s Picture Book"
2014 Kate Stewart
"The Man in the Rice Paddies Had Something to READ: Military Libraries and Intellectual Freedom in the
Vietnam War"
2013 Nicola Wilson
"Boots Book-Lovers' library, the Novel, and James Hanley's The Furys (1935)"
2012 Ashley Maynor
"All the World’s Memory: Implications for the Internet as Archive and Portal for Our Cultural Heritage"
2011 Cody White
"Rising from the Ashes: Lessons Learned from the Impact of Proposition 13 on Public Libraries in California"
2010 Pamela Bleisch
"Spoilsmen and Daughters of the Republic: Political Interference in the Texas State Library during the Tenure
of Elizabeth Howard West, 1911-1925"
2009 Richard LeComte
"Writers Blocked: The Debate Over Public Lending Right in the United States During the 1980s"
2008 Jeremy Dibbell
"'A Library of the Most Celebrated & Approved Authors': The First Purchase Collection of Union College"
2007 Dr. Jean L. Preer
"Promoting Citizenship: Librarians Help Get Out the Vote in the 1952 Presidential Election"
2006 Not awarded
2005 Donald C. Boyd
"The Book Women of Kentucky: The WPA Pack Horse Library Project, 1935-1943"
2004 Joyce M. Latham
"Clergy of the Mind: William S. Learned, the Carnegie Corporation, and the American Library Association"
2003 Not awarded
2002 Marek Sroka
"The Destruction of Jewish Libraries and Archives in Crakow (Krakow) During World War II"
Libraries & Culture V.38 No. 2 (Spring 2003)
2001 Not awarded
2000 Not awarded
1999 Christine Pawley
"Advocate for Access: Lutie Stearns and the Traveling Libraries of the Wisconsin Free Library Commission,
1895-1914"
Libraries & Culture V.35 No. 3 (Summer 2000)
1998 Not awarded
1997 Cheryl Knott Malone
"Houston's Colored Carnegie Library, 1907-1922"
The Spring 1999 issue of Libraries & Culture (V.34, pp. 95-112) carries an article by Cheryl Knott Malone
entitled, "Autonomy & Accommodations: Houston's Colored Carnegie Library, 1907-1922." This is the
same article.
1996 Wayne A. Wiegand
"The Amherst Method: The Origins of the Dewey Decimal Classification Scheme"
Libraries & Culture V.33 (Spring 1998) pp. 175-94
1995 Not awarded
1994 Not awarded
1993 Not awarded
1992 Joanne E. Passat
"Men in a Feminized Profession: The Male Librarian, 1887-1921"
Libraries & Culture V.28 (Fall 1993) pp. 385-402
1991 Margaret Stieg
"Post-War Purge of the German Public Libraries, Democracy, and the American Reaction"
Libraries & Culture V.28 (Spring 1993) pp. 143-164
1990 John Richardson
"Teaching General Reference Work: The Essential Paradigm, 1890-1900"
Library Quarterly V.62 (January 1992) pp. 55-89
1989 Frederick J. Stielow
"Librarians, Warriors, and Rapprochement: Carl Milam, Archibald MacLeish, and World War II"
Libraries & Culture V.25 (Fall 1990) pp. 513-533
1988 Brother Thomas O'Connor
"Library Service to the American Committee to Negotiate Peace and to the Preparatory Inquiry, 1917-1919"
Libraries & Culture V.24 (Spring 1989) pp. 144-157
1987 Rosalee McReynolds
"American Nervousness and Turn of the Century Librarians"
The Spring, 1990 issue of Libraries & Culture (V.25, pp. 194-217) carries an article by Ms. Reynolds with a
slightly different title: "The Sexual Politics of Illness in Turn of the Century Libraries." Although not stated, it
seems likely that this article was developed from the winning 1987 essay.
1986 Ronald Blazek
"Adult Education and Economic Opportunity in the Gilded Age: The Library, the Chautauqua,
and the Railroads in DeFuniak Springs, Florida"
Journal of Library History V.22 (Fall 1987) pp. 377-396
1985 Not awarded
1984 Larry Yeatman
"Literary Culture and the Role of Libraries in Democratic America: Baltimore, 1815-1940"
Journal of Library History V.20 (Fall 1985) pp. 345-367
1983 Robert S. Martin
"Maurice F. Tauber's Louis Round Wilson: An Analysis of a Collaboration"
Journal of Library History V.19 (Summer 1984) pp. 373-389
1982 Pamela Spence Richards
"Aryan Librarianship: Academic and Research Libraries Under Hitler"
Journal of Library History V.19 (Spring 1984) pp. 231-258
Wayne A. Wiegand, "British Propaganda in American Libraries, 1914-1917"
Journal of Library History V.18 (Summer 1983) pp. 237-254
1981 Mary Niles Maack
"Women Librarians in France: The First Generation"
Journal of Library History V.18 (Fall 1983) pp. 407-449
1980 Not awarded
1979 Dennis Thomison
"The Private Wars of Chicago's Big Bill Thompson"
Journal of Library History V.15 (Summer 1980) pp. 261-280
Award established Fall 1978