Undergraduate

Morton Prizes

Louis Morton Memorial Prize in American History: 
Awarded annually to the student who has written the best essay dealing with United States history for courses offered by faculty of the History Department.

  • The 2024 recipient: Kelby Greene '25, for "Selling Power: The Tennessee Valley Authority and the Marketing of the All-Electric Lifestyle, 1933-1965," HIST 96.38, Crisis and Continuity in Twentieth-Century U.S. Social Movements

Louis Morton Memorial Prize in European History: 
Awarded annually to the student who has written the best essay dealing with European history for courses offered by faculty of the History Department.

  • The 2025 recipient: Phoebe Altman ‘24, for “Either a Bee or a Droan: Nationalist Rhetoric in Improvement Pamphlet Literature in 17th-Century England,”

Louis Morton Memorial Prize in Interregional or Comparative History: 
Awarded annually to the student who has written the best essay dealing with a topic of interregional or comparative history for courses offered by faculty of the History Department.

  • The 2025 recipient: Kavya Nivarthy ‘25, for“China’s “Reverse Course”: Sino-Japanese Relations During the U.S. Occupation in Japan,”

The Louis Morton Memorial Prize in Asian, African or Latin American History 
Awarded annually to the student who has written the best essay dealing with Asian, African or Latin American history for courses offered by faculty of the History Department.

  • The 2025 recipient: Paul Yang '23, for “Postcolonial Neoliberalism and Dongpophobia in Contemporary South Korea.” 
  • The 2024 recipient: Constandino Christodoulou, for "The Beautiful Game in Chains: The Development of Black Football Under Apartheid"

Patten London Research Prize

Awarded annually by the Department of History to a member of the History Foreign Study Program in London who has written the best independent research paper.

The 2025 recipients (for FSP London, Fall 2024): 

  • Timothy P. Bonis ‘26, for “The Hospital Building Programme and the Nuclear Family (1957-1977)"
  •  John M. Coleman ‘26, for “The Loyal Americas: The British West Indies and Bermuda during the Revolution,”

Salvador Allende Prize

Awarded annually to honor a student (or students) for exemplary academic contributions to Latin American Studies and meaningful humanitarian work.

  • 2025 recipients: Olvin J. Obrego Ayala '25 and Nadine Lorini Formiga '25.

John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding

Chase Peace Prize

The Chase Peace Prize was established at Dartmouth College by Edward M. Chase, a native of Lithuania who emigrated to the United States, settling in Manchester, New Hampshire, until his death, in 1939. A philanthropist of many causes, Mr. Chase established the Peace Prize in order to encourage careful reflection on the causes of war and the prospects for peace in the world. The Chase Peace Prize is awarded to the best senior thesis or culminating project that treats the subject of war, conflict resolution, the prospects and problems of maintaining peace, or other related topics.

Recent History majors who have won this distinguished prize:

Jason Acosta Espinosa '24, "'Hermanas en Armas!' The Women of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, 1979-1992"

Bryanna Entwistle '23, "After the Fall: Human Rights and US Policy Towards the Cambodian Genocide"

Ethan Klaris '20, "To Punish Them and Make Them Very Poor: Morality and Total War on the Southern Plains, 1868-1875"

Yoo Jin Chae '18, "'May This Tribunal Prevent the Crime of Silence': The Russell Tribunal on War Crimes in Vietnam, 1967"

Carson Hele '16, "The Family-Friendly Occupation: Military Dependents and American Power in Postwar Japan, 1945-1952"

Blaze Joel '15, "One People. One Nation. Two Wars: Nationalism and Memory in Croatia and the Breakup of Yugoslavia"

Louis Wheatley '14, "Matriotism: American Motherhood in Protest Against WWII, the Vietnam War, and the Iraq War"

History Honors Thesis Prizes

Class of 1859 Prize

Awarded annually to a member of the History Department's Honors Program who, in the judgment of the Department, submits the best thesis upon an historical subject dealing with European studies.

  • The 2025 recipient: Michelle Mulé '25, "Harrying English Shores: The Evolution of a Scandinavian Community in England During the Viking Age, c. 793-1066," (Advised by Prof. Gaposchkin).
  • The 2024 recipient: Sebastian Fernandez '24, "Hear this, oh slovenly man": Masculine Self-Fashioning in Victorian Britain, 1820–1914," (Advised by Prof. Estabrook).

Jones History Prize

Awarded annually to a member of the History Department's Honors Program who, in the judgment of the Department, submits the best thesis upon some subject connected with the history of the United States.

  • The 2025 recipient: Zoe McGuirk '25, "Thinking Property, Seeing Humanity: Infanticide, Race, and Justice in the Antebellum South," (Advised by Prof. Butler).
  • The 2024 recipient: Clare Downey '24, "Borders of Identity: The Construction and Deployment of Definitions of Queerness in U.S. Immigration Law Since 1952 ," (Advised by Prof. Orleck).

Richard B. McCornack Prize

Awarded annually to a member of the History Department's Honors Program who, in the judgment of the Department, submits the best thesis in Latin American history.

Not awarded in 2025.

  • The 2024 recipient: Jason Acosta Espinosa, "Hermanas en Armas!" The Women of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, 1979-1992 (Advised by Prof. Voekel)

Peter J. Reichard 1966 Memorial Research Award

Awarded annually for the best thesis written by a student enrolled in the History Department's Honors Program.

  • The 2025 recipient: Gabriel Chang-Deutsch '25, "Nā Palapala Hoʻopiʻi: Petitions in the Hawaiian Kingdom, 1868-1887" (Advised by Prof. Calloway)
  • The 2024 recipient:  Kaya Çolakoğlu '24, Time, Structure, and the State in the Turkish Years of Lead (1950-1980) (Advised by Prof. Nikpour) 

Steven S. Rosenthal '71 Prize

Awarded annually to a member of the History Department's Honors Program who, in the judgment of the Department, submits the best thesis in non-western history.

  • The 2025 recipient: Caleb Liu, "Creating Racial Canons: Race in the Epistemology of Modern South Africa" (Advised by: Professor Zeinstra).

Not awarded in 2024.

Charles T. Wood Prize

Awarded annually to a member of the History Department's Honors Program who, in the judgment of the Department, submits the best thesis dealing with a topic of interregional or comparative history.

  • The 2025 recipient: Marta Hulievska '25, "Specters of Babyn Yar: Holocaust Commemoration and Nation-Building in Ukraine" (Advised by Prof. Petruccelli)
  • The 2024 recipient: William Spencer Dougan '24, Tongues as of Fire: Sermons, Radicalism, and Ideology in the Interregnum Empire (Advised by Prof. Musselwhite)

Jonathan B. Rintels Prize

This prize is awarded annually in the fall for the best honors thesis in the Social Sciences. Two history theses have been awarded the Rintels Prize in the past years, 2020-2023.

  • The 2020 recipient: Courtney Stump '20, ""For the Public Good": Women's Political Engagement in Revolutionary-era Boston," advised by Professor Paul Musselwhite.
  • The 2023 recipient: Emilie Lucia Bowerman '23, "The Cult of the Cross in the Hispanic Rite, fourth to eighth centuries," advised by Professor Cecilia Gaposchkin.