The Agricultural History Society awards several prizes each year to encourage scholarship related to the history of agriculture and rural life.
The awards include the Everett E. Edwards Award for the best article submitted to Agricultural History by a graduate student; the Vernon Carstensen Memorial Award for the best article in Agricultural History; the Wayne D. Rasmussen Award for the best article on agricultural history not published in Agricultural History; the Gilbert C. Fite Dissertation Award for the best dissertation on agricultural history; the Theodore Saloutos Memorial Award for the best book on agricultural history; and the National History Day History of Agriculture and Rural Life Award.
Everett E. Edwards Award for the best article submitted to Agricultural History by a graduate student.
Neil Clayton, for
"'Poorly Co-ordinated Structures for Public Science that Failed Us in the Past?' Applying Science to Agriculture: A New Zealand Case Study." Clayton is a graduate student at the University of Otago, New Zealand.
Vernon Carstensen Memorial Award for the best article in Agricultural History.
John Majewski and Viken Tchakerian, for "The Environmental Origins of Shifting Cultivation: Climate, Soils, and Disease in the Nineteenth-Century US South," in Agricultural History 81:4 (Fall 2007). Majewski teaches in the history department at UC-Santa Barbara and Tchakerian is now an independent scholar.
Wayne D. Rasmussen Award for the best article on agricultural history not published in Agricultural History.
Pete Daniel, from the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution, for "African American Farmers and Civil Rights," in Journal of Southern History 73:1 (Feb. 2007).
Gilbert C. Fite Dissertation Award for the best dissertation on agricultural history.
David DeJong, who completed his PhD at the University of Arizona, for "The Sword of Damocles: Pima Agriculture, Water Use and Water Rights, 1848-1921." Read the abstract here.
Theodore Saloutos Memorial Award for the best book on agricultural history.
Sterling Evans, associate professor at Brandon University and Canada Research Chair in History, for Bound in Twine: The History and Ecology of the Henequen-Wheat Complex for Mexico and the American and Canadian Plains, 1880-1950 (Texas A&M University Press, 2007).
National History Day History of Agriculture and Rural Life Award. The society established the History of Agriculture and Rural Life Award to raise awareness of agricultural and rural history among secondary school students interested in history. Projects in any of the National History Day categories are eligible, including papers, dramatic presentations, media presentations, and exhibits, both by individuals and groups at either the Senior or Junior levels. The prize is awarded in June at the campus of the University of Maryland during the awards ceremony of the National History Day Contest. In addition to two hundred dollars, students receive certificates of their achievement and a complimentary copy of the issue of the Society's journal, Agricultural History, announcing the winner of the award.
The 2007 NHD special prize in Agriculture and Rural History was presented to Sydney Taylor and Lindsey McKeefor for their junior group performance entitled "Triumph to Tragedy to Triumph: The Saga of the Dust Bowl.” The two were students at Bob Courtway Middle School in Conway, Arkansas, and were advised by teachers Joy Meriwether and Sherry Holder.
