Ray Allen Billington Prize facts for kids
The Ray Allen Billington Prize is a special award given every two years. It celebrates the best book written about the history of the American frontier. This prize helps us learn more about the exciting and challenging times when people explored and settled new lands.
About the Ray Allen Billington Prize
The Ray Allen Billington Prize is given out by the Organization of American Historians (OAH). This group is made up of historians who study American history. The prize honors the best book about the "American frontier."
What does "American frontier" mean? It includes all of North and South America. It covers the experiences of pioneers who explored new areas after 1492. It also looks at how the American frontier compares to other frontiers around the world.
The prize started in 1981. It is named after Ray Allen Billington, who was a very important historian. He was the president of the OAH from 1962 to 1963. He also wrote many books about American frontiers.
A special committee chooses the winner. This committee has three members. The OAH President picks them for a two-year term. The winner receives $1000.
The very first award was given in 1981 to John D. Unruh. He had passed away in 1976, so it was given after his death. In 1997, no award was given. In 1999, two books shared the prize.
Past Winners of the Prize
The table below lists the books and authors who have won the Ray Allen Billington Prize.
| Year | Winner | Affiliation | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1981 | John D. Unruh | Bluffton University | The Plains Across: The Overland Emigrants and the Trans-Mississippi West, 1840-60 |
| 1983 | David J. Weber | Southern Methodist University | The Mexican Frontier, 1821-1846: The American Southwest Under Mexico |
| 1985 | Francis Paul Prucha, S.J. | Marquette University | The Great Father: The United States Government and the American Indians |
| 1987 | Paul Andrew Hutton | University of New Mexico | Phil Sheridan and His Army |
| 1989 | Albert L. Hurtado | Arizona State University | Indian Survival on the California Frontier |
| 1991 | James N. Gregory | University of Washington | American Exodus: The Dust Bowl Migration and Okie Culture in California |
| 1993 | Daniel K. Richter | University of Pennsylvania | The Ordeal of the Longhouse: The Peoples of the Iroquois League in the Era of European Colonization |
| 1995 | John Putnam Demos | Yale University | The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America |
| 1997 | No award given | ||
| 1999co | Malcolm J. Rohrbough | University of Iowa | Days of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the American Nation |
| 1999co | Elliott West | University of Arkansas | The Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers, and the Rush to Colorado |
| 2001 | Gunther Peck | Duke University | Reinventing Free Labor: Padrones and Immigrant Workers in The North American West, 1880-1930 |
| 2003 | Martha A. Sandweiss | Amherst College | Print the Legend: Photography and the American West |
| 2005 | Colin G. Calloway | Dartmouth College | One Vast Winter Count: The Native American West before Lewis and Clark |
| 2007 | Pablo R. Mitchell | Oberlin College | Coyote Nation: Race, and Conquest in Modernizing New Mexico, 1880-1920 |
| 2009 | Matthew Klingle | Bowdoin College | Emerald City: An Environmental History of Seattle |
| 2011 | Louise Pubols | Oakland Museum of California | The Father of All: The de la Guerra Family, Power, and Patriarchy in Mexican California |
| 2013 | Peter Boag | Washington State University | Re-Dressing America's Frontier Past |
| 2015 | Jared Farmer | Stony Brook University | Trees in Paradise: A California History |
| 2017 | Karl Jacoby | Columbia University | The Strange Career of William Ellis: The Texas Slave Who Became a Mexican Millionaire |
| 2019 | Elizabeth Lew-Williams | Princeton University | The Chinese Must Go: Violence, Exclusion, and the Making of the Alien in America |
| 2021 | Jeffrey Ostler | University of Oregon | Surviving Genocide: Native Nations and the United States from the American Revolution to Bleeding Kansas |
