The Presidents’ Book Prize is awarded in even-numbered years for the best book treating any aspect of United States history in the period 1865-1920s. It must be the author’s second or subsequent scholarly book. The prize is given in honor of the past presidents of SHGAPE. The inaugural award was offered in 2018.
Winners of this prize are honored at the annual SHGAPE luncheon and receive a certificate and an honorarium.
For the 2026 prize, books published in English in 2024 and 2025 are eligible. Edited volumes and collections are not eligible. Books translated into English are eligible if they meet other criteria for the prize. Please note that to be eligible, the nominated work must be the author’s second or subsequent book.
Authors or their publishers should send a published copy of each nominated book to all three members of the prize committee by the postmark deadline of October 31, 2025. For books published after October 31, 2025 but before December 31, 2025, final page proofs may be substituted, but in such cases, a bound copy of the book must be provided to each committee member once published.
Mailing addresses for the 2026 Prize Committee will be provided in 2025 (When mailing, please clearly label each entry “2024 President’s Book Prize”).
PAST AWARDEES
2024 Presidents’ Book Prize Winner
Michael Willrich, American Anarchy: The Epic Struggle between Immigrant Radicals and the U.S. Government at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century (Basic Books, 2023)
2024 Honorable Mention
Andrea L. Smalley, The Market in Birds: Commercial Hunting, Conservation, and the Origins of Wildlife Consumerism, 1850-1920 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022)
2022 Presidents’ Book Prize Winner
K. Stephen Prince, The Ballad of Robert Charles: Searching for the New Orleans Riot of 1900 (University of North Carolina Press, 2021)
2022 Honorable Mention
Cathleen D. Cahill, Recasting the Vote: How Women of Color Transformed the Suffrage Movement (University of North Carolina Press, 2020)
2020 Presidents’ Book Prize Winner
Andrew Huebner, Love and Death in the Great War (Oxford University Press, 2018)
2018 Presidents’ Book Prize Winner
Janet M. Davis, The Gospel of Kindness: Animal Welfare and the Making of Modern America (Oxford University Press, 2016)
2018 Honorable Mention
Benjamin Heber Johnson, Escaping the Dark, Gray City: Fear and Hope in Progressive-Era Conservation (Yale University Press, 2017)