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BEVERLY PURRINGTON/RICHARD WHITE WESTERN HISTORY DISSERTATION PRIZE

The Western History Association recognizes the best dissertation on the history of the North American West, in its varied aspects and broadest sense. The prize consists of a $500 award to the recipient. To be eligible, the dissertation should be defended and filed in the preceding calendar year. (For example, all dissertations defended and filed in 2024 will be eligible for the 2025 prize.)  Authors of eligible dissertations must be a member of the WHA at the time of submission.


For the 2025 award cycle, eligible applicants should send the following in *one pdf file* to each member of the committee (please use your last name in the title of the pdf file and put "WHA Purrington/White Dissertation Award" in the email subject line).


  1. a cover letter with contact information including name, affiliation, and preferred email address and
  2. the dissertation, which should include an abstract. 


-2025 Awards Cycle opens January 15, 2025

-2025 Award Submission Deadline: April 15, 2025


The WHA office will notify the selected award recipient by the end of August.



BEVERLY PURRINGTON/RICHARD WHITE DISSERTATION PRIZE COMMITTEE

Alicia Gutierrez-Romine, Chair
California State University, San Bernadino
alicia.gutierrez-romine@csusb.edu

Kevin Waite

Durham University

kevin.a.waite@durham.ac.uk


Khal Schneider

California State University, Sacramento

schneider@csus.edu

RESTURN TO AWARDS

PAST RECIPIENTS:

PURRINGTON/WHITE DISSERTATION PRIZE

2024 | Laura A. Dominguez, “Memory Makers: Tracing Race, Heritage, and Repair in Los Angeles, 1781-2012” |and| Kaden Jelsing, “Sovereign Futures: Indigenous and Settler Propechies in Two Nineteenth-Century American 'Northwests'”

2023 | Joseph David Schiller, “Zombie Miners: Life, Death, and Reanimation in the Wide Rural Rust Belt”

2022 | Marc James Carpenter, "'Rake Up No Old Stories of Evil': Memory, Celebration, and Erasure of Settler Violence in the American Pacific Northwest"

2021 | Cori Simon, "Shadowland: Indian Territory's Contested Past and Uncertain Future, 1800-1910"


Western History Association

University of Kansas | History Department

1445 Jayhawk Blvd. | 3650 Wescoe Hall

Lawrence, KS 66045 | 785-864-0860

wha@westernhistory.org 


The WHA is located in the Department of History at the University of Kansas. The WHA is grateful to KU's History Department and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences for their generous support!