The Western History Association announces a prize of $500 for the Joan Paterson Kerr Book Award. This award is presented annually for the best illustrated book on the history of the American West. There is a $500 prize awarded to the author/editor and a certificate goes to the press.
All submissions must have a 2023 copyright date. While the formal process requires presses/journals to submit the work of their authors, the WHA strongly recommends that authors check with the award committee chair a week before the deadline to see if they received a copy of their work. Presses should submit nominations and a copy of the book to each member of the award committee listed below. Please note that a physical copy of the book is required.
-2024 Awards Cycle opens January 15, 2024
-2024 Award Submission (Postmark) Deadline: April 15, 2024
The WHA office sends notifications to selected award recipients at the end of August.
PATERSON KERR AWARD COMMITTEE
Jenny Watts, Chair
Independent Scholar
1445 Oakdale St.
Pasadena, CA 91106
jenny.a.watts@icloud.com
Barret Oliver
Owner/Publishers of The ƒ/Ø
255 S. Glendora Ave. #1072
Glendora, CA 91740
barret@f-zeroproject.com
2024 | J. R. Henneman, Near East to Far West: Fictions of French and American Colonialism (Yale University Press, 2023)
2023 | Michele Corriel, Montana Modernists: Shifting Perceptions of Western Art (Washington State University Press, 2022)
2022 | Karlos K. Hill, The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre: A Photographic History (University of Oklahoma Press, 2021)
2021 | Nicole Dawn Strathman, Through a Native Lens: American Indian Photography (University of Oklahoma Press, 2020)
2020 | Heather Ahtone, Faith Brower,and Seth Hopkins for Warhol and the West (University of California Press, 2019)
2019 | James R. Swensen,In a Rugged Land: Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, and the Three Mormon Towns Collaboration, 1953-1954(University of Utah Press, 2018)
2018 | Steve Friesen for Lakota Performers in Europe: Their Culture and the Artifacts They Left Behind (University of Oklahoma Press, 2017)
2017 | Marian Wardle and Sarah E. Boehme for Branding the American West: Paintings and Films 1900-1950 (University of Oklahoma Press, 2016)
2015 | Sergei Kan for A Russian American photographer in Tlingit country : Vincent Soboleff in Alaska (University of Oklahoma Press, 2013)
2013 | Eric L. Muller for Colors of Confinement: Rare Kodachrome Photographs of Japanese American Incarceration in World War II (University of North Carolina Press, 2012)
2011 | Carol Clark for Charles Deas and 1840s America (University of Oklahoma Press, 2009)
2009 | B. Byron Price for Charles M. Russell: A Catalogue Raisonné (University of Oklahoma Press, 2007)
2007 | Margot Liberty, ed. Commentary by John Woodenlegs for A Northern Cheyenne Album: Photographs by Thomas B. Marquis (University of Oklahoma Press, 2006)
2005 | Edited by Brandon K. Ruud, annotations by Marsha V. Gallagher, essays by Ron Tyler and Brandon K. Ruud, preface by J. Brooks Joyner for Karl Bodmer‘s North American Prints (Joslyn Art Museum and University of Nebraska Press, 2004)
2003 | Aron L. Crowell (Editor), Amy F. Steffian (Editor), Gordon L. Pullar (Editor)Looking Both Ways: Heritage and Identity of the Alutiiq People (University of Alaska Press, 2001)
2001 | Carlos Schwantes for Long Day‘s Journey: The Steamboat and Stagecoach Era in the Northern West (University of Washington Press, 1999)
1999 | Mary Meagher and Douglas B. Houston for Yellowstone and the Biology of Time (University of Oklahoma Press, 1998)
1997 | Peter Hassrick and Melissa J. Webster for Frederic Remington: A Catalogue Raisonne of Paintings, Watercolors and Drawings (University of Washington Press, 1996)
1995 | Edited by David Harris with Eric Sandweiss for Eadweard Muybridge and the Photographic Panorama of San Francisco, 1850-1880 (MIT Press, 1993)
1993 | David W. Penny for Art of the American Indian Frontier: The Chandler-Pohrt Collection (University of Washington Press, 1992).
BACKGROUND:
JOAN PATERSON KERR
Joan Paterson Kerr (1921- 1996): "Mrs. Kerr was a founding picture editor of American Heritage magazine. She was a co-editor of American Album, published by American Heritage, and The Romantic Egoists, a pictorial history of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. She also was a picture editor at Newsweek Books and for the Book-of-the-Month Club series "The American Past." Mrs. Kerr also compiled A Bully Father: Theodore Roosevelt's Letters to His Children (1995), for which she wrote the biographical essay and notes." (Source: The New York Times, Nov. 22, 1996)
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!