Abraham Lincoln Institute Winning Scholarship

DISSERTATION PRIZE WINNERS

The Abraham Lincoln Institute respects the commitment and talent required for significant research and presentation in dissertations and books. The purpose of the Hay-Nicolay Dissertation Prize is to recognize and encourage young scholars to conduct research on Abraham Lincoln and his times.

An annual prize of $1,000 is underwritten by the Abraham Lincoln Institute and the Abraham Lincoln Association. A panel of five scholars representing each organization serves as the jury.

2019
Thomas D. Mackie Jr., “A Shrine for President Lincoln: An Analysis of Lincoln Museums and Historic Sites, 1816-2015,” Western Michigan University.

2018
Zachery A. Fry, “Lincoln’s Divided Legion: Loyalty and Political Culture of the Army of the Potomac 1861-1865,” Ohio State University.

2017
Mark A. Neels, “Lincoln’s Conservatives: Conservative Unionism and Political Tradition in the Civil War Era,” Southern Illinois University.

2016
Thomas J. Kernan, “Sounding ‘The Mystic Chords of Memory’: Musical Memorials for Abraham Lincoln, 1865-2009,” The University of Cincinnati.

2015
Sarah Bischoff Paulus, “Abraham Lincoln’s Northwestern Apporach to the Secession Crisis,” Rice University.

2014
Kimberly N. Kutz, “Lincoln’s Ghosts: The Posthumous Career of an American Icon,” The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

2013
Jared Peatman, “The Long Shadow of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address,” Texas A&M University. The dissertation was then published as The Long Shadow of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address (Southern Illinois University Press, 2013).

2012
Cynthia Nicoletti, “The Great Question of War: The Legal Status of Secession in the Aftermath of the American Civil War, 1865-1869,” University of Virginia.

2011
John M. Barr, “The Anti-Lincoln Tradition in American Life,” The University of Houston. The dissertation was then published as Loathing Lincoln: An American Tradition from the Civil War to the Present (Louisiana State University Press, 2014).

2010
Jonathan W. White, “‘To Aid Their Rebel Friends’: Politics and Treason in the Civil War North,” University of Maryland at College Park. The dissertation was then published as Abraham Lincoln and Treason in the Civil War: The Trials of John Merryman (Louisiana State University Press, 2011).

2009
Robert J. Johnson, Jr., “Trial by Fire: Abraham Lincoln and the Law,” CUNY Graduate School and University Center.

2008
No Award Given

2007
Russell McClintock, “Shall it be Peace or a Sword? Northern Political Culture and the Crisis of Secession, 1860-1861,” Clark University. The dissertation was then published as Lincoln and the Decision for War: The Northern Response to Secession (University of North Carolina Press, 2008).  [VIDEO]

2006
David Work, “Lincoln’s Political Generals,” Texas A & M University. The dissertation was then published as Lincoln’s Political Generals, (University of Illinois Press, 2009).  [VIDEO]

2005
Jennifer Weber, “The Civil War and Northern Society,” Princeton University. The dissertation was then published as Copperheads: The Rise and Fall of Lincoln’s Opponents in the North, (Oxford University Press, 2006).  [VIDEO]

2004
Matthew Parks, “Self-Evident No More: American Political Thought, 1820-1850,” Boston University.

2003
Graham A. Peck, “The Social and Cultural Origins of Sectional Politics: Illinois from Statehood to Civil War,” Northwestern University.

2002
Brian Dirck, “Mystic Chords: Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, American Imagined Community, 1808-1860,” University of Kansas. Books: Lincoln and Davis: Imagining America, 1809-1865 (2001), Waging War on Trial: A Handbook with Cases, Laws, and Documents (On Trial) (2003).

2001
Stewart Winger, “Lincoln’s Religious Rhetoric: American Romanticism and the Antislavery Impulse,” University of Chicago. Book: Lincoln, Religion, and Romantic Cultural Politics (2003).
Deren Kellogg, “The Lincoln Administration and the Southwestern Territories,” University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.