The Undergraduate Program
Thesis Prizes and Honors
2020 Winners
Charles A. Beard Prize
Given by the Department for a senior thesis of distinction in any historical field or period.
Emmaline Bennett – Cities of Defeat: Spanish Civil War Refugees and the French Concentration Camps of 1939
Garrett Mattingly Prize
Given by the Department for a senior thesis of distinction in any historical field or period.
Lily Prize
Given by the Department for the best senior thesis in history on a non-U.S. topic. Established by James P. Shenton in memory of his mother.
Neil Hemani – Azad Hind: Radical Indian nationalism in Nazi Germany during World War Two
Herbert H. Lehman Prize
Given to a General Studies student with an outstanding record of accomplishment in history courses at Columbia. Preference given to those with substantial coursework in U.S. History.
Mark Gyourko – “A Somewhat Awful Procedure”: Otmar Emminger, the West German Bundesbank, and the Final Days of Bretton Woods (1968-1973)
Chanler Historical Prize
Given by the College for the best essay submitted by a senior on a topic dealing with the history of the American civil government.
Isabelle Harris – To Inquire into the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States: An Institutional History of Congress’s 1871 Investigation of Post-Civil War Violence
Albert Marion Elsberg Prize (prize split)
Given by the College for a sophomore, junior, or senior who has demonstrated excellence in modern history.
Jay Castro – ‘Rising Visions / Fragmentary Glimpses’: Framing Modernity in Madison Square, 1890-1920.
Paola Ripoll – “Looming A Little Larger Than Its Mere Geographical Size:” Puerto Rico in John F. Kennedy’s Alliance for Progress
Allen J Willen Memorial Prize
The prize is awarded to the Columbia College student who writes the best seminar paper on a contemporary American political problem.
Eitan Meisels – The Shah’s “Fatherly Eye” Iranian Espionage in the United States and the Anti-SAVAK Campaign (1970-1979)
Departmental Honors 2020
Emmaline Bennett – Cities of Defeat: Spanish Civil War Refugees and the French Concentration Camps of 1939
Eva Blake – Castle Pox: The Battle over Public Health in Marblehead, Massachusetts, 1773-74
Sunny Chen – “To Make World Culture Our Own:”The Russian Institute and the Development of Area Studies in Postwar U.S. (1940-1955)
Edgar Esparza – “[A] system which we wish to last for ages.”: An analysis of early American external and internal sovereignty, 1774-1790
Charlotte Force – Medicine and Religion in Irish Penitentials, 550-1215
Benjamin Goldstein – “A Legend Somewhat Larger Than Life:” Karl H. von Wiegand and the Fall of Hearstian Sensationalist Journalism
Mark Gyourko – “A Somewhat Awful Procedure”: Otmar Emminger, the West German Bundesbank, and the Final Days of Bretton Woods (1968-1973)
Isabelle Harris – To Inquire into the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States: An Institutional History of Congress’s 1871 Investigation of Post-Civil War Violence
Johanne Karizamimba – The Poetry of Revolution: Phillis Wheatley and the Transformation of Black Religious Thought
Alice McCrum – “The war, no, not that again”: Samuel Beckett, the French Resistance, and the Narratives of History
Sanjay Paul – Smallholders No More: The Populist Movement in Gillespie County, Texas, 1846-1896
John Russell – Abandoning the Crown: U.S.-Vatican Relations During the Vietnam War, 1963-1968
Manoela Saldanha – Smith, Snake, and the Struggle for Indigenous Religious Rights: Protecting Peyotism in Employment Div. v. Smith
Daniel Shao – Beethoven as “Paradigmatic Socialist Warrior”: The Reception and Performance of Classical Music in the GDR
Michelle Yan – “ Conciudadanas ”: The Book of Gold, Women, and Politics in Paraguay, 1864-1870
Perry Young – Immortal through Labor: The Stakhanovite Movement in Soviet Ideology
A list of past years Prizes & Honors winners can be found here.