Hubbell Prize Awarded

Kate Masur has won the John T. Hubbell Prize for the best article published in Civil War History during 2010. Her study on “The African American Delegation to Abraham Lincoln: A Reappraisal,” Civil War History (June 2010), was selected by the journal’s editorial advisory board. The prize earns the recipient a $1,000 award.

Masur’s article earned distinction for its reassessment of the August 1862 meeting of a delegation of prominent black Washingtonians with Abraham Lincoln and its aftermath. It cogently reexamines the members of the delegation, Lincoln’s attitude towards people of color, and the repercussions of the meeting among African American leaders and the policies of the Lincoln administration.

Kate Masur is assistant professor of history at Northwestern University. She works in nineteenth-century U.S. history, with particular emphasis on how Americans confronted the political and social problems posed by the end of slavery. She recently completed her first book, An Example for All the Land: Emancipation and the Struggle over Equality in Washington, D.C. Masur is also the author of “‘A Rare Phenomenon of Philological Vegetation:’ The Word ‘Contraband’ and the Meanings of Emancipation in the United States,” Journal of American History (March 2007), which was named best article of the year in that journal. Masur’s research has been supported by fellowships from the Library of Congress’s John W. Kluge Center and the National Endowment for the Humanities. She is currently working on a new project concerning African Americans, federal employment, and the Republican party in the post–Civil War period.

Awarded annually and funded by a donor through The Kent State University Press, the John T. Hubbell Prize recognizes the extraordinary contribution to the field of its namesake, who served as editor of Civil War History for thirtyfive years.