Virginia Magazine of History and Biography
Award Winners
William M. E. Rachal Award
The William M. E. Rachal Award was established in 1985 for the overall best article to appear in the Virginia Historical Society's quarterly journal, the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. Each year a committee of the journal's editorial advisory board selects the author whose essay has best advanced the cause of scholarship in Virginia history. The award carries a cash prize of $250 and honors the long-time editor of the journal, Will Rachal, who served from 1953 to 1980.
Past recipients:
Mark Sturges • "Enclosing the Commons: Thomas Jefferson, Agrarian Independence, and Early American Land Policy, 1774–1789," vol. 119, no. 1 (2011)
Gordon S. Barker • "Secession and Slavery as a Positive Good: The Impact of the Anthony Burns Drama in Boston on Virginia," vol. 118, no. 2 (2010)
Thomas Aiello • "The Champion and the Corpse: Art and Identity in Richmond, 1950," vol. 117, no. 1 (2009)
Carolyn E. Janney • "'One of the Best Loved, North and South’: The Appropriation of National Reconciliation by LaSalle Corbell Pickett," vol. 116, no. 4 (2008)
Phyllis Leffler • "Mr. Jefferson's University: Women in the Village!" vol. 115, no. 1 (2007)
Ellen Eslinger • "Freedom Without Independence: The Story of a Former Slave and Her Family," vol. 114, no. 2 (2006)
Kevin M. Levin • "William Mahone, the Lost Cause, and Civil War History," vol. 113, no. 4 (2005)
Philip Levy • "A New Look at an Old Wall: Indians, Englishmen, Landscape, and the 1634 Palisade at Middle Plantation," vol. 112, no. 3 (2004)
Jeffrey H. Richards • "Samuel Davies and the Transatlantic Campaign for Slave Literacy in Virginia," vol. 111, no. 4 (2003)
Roger D. Cunningham • "'They are as Proud of their Uniform as Any Who Serve Virginia': African American Participation in the Virginia Volunteers, 1872–99," vol. 110, no. 3 (2002)
Jean B. Lee • "Historical Memory, Sectional Strife, and the American Mecca: Mount Vernon, 1783–1853," vol. 109, no. 3 (2001)
Edward Bond • "Source of Knowledge, Source of Power: The Supernatural World of English Virginia, 1607–1624," vol. 108, no. 2 (2000)
William Guthrie Sayen • "George Washington's 'Unmannerly' Behavior: The Clash Between Civility and Honor," vol. 107, no. 1 (1999)
Noel G. Harrison • "Atop and an Anvil: The Civilians' War in Fairfax and Alexandria Counties, April 1861–April 1862," vol. 106, no. 2 (1998)
Harold S. Forsythe • "'But My Friends are Poor': Ross Hamilton and Freedpeople's Politics in Mecklenburg County, Virginia, 1869–1901," vol. 105, no. 4 (1997)
Cynthia A. Kierner • "Genteel Balls and Republican Parades: Gender and Early Southern Civic Rituals, 1677–1826," vol. 104, no. 2 (1996)
Eric T. Dean, Jr. • "'We Live under a Government of Men and Morning Newspapers': Image, Expectation, and the Peninsula Campaign of 1862," vol. 103, no. 1 (1995)
Gail S. Terry • "Sustaining the Bonds of Kinship in a Trans-Appalachian Migration, 1790–1811: The Cabell-Breckinridge Slaves Move West," vol. 102, no. 4 (1994)
Phyllis A. Hall • "Crisis at Hampton Roads: The Problems of Wartime Congestion, 1942–1944," vol. 101, no. 3 (1993)
Ann Field Alexander • "'Like an Evil Wind': The Roanoke Riot of 1893 and the Lynching of Thomas Smith," vol. 100, no. 2 (1992)
Jack Temple Kirby • "Virginia's Environmental History: A Prospectus," vol. 99, no. 4 (1991)
J. Frederick Fausz • "An 'Abundance of Blood Shed on Both Sides': England's First Indian War, 1609–1614," vol. 98, no. 1 (1990)
Alden T. Vaughan • "The Origins Debate: Slavery and Racism in Seventeenth-Century Virginia," vol. 97, no. 3 (1989)
Dell Upton • "New Views of the Virginia Landscape," vol. 96, no. 4 (1988)
Anita H. Rutman • "Still Planting the Seeds of Hope: The Recent Literature of the Early Chesapeake Region," vol. 95, no. 1 (1987)
Ronald L. Heinemann • "Virginia in the Twentieth Century: Recent Interpretations," vol. 94, no. 2 (1986)
David F. Allmendinger, Jr. • "The Early Career of Edmund Ruffin, 1810–1840," vol. 93, no. 2 (1985)
C. Coleman McGehee Award
The C. Coleman McGehee Award was established in 1995 to recognize the best article written by a graduate student in the Virginia Historical Society"s quarterly journal, the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. The prize, which carries a cash award of $250, was created in memory of C. Coleman McGehee, who served as president of the society from 1992 to 1994.
Past recipients:
David W. Houpt • "Securing a Legacy: The Publication of James Madison's Notes from the Constitutional Convention," vol. 118, no. 1 (2010)
Adam Wesley Dean • "'Who Controls the Past Controls the Future': The Virginia History Textbook Controversy," vol. 117, no. 4 (2009)
John Ragosta • "Fighting for Freedom: Virginia's Dissenters' Struggle for Religious Freedom," vol. 116, no. 3 (2008)
Owen Stanwood • "Captives and Slaves: Indian Labor, Cultural Conversion, and the Plantation Revolution in Virginia," vol. 114, no. 4 (2006)
Sarah Hand Meacham • "'They Will Be Adjudged by Their Drink, What Kinde of Housewives They Are': Gender, Technology, and Household Cidering in England and the Chesapeake, 1690–1760," vol. 111, no. 2 (2003)
Christopher C. Nehls • "Flag-Waving Wahoos: Confederate Symbols at the University of Virginia, 1941–51," vol. 110, no. 4 (2002)
Charles F. Irons • "The Spiritual Fruits of Revolution: Disestablishment and the Rise of the Virginia Baptists," vol. 109, no. 2 (2001)
Rand Dotson • "'The Grave and Scandalous Evil Infected to Your People': The Erosion of Confederate Loyalty in Floyd County, Virginia," vol. 108, no. 4 (2000)
L. Diane Barnes • "Southern Artisans, Organizations, and the Rise of a Market Economy in Antebellum Petersburg," vol. 107, no. 2 (1999)
Robert H. Gudmestad • "Baseball, the Lost Cause, and the New South in Richmond, Virginia, 1883–1890," vol. 106, no. 3 (1998)
Peter J. Kastor • "'Equitable Rights and Privileges': The Divided Loyalties in Washington County, Virginia, during the Franklin Separatist Crisis," vol. 105, no. 2 (1997)
Michael Ayers Trotti • "Freedmen and Enslaved Soil: A Case Study of Manumission, Migration, and Land," vol. 104, no. 4 (1996)
Douglas Smith • "'When Reason Collides with Prejudice': Armistead Lloyd Boothe and the Politics of Desegregation in Virginia, 1948–1963," vol. 102, no. 1 (1994)
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