Recognizing the Best in Public History
Corridor 3 – The National Memorial for Peace and Justice (Photo credit: Equal Justice Initiative ∕ Human Pictures)
For the first time ever, BackStory is acknowledging the work of other public history projects with a prize. The BackStory Prize recognizes excellence in public history – work that is often discounted or overlooked because it occurs outside of academia. Exhibitions, musicals, books, paintings, films and podcasts were all eligible. Buildings and other structures, like museums and monuments, also made the list.
Nominees had to satisfy two criteria: great history that reached the widest possible audience and a project that published or debuted within the 12 months (give or take) before the judging in October 2018.
BackStory lead researcher Monica Blair created the list, thinking broadly about historical mediums, both physical and digital. In addition to online reviews, she looked up reviews in academic journals like “The Public Historian” and general newspapers like “The Washington Post.” For books, she turned to “The New York Times” Non-Fiction Bestsellers List and for podcasts, she used Apple Podcasts charts. Each nominee fell under a broadly conceived definition of American history.
BackStory’s hosts, Ed Ayers, Brian Balogh, Nathan Connolly and Joanne Freeman along with Senior Producer David Stenhouse were joined by guest judges Chris Jackson (“Hamilton” on Broadway) and Margot Lee Shetterly (“Hidden Figures”) to review the nominees and to determine the best project. After rigorous debate, they unanimously declared The National Memorial for Peace and Justice – Equal Justice Initiative the winner. Listen to “The BackStory Prize” episode to hear more about the nomination process and how the judges arrived at their decision.
Here is the full list of nominees:
Films
Green Book (released November 2018, but debuted at TIFF)
The Front Runner (U.S. release November 2018, but already out in Canada)
Documentaries
Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat
Whose Streets? An Unflinching Look at the Ferguson Uprising
Rachel Carson: The Woman Who Launched the Modern Environmental Movement
The Rise and Fall of the Brown Buffalo
The Mayo Clinic: Faith, Hope and Science, Ken Burns
More Than a Word: Native American-Based Sports Names
American Socialist: The Life and Times of Eugene Victor Debs
The Vietnam War: A Series by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick
Tell Them We Are Rising: The Story of Black Colleges and Universities
John McCain: For Whom the Bell Tolls
Did You Wonder Who Fired the Gun?
Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story
Podcasts
A12: The Story of Charlottesville, Nicole Hemmer
Ben Franklin’s World, Omohundro Institute
The Age of Jackson, Daniel N. Gullotta
The Age of Victoria, Chris Fernandez-Packham
The Story, The Mission Podcasts
The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe
Revisionist History Season 3, Malcolm Gladwell
The New York City Public Library Podcasts
Slow Burn: A Podcast about Watergate, Leon Neyfakh for Slate Plus
American History Tellers, Wondery
Stuff You Missed in History Class
Letters From War, the Washington Post
The Most Wonderful Wonder, Holly and Jeremy Hall
The History Chicks, Beckett Graham and Susan Vollenweider
Scene on Radio: Seeing White Series, John Biewen
DIG, Averill Earls, Sarah Handley-Cousins, Marissa C. Rhodes, and Elizabeth Garner Masarik
Our Fake History, Sebastian Major and Beth Lorimer
Historium Unearthia, Crystal Ponti
You Must Remember This, Karina Longworth for Panopoly
Stories: A History of Appalachia
Plays
American Revolutions: The United States History Cycle, Oregon Shakespeare Festival
Books
The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea by Jack E. Davis
Fear City: New York’s Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics by Kim Phillips-Fein
Hitler in Los Angeles: How Jews Foiled Nazi Plots Against Hollywood and America by Steven J. Ross
Implacable Foes: War in the Pacific, 1944-1945 by Waldo Heinrichs and Marc Gallicchio
God’s Red Son: The Ghost Dance Religion and the Making of Modern America by Louis S. Warren
Darkness Falls on the Land of Light: Experiencing Religious Awakenings in Eighteenth-Century New England by Douglas L. Winiarski
These Truths: A History of the United States by Jill Lepore
The Soul of America: The Battle for our Better Angels by Jon Meacham
Leadership in Turbulent Times by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Exhibits & Monuments both Physical and Digital
The National Memorial for Peace and Justice – Equal Justice Initiative
The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration – Equal Justice Initiative
The Mere Distinction of Colour – James Madison’s Montpelier
Daguerreotypes: Five Decades of Collecting – National Portrait Gallery
Walker Evans – San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Cult of the Machine – the de Young Museum, part of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Black Citizenship in the Age of Jim Crow – New York Historical Society Museum and Library
Henry James and the American Painting – The Morgan Library and Museum
Torn Apart/Separados – Mobilized Humanities
Uneven Ground: The Foundations of Housing Inequality in Durham, NC – Bull City 150
Monumental: Richmond’s Monuments (1607-2018) – The Valentine
Baseball Americana – Library of Congress
Drawn to Purpose: American Women Illustrators and Cartoonists – Library of Congress
Echoes of the Great War: American Experiences of World War I – Library of Congress
1917: How One Year Changed the World – National Museum of American Jewish History
Leonard Bernstein: The Power of Music – National Museum of American Jewish History
The Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Center
Stories of Survival: Object, Image, Memory – Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center
Censorship and Information Control During Information Revolutions – University of Chicago
Frederick Douglas AGITATOR – American Writers Museum
Destination Moon: The Apollo 11 Mission – National Air and Space Museum
Righting a Wrong: Japanese Americans and World War II – National Museum of American History
The American Revolution: A World War – National Museum of American History