Cromwell Article Prize

Criteria

Best article in American legal history published by an early career scholar.

Amount

$5,000

Deadline

May 31, 2019

The William Nelson Cromwell Foundation Article Prize is awarded annually to the best article in American legal history published by an early career scholar. Articles published in the field of American legal history, broadly conceived, will be considered. There is a preference for articles in the colonial and early National periods. Articles published in the Law and History Review are eligible for the Surrency Prize and will not be considered for the Cromwell Article Prize.

The author of the winning article receives a prize of $5,000. The Foundation awards the prize after a review of the recommendation of the Cromwell Prize Advisory Committee of the American Society for Legal History.

The Cromwell Foundation makes the final award, in consultation with a subcommittee from the American Society for Legal History. This subcommittee invites nominations for the article prize. Authors are invited to nominate themselves or others may nominate works meeting the criteria that they have read and enjoyed. Please send a brief letter of nomination, no longer than a page, along with an electronic copy (or URL of the publication site) of the article, by May 31, 2019, to the subcommittee chair, Prof. David Konig, at cromwellarticleprize@gmail.com.

Committee Members

  • David Konig (2018), Chair, Washington University

  • Deborah Dinner (2018), Emory University

  • H. Tomas Gomez-Arostegui (2017), Lewis and Clark

  • Erika Pani (2016), Colegio de México

Past Recipients

2018

Noam Maggor

“To Coddle and Caress These Great Capitalists: Eastern Money, Frontier Populism, and the Politics of Market-Making in the American West" American Historical Review 122 (2017): 55-84.

2017

Sara Mayeux

“What Gideon Did” 116 Columbia Law Review (2016): 15-103.

2016

Daragh Grant

“The Treaty of Hartford (1638): Reconsidering Jurisdiction in Southern New England” William and Mary Quarterly 72 (2015): 461-498.

2014

Gregory Ablavsky

“The Savage Constitution” Duke Law Journal, 63 (Feb. 2014): 999-1089.

2014

Nicholas Parrillo

“Leviathan and Interpretive Revolution: The Administrative State, the Judiciary, and the Rise of Legislative History, 1890-1950” Yale Law Journal 123 (2013): 266-411.

2013

Justin Driver

“The Constitutional Conservatism of the Warren Court” California Law Review, 100 (2012): 1101-1167.

2012

David Freeman Engstrom

“The Lost Origins of American Fair Employment Law: Regulatory Choice and the Making of Modern Civil Rights, 1943-1972” Stanford Law Review, 63 (2011): 1071-1143.

2011

Krishanti Vignarajah

“The Political Roots of Judicial Legitimacy: Explaining the Enduring Validity of the Insular Cases” University of Chicago Law Review, 77 (2010): 781-845.

Related Awards

  • Craig Joyce Medal
    The Society depends on the volunteer labors of its members. It is fortunate in the number of its members who are willing to join in the business of the Society, which is to foster scholarship and teaching in the broad field of legal history. View Award
  • Kathryn T. Preyer Scholars
    Named after the late Kathryn T. Preyer, a distinguished historian of the law of early America known for her generosity to early career legal historians, the program of Kathryn T. Preyer Scholars is designed to help legal historians at the beginning of their careers. View Award
  • Surrency Prize
    The Surrency Prize, named in honor of Erwin C. Surrency, a founding member and first president of the Society and for many years the editor of its former publication, the American Journal of Legal History, is awarded annually for the best article published in the Society’s journal, the Law and History Review, in the previous year. View Award