The Anthony E. Kaye Memorial Essay Award honors Tony Kaye (1962-2017), an innovative scholar of slavery at Penn State University and the National Humanities Center. Tony was an active member of the Society of Civil War Historians and one of the founding editors of the Journal of the Civil War Era. Tony’s contributions helped to make the journal an immediate success, engaging scholars across a wide variety of fields. The George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center, the Journal of the Civil War Era, UNC Press, and the Society of Civil War Historians created this award to honor Tony’s passion for putting scholars in disparate fields in conversation with each other to enrich our understanding of the past.
Congratulations to J. Jacob Calhoun
The Journal of the Civil War Era is pleased to announce that Dr. J. Jacob Calhoun has been selected as the recipient of the Anthony E. Kaye Memorial Essay Award for 2025. His winning essay is titled, “‘Nothing was known of the dead’: Coroners and the Massacres of 1866.”
The prize committee, consisting of Paul Barba (chair), Erin Mauldin, and Whitney Stewart, praised the article as follows: “By closely and creatively interrogating the records of the coroner’s offices in Memphis and New Orleans in the aftermath of the 1866 massacres, Calhoun reveals the vast power and responsibility vested in these officials and their institutions. Significantly, Calhoun demonstrates in convincing fashion how these men shaped both the government’s investigations of mass racist violence and how historians have interpreted these pivotal moments in Civil War era history. Insightful and meticulous, Calhoun’s essay brings into relief the enduring methodological value of close readings and comparative lenses.”
Calhoun is a Byron K. Trippet Assistant Professor of History and the David A. Moore Chair in American History at Wabash College. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow of the Nau Center for Civil War History 2024-2025, and he received his PhD from the University of Virginia in 2024. His research focuses on the history of emancipation and Reconstruction, specifically the intersection between politics, race, and violence.
Past Winners
2023 – Lindsey Peterson, “‘Homebuilders’: Gender and Union Commemoration in the Trans-Mississippi West”
2021 – Bryan P. LaPointe, “A Right to Speak: Toward a Political History of Former Slaves Before the American Civil War,” Volume 13, no. 1 (March)
2019 – Robert Colby, “’Negroes Will Bear Fabulous Prices’: The Economics of Wartime Slave Commerce and Visions of the Confederate Future,” Volume 10, Number 4 (December)
Call for Papers: Biennial Anthony E. Kaye Memorial Essay Award
The George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center, the Society of Civil War Historians, and the Journal of the Civil War Era invite submissions of unpublished essays from early career scholars (doctoral candidates at the writing stage and PhDs not more than three years removed from having earned their degree) for the Anthony E. Kaye Memorial Essay Award. Essays on any topic concerning the history of the Civil War era, broadly defined, will be considered.
This is a biennial award. Submissions are accepted in odd-numbered years, and the award is presented in even-numbered years at the biennial conference of the Society of Civil War Historians (see submission information below). The winning essay will earn the author a $1,000 prize and an additional $500 travel stipend to the Society of Civil War Historians conference. Authors must be willing to attend the conference in order to be eligible for the award. The winning essay will be eligible for publication in the the Journal of the Civil War Era.
Submission information: The deadline is June 1 of odd-numbered years and submissions should be sent to the George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center (RichardsCenter@psu.edu) with the subject line “Anthony Kaye Memorial Essay Award.” Submissions should be double-spaced and not exceed 11,000 words, including notes. Submissions must include a CV. The award committee prefers submissions written according to The Chicago Manual of Style. The winning essay will be selected by a three-person panel chosen by the JCWE editor.