Congratulations to Antwain K. Hunter (Ph.D. 2015) and Assistant Professor at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who’s book, A Precarious Balance: Firearms, Race, and Community in North Carolina, 1715–1865, is on the 2026 Museum of African American History (MAAH) Stone Book Award shortlist!!
Dr. Hunter’s book was one of fourteen books chosen from 158 eligible submissions. Books are judged based on their scholarship and accessibility, with an eye toward identifying exceptional works that spark dialogue within and across social and racial groups. These books also represent the Museum’s core belief that understanding the history of African Americans is integral to understanding our collective American history.
Antwain K. Hunter is a historian of slavery and freedom in North America, with a current focus on the Carolinas. His first book, A Precarious Balance: Firearms, Race, and Community in North Carolina, 1715-1865, explores the legal and community dynamics of free and enslaved Black people’s firearm use. Hunter highlights how they pragmatically used their weapons in a variety of beneficial ways, including subsistence hunting, self-defense, agricultural labor, and rebellion. Further, individual enslavers—backed by the legislature and county courts—tried to use Black people’s armed labor for their own benefit and protect themselves from perceived threats. This examination of race, firearms, and the law offers a compelling look at the American past and better contextualizes the present.
Each summer, the Richards Center sends Penn State undergraduate students to intern at Gettysburg National Military Park, Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, and the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress, where they get hands-on experience in public history.
These internships are both demanding and unique, allowing the students to develop programming based on their interests while also receiving specialized training in anything from mapping technology to historic weaponry. The internships also highly competitive. This year’s interns were selected through a rigorous process.
“This summer’s interns competed with dozens of other students for these roles,” said Sasha Coles, Richards Center Assistant Director for Undergraduate Internships. “The site staff and I were impressed with their application materials, letters of recommendation, and interviews. Their strong academic records and previous experience with collaborative projects, customer service, and independent research will serve them well in these positions.”
These opportunities are made possible through the generous support of Larry and Lynne Brown, Matthew Isham, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Meet the six students who will be spending their summer honing their skills and history knowledge!
Paige Rishel is a Schreyer Honors Scholar and Paterno Fellow at Penn State studying Public Relations and History, with minors in American Sign Language and Digital Media Trends and Analytics. This summer, she will join the Kluge Center at the Library of Congress as an intern, where she looks forward to deepening her research skills and exploring the intersection of history and communication. She is excited to learn more about the opportunities her history degree can open.
Paige’s previous experience includes public relations internships at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and Carnegie Mellon University’s AI institute. At Penn State, Paige serves as president of Phi Sigma Pi, is a member of Phi Alpha Theta, works at the Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity, and does freelance photography in the State College area. She brings to her work a genuine curiosity about how stories get told and who gets to tell them.
Aidan Bealmear, a junior majoring in history with a minor in the Department of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies (CAMS), will be posted at Harpers Ferry. Aidan brings both enthusiasm for Civil War history and valuable visitor services experience to this role. Having grown up just outside Gettysburg, Aidan’s interest in history developed early and continues to shape his academic work.
Last summer, he worked at the Gettysburg visitor center, where he assisted large numbers of guests and shared his knowledge of the region’s nineteenth-century history. He is really excited for the chance to work hands on with professionals, make connections, and work with the public!
Thomas Flexer is a rising senior majoring in History and Asian Studies with a minor in Japanese. Thomas was attracted to the Harpers Ferry internship because he wants to develop more applicable skills within his major, whether that be interpretation or conducting public history. He is looking forward to immersing himself in the history of Harpers Ferry and exploring the area over the summer.
Kayla Hall is a fourth-year student, majoring in History and minoring in Art History and Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies a, who will be working with museum services. While at Gettysburg this summer, Kayla hopes to become well acquainted with the inner workings of a museum and the effort museum professionals put into displaying and caring for their artifacts.
Kylie Hickoff is a freshman at Penn State heading into her sophomore year pursuing dual majors in Political Science and Communication Arts and Sciences. This summer, Kylie will be interning in the Interpretation sector at Gettysburg National Military Park.
Kylie views this internship as an exciting opportunity for her to explore and further develop her career path in advocating for the preservation of and funding for historical sites such as Gettysburg National Military Park. It also allows her to continue learning in an environment that has shaped her personal interests and academic goals.
Austin Wyrwas is a junior who is majoring in History and minoring in Anthropology and will be joining the Gettysburg cultural resources team. Austin‘s interest in history stems from wondering how we got to where we are in the modern day, and the American Civil War is an amazing point to study in the case of American History. He looks forward to the hands-on work involving historical artifacts.
Congratulations to Edward Green (PSU PhD 2025) who received the SHEAR Robyn Lily Davis Dissertation Prize for his project – Captains and community: Interdependency, Diplomacy, and the Development of ‘Quotidian Power’ in the Choctaw Nation, 1729-1860!! 🔥👏🎉
SHEAR’s Dissertation Prize, originally called the Manuscript Prize, has long served an important goal: it helps emerging scholars publish their work. Their current arrangement with the University of Virginia Press provides the winner with a book contract as well as an intensive, in-person manuscript workshop with leading scholars at an early stage to help the author produce the best possible book. Together with the colleagues at the Press and the Jefferson Scholars Foundation, they have also provided travel funds to help the winner attend the SHEAR conference to receive the award.
Amy Murrell Taylor has won the $1,000 George and Ann Richards Prize for the best article published in The Journal of the Civil War Era in 2025. The article, “More Than a ‘Pile of Rude Boards’: Space, Power, and the Ordeal of a Schoolhouse in the Reconstruction South,” appeared in the June 2025 special issue, War Objects: Material Culture and New Narratives in Nineteenth-Century America, guest edited by Joan E. Cashin and Alaina E. Roberts.
The prize committee praised the article as “a bold and powerful contribution to the literature of both material culture and Reconstruction,” stating that Taylor “brilliantly takes the notion of rebuilding after the war and makes it material and almost corporeal.” They further noted, “By showing us how a single building could contain an entire town’s worth of functions… Taylor introduces readers to the tangled web of relationships that shaped Reconstruction on the ground.” The committee called the article “beautifully written” and “replete with evocative imagery that stays with you days after reading.”
Amy Murrell Taylor is the T. Marshall Hahn Jr. Professor of History and a Faculty Affiliate of the Commonwealth Institute for Black Studies at the University of Kentucky. She is the author of Embattled Freedom: Journeys Through the Civil War’s Slave Refugee Camps (UNC Press, 2018), and a co-author, with Daina Ramey Berry, Joseph Crespino, and David Shi, of America: A Narrative History, 13th ed. (W.W. Norton, 2025). Taylor is currently serving as President of the Society for Civil War Historians in 2026-2028.
Awarded annually, the Richards Prize celebrates the generosity of George and Ann Richards, who were instrumental in the growth of the Richards Civil War Era Center and in the founding of The Journal of the Civil War Era. The journal is grateful for the service of this year’s prize committee: Anne Sarah Rubin, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (chair); Elaine Frantz, Kent State University; and Antwain Hunter, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Rachel A. Shelden’s book, The Political Supreme Court: A Forgotten History will be released Tuesday, October 27, 2026, by the University of North Carolina Press (W. Hodding Carter III Books Series).
For the first century of the nation’s history, the Court was unmistakably a political institution, both by design and in practice. Justices were fully expected to engage in partisan politics—there was no concern that such engagement would lead to corruption or undue bias—and they remained deeply involved in civic debate and the electoral process while on the bench. In addition to hearing cases in the capital, each justice spent much of his time “riding circuit” and presiding over federal trial courts. On circuit and in Washington, nineteenth-century justices wrote for partisan newspapers, drafted legislation, advised partisan allies, campaigned for colleagues, and even ran for political offices from the bench. Through these political interactions, members of the Court helped shape debates about the Constitution’s meaning at a time when most Americans did not believe in judicial supremacy. In this sweeping history, Shelden brings readers inside the social and political world of the justices, recovering their essential role in the nineteenth century’s turbulent politics. She also charts shifts at the turn of the twentieth century, when members of the Court and the legal community refashioned the judiciary as an apolitical institution, setting the stage for an increasingly more powerful—and more isolated—modern Court.
The Political Supreme Court: A Forgotten History is available for preorder now!
Mary E. Mendoza’s monograph, Deadly Divide: How Insects, Pathogens, and People Defied the US-Mexico Border, was published by the University of North Carolina Press on April 28! When most people picture the US-Mexico border, they think of walls, fences, concrete, and wire. But in this first history of how the environment influenced physical boundary-making between the two nations, Mendoza focuses on how the natural world shaped ideas about race, gender, and security. In so doing, she unearths surprising origins of the modern-day immigration debate.
Join us on October 15–17 for the 2026 Steven and Janice Brose Distinguished Lecture Series featuring Fay Yarbrough, senior associate dean of faculty and graduate programs, William Gaines Twyman Professor of History, Rice University. Yarbrough’s lectures are titled, “Sovereignty and Strife: The Civil War Era in Indian Territory.”
Professor Yarbrough’s research interests focus on the Native populations of the southeastern United States and Indian Territory during the nineteenth century. She is particularly interested in the interactions between Indigenous peoples and people of African descent.
Her first book, Race and the Cherokee Nation: Sovereignty in the Nineteenth Century, explores the complex relationship between the construction of sexual boundaries and the formation of tribal and racial identities. Professor Yarbrough also co-edited a collection of essays entitled Gender and Sexuality in the Indigenous Americas, 1400–1850 with Sandra Slater (College of Charleston).
Professor Yarbrough’s most recent book is Choctaw Confederates: The American Civil War in Indian Country, which considers the participation of Choctaw Indians in the American Civil War.
Congratulations to Joshua Strayhorn who has accepted a tenure track position as Assistant Professor of African and African American Studies and History at the University of Minnesota!
During his Richards Center fellowship, Joshua presented his book project, “Freedom’s Promise: Black Mobility, Migration, and Freedom Dreams in Eastern North Carolina, 1862-1898,” at a manuscript workshop with invited scholars Tera W. Hunter, Princeton University and Dylan C. Penningroth, The University of California, Berkeley, and the Richards Center community.
Strayhorn described the importance of fellowship in supporting his growth as a scholar:
“My year at the Richards Center and at Penn State more broadly has been integral to my development as a scholar and has allowed me to make great progress in my research project. Without the time and research support offered by the Richards Center, I would not have been able to enter the first year of my tenure track position with as much momentum as I have now. I will always cherish the intellectual community that was formed here and the generous and generative ideas that developed in the workshop. Bouncing ideas off my colleagues pushed me to think about things in ways I never would have. I will be forever grateful for the time spent at the Richards Center.”
Good luck Dr. Strayhorn on your future endeavors!
Congratulations to Heather Carlquist Walser (Ph.D. 2024) who has accepted a tenure track job as Assistant Professor of History in the Department of History and the Kinder Institute of Constitutional Democracy (KCID) at the University of Missouri starting in August 2026!!
Congratulations to Halee Robinson who has accepted a tenure track job as Assistant Professor of History and Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio! 🎉🎉
During her Richards Center fellowship, Halee presented her book project, “They Taken Him Away: Race, Punishment, and the Intimate Histories of the Texas Prison System, 1865-1912,” at a manuscript workshop with invited scholars, Brandi Brimmer, Morehead-Cain Alumni Associate Professor at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Martha Escobar, Associate Professor at California State University, Northridge, and the Richards Center community.
Reflecting on her experience during the fellowship, Robinson said: “My time at Penn State has been intellectually rich and rewarding because of the Richards Center. During my postdoc, I have had opportunities to attend workshops and professional development sessions, engage with senior scholars, connect with other brilliant fellows, and workshop my book manuscript. The latter was particularly fruitful because I received such helpful feedback and guidance from affiliates of the Richards Center and outside scholars. Above all, my time at Penn State has allowed me to write and revise my manuscript, which has been invaluable before starting a tenure-track position in the fall. I have enjoyed every moment of my time at the Richards Center, and I am grateful for the time and space to develop my ideas in this supportive intellectual community.”
Good luck Dr. Robinson on all your future endeavors!
