Giacomini Prize
Established in 2017 by Thomas Bender ’66 in honor of SCU alumnus and professor George Giacomini ’56, an outstanding teacher who influenced generations of students, this prize is awarded to a history major or minor for the best researched and written paper based on primary sources, as determined by the faculty of the Department of History.
2023:
- Hannah Hagen for her paper, “Tradition Shattered: How Women’s Recreation at SCU Aided the Acceptance and Assimilation of the Santa Clara Woman”
2022:
- Claire Murphy for her paper, “The Race for Acceptance: Female Marathon Runners’ Fight for Global Equality and Inclusion”
2021:
- Natalie Henriquez, for her paper, “The Malicious and Untruthful White Press: Ida B. Wells's Fight Against White Supremacy”
2020:
- Sydney Shead, for her paper, “Love and War: The Civil War's Impact on Prostitution”
- Emily Yekikian, for her senior thesis, “More than the Triangle Factory Speech: Rose Schneiderman’s Long Underappreciated Career of Reform”
McPhee Prize
Established in 2007 through the generosity of Lulu McPhee ’86 and John McPhee ’85, this award is given to the student whose history seminar paper demonstrates the most outstanding use of research methodology as determined by the faculty of the Department of History.
2023:
- Julia Kovatch for her paper, “'Go Outside and Play!': Backyard Playgrounds in New York City During the Progressive Era”
2022:
- Claire Murphy for “A Lost Generation of Women: The Female Perpetrators that Propelled the Nazi Regime”
- Sofia Stechschulte for “The Banality of Economic Evil: Gender & Economics in the Rwandan Genocide”
2021:
- Brandon Schultz, for two outstanding pagers, “'A Young Girl’s Blood': Women and Empowering Violence in the Algerian Revolution” and “The Last War of The Masses: How the Anti-War Basket Spoiled All the American Socialist Eggs”
2020:
- Haley Butler, for her paper, “Work Yourself to Death: An Honorable Way to Die”
- Emily Yekikian, for her paper, “Governing the Body: Persecution of Homosexuality under the Third Reich.”
Frederick J. Mehl Prize
Established in 1993 by the History Department in memory of friend and benefactor Frederick J. Mehl ’74, M.A. ’75, this award is given to the student who writes the best senior thesis in the field of History as determined by the faculty of the Department of History.
2023:
- Sean Chamberlain for his essay “’Our cause is good’: The Roots of the Republican Party in Michigan and Wisconsin”
- Bianca Romero for her University Honors Program senior thesis, “Encounters: The Geography of Urban Colonial Interactions in French Vietnam”
2022:
- Sydney Shead for “‘Granny’ Midwife to Nurse-Midwife: The Decline of Southern Black Midwifery in the 20th Century”
- Sophie Wink for “Behind the Brick Walls: The Gendered Implications of Eugenic Sterilization in the State of Maine”
2021:
- Tegan Smith, for her senior thesis, “Gay Bars in Pre-Stonewall San Francisco: “Walk-In Closets” as the Source of a Surprisingly Divergent Queer Activism”
- Brandon Schultz, for his senior thesis, “Unfinished Business: Ghosts, Specters, and Phantoms in Revolutionary Narratives”
2020:
- Hansung Lee, for his senior thesis, “How One Generation’s Method of Revolution Has Transformed into Another’s Tool for Reformation: The Recent History of Meditation in America.”
Redwood Prize
This award, established in 1908 by the executive committee of The Redwood, is given to the student who writes the best essay on a historical subject as determined by the faculty of the Department of History.
2023:
- Stephanie Anna Nicolae for her paper “The Open Secret: Male Prostitution, Homosexuality, and Pederasty in French Indochina”
2022:
- Rob Wohl, for his essay, “The Greek Caesars: Byzantium and the Roman Tradition”
2021:
- Sophie Wink, for her essay, “The Capitalist System is a System of Murder for Profit”: Radium Girls in the Radical and Mainstream Press”
2020:
- Brandon Schultz for his paper, “Voices in the Dark: The Evolution of Activist Film Criticism in the 1960s.”