Theodore Calvin Pease Award

Purpose and Criteria for Selection:

The Theodore Calvin Pease Award recognizes superior writing achievements by students of archival studies. Entries are judged on innovation, scholarship, pertinence, and clarity of writing. Papers examining major trends and issues in the archives profession are preferred.

Created in 1987 (and modified in 2007 and 2012), this award honors Theodore Calvin Pease, the first editor of American Archivist, the journal of the Society of American Archivists.

Eligibility:

Eligible entries are written by students enrolled in archival studies classes at either the master’s or doctoral level. A faculty member or instructor associated with the archival studies program must submit the entry to verify that the student paper was written within the context of an archival studies program and completed during the preceding calendar year. A faculty member or instructor in an archival studies program may submit one entry per award cycle. There is no cap on the number of papers than can be submitted by a school or program, provided no individual faculty member submits more than one paper.

Entries should be unpublished manuscripts of 5,000–8,000 words, must include an abstract, and should conform to the stylistic guidelines described in the editorial policy of American Archivist. Submit only the title with the paper. The name of the author, the program, or the faculty member or instructor must not appear on the manuscript.

Sponsor and Funding:

The Society of American Archivists Foundation.

Prize:

A certificate and cash prize of $250. The winning manuscript, after going through the editorial process with the editor of American Archivist, will be published in American Archivist.

First Awarded:

1988

Selection Committee:

Papers will be judged in a blind review by the Pease Subcommittee of the SAA Awards Committee. The subcommittee consists of the editor of American Archivist (who also serves as chair), the vice chair of the Committee on Education, and a member of the Society of American Archivists with experience in archival research and literature appointed annually by the president-elect to serve a one-year term. The editor of American Archivist also edits the manuscript and leads the student through the editorial process in preparation for publication.

Submission Deadline and Nomination Form:

Preview the form and start your nomination. All nominations must be submitted by February 28 of each year. 

Theodore Calvin Pease Award Recipients:

2024: Not awarded

2023: Sony Prosper (University of Michigan), "Conceptualizing Records: Black Bottom Archives, Detroit Sound Conservancy, Faulkner Morgan Archive, Hula Preservation Society, and History Project," American Archivist (Spring/Summer 2024, Vol. 87, No 1)

2022:   Not awarded

2021:  Ferrin Evans (University of Toronto), “Love (and Loss) in the Time of COVID-19: Translating Trauma into an Archives of Embodied Immediacy,” American Archivist (Spring/Summer 2022, Vol. 85, No. 1)

2020:  Bridget Malley (University of Wisconsin Milwaukee), "Documenting Disability History in Western Pennsylvania," American Archivist (Spring/Summer 2021, Vol. 84, No. 1)

2019:  Emily Larson (University of British Columbia), "Big Questions: Digital Preservation of Big Data in Government," American Archivist (Spring/Summer 2020, Vol. 83, No. 1)

2018:   Not awarded

2017:   Anna Robinson-Sweet (Simmons College School of Library and Information Science), “Truth and Reconciliation: Archivists as Reparations Activists,” American Archivist (Spring/Summer 2018, Vol. 81, No. 1)

2016:  Rachel Walton (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), “Looking for Answers: A Usability Study of Online Finding Aid Navigation,” American Archivist (Spring/Summer 2017, Vol. 80, No. 1)

 2015:  Paige Hohmann (University of British Columbia), “On Impartiality and Interrelatedness: Reactions to the Jenkinsonian Appraisal in the Twentieth Century,” American Archivist (Spring/Summer 2016, Vol. 79, No. 1) 

2014:  Joshua D. Hager (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), "To Like or Not to Like: Understanding and Maximizing the Utility of Archival Outreach on Facebook," American Archivist (Spring/Summer 2015, Vol. 78, No. 1) 

2013:   Alex H. Poole (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), "The Strange Career of Jim Crow Archives: Race, Space and History in the Mid-Twentieth-Century American South," American Archivist (Spring/Summer 2014, Vol. 77, No. 1) 

2012:   Pam Mayer (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) "Like a Box of Chocolates: A Case Study of User-Contributed Content at Footnote," American Archivist (Spring/Summer 2013, Vol. 76, No. 1) 

2011:  Lora J. Davis (University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee), "Providing Virtual Services to All: A Mixed-Method Analysis of the Web Site Accessibility of Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections Libraries (PACSCL) Member Repositories," American Archivist (Spring/Summer 2012, Vol. 75, No. 1) 

2010:  Emily Monks-Leeson (University of Toronto), "Archives on the Internet: Representing Contexts and Provenance from Repository to Website,” American Archivist (Spring/Summer 2011, Vol. 74, No. 1) 

2009:  Kathleen Fear (University of Michigan), "User Understanding of Metadata in Digital Image Collections," American Archivist (Spring/Summer 2010, Vol. 73, No. 1) 

2008:  Mary Samouelian (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), "Embracing Web 2.0: Archives and the Newest Generation of Web Applications," American Archivist (Spring/Summer 2009, Vol. 72, No. 1) 

2007:   Elizabeth Snowden (Middle Tennessee State University), "Our Archives, Our Selves: Documentation Strategy and the Re-Appraisal of Professional Identity," American Archivist (Spring/Summer 2008, Vol. 71, No. 1) 

2006:  Ben Blake (University of Pittsburgh), "A Call for a New American Labor Archives: History, Theory, Methodology and Practice," American Archivist (Spring/Summer 2007, Vol. 70, No. 1) 

2005:  Ian Craig Breaden (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), “Sound Practices: Online Audio Exhibits and the Culture Heritage Archive,” American Archivist (Spring/Summer 2006, Vol. 69, No. 1) 

2004:  Catherine O'Sullivan (New York University), "Diaries, Online Diaries, and the Future Loss to Archives; or Blogs and the Blogging Bloggers Who Blog Them," American Archivist (Spring/Summer 2003, Vol. 68, No. 1) 

2003:  Glenn Dingwall (University of British Columbia), "Trusting Archivists: The Role of Archival Ethics Codes in Establishing Public Faith,” American Archivist (Spring/Summer 2004, Vol. 67, No. 1) 

2002:  Reto Tschan (University of British Columbia), "A Comparison of Jenkinson and Schellenberg on Appraisal,” American Archivist (Fall/Winter 2002, Vol. 65, No. 2) 

2001:  James M. Roth (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), "Serving Up EAD: An Exploratory Study on the Deployment and Utilization of Encoded Archival Description Finding Aids," American Archivist (Fall/Winter 2001, Vol. 64, No. 2) 

2000:  Kristin E. Martin (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), "Analysis of Remote Reference Correspondence at a Large Academic Manuscripts Collection," American Archivist (Spring/Summer 2001, Vol. 64, No. 1) 

1999:  Kathleen Feeney (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), "Retrieval of Archival Finding Aids Using World Wide Web Search Engines," American Archivist (Fall 1999, Vol. 62, No. 2) 

1998:  Not awarded  

1997:  Karen Collins (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), "Providing Subject Access to Images: A Study of User Queries," American Archivist (Spring 1998, Vol. 61, No. 1) 

1996:  Shauna McRanor (University of British Columbia), "A Critical Analysis of Intrinsic Value," American Archivist (Fall 1996, Vol. 59, No. 4)  

1995:  Judith Panitch (State University of New York at Albany), "Liberty, Equality, Posterity?: Some Archival Lessons from the Case of the French Revolution," American Archivist (Winter 1996, Vol. 59, No. 1) 

1994:  Anke Voss-Hubbard (State University of New York at Albany), "No Documents--No History: Mary Ritter Beard and the Early History of Women's Archives," American Archivist (Winter 1995, Vol. 58, No. 2) 

1993:  Not awarded 

1992:   Roy Schaeffer (University of British Columbia), "Transcendent Concepts: Power, Appraisal, and the Archivist as Social Context," American Archivist (Fall 1991, Vol. 55, No 4) 

1991:  Not awarded 

1990:  Luke J. Gilliland-Swetland (University of Michigan), "The Provenance of a Profession: The Permanence of the Public Archives and Historical Manuscripts Traditions in American Archival History," American Archivist (Spring 1991, Vol. 54, No. 2) 

1989:  Maureen A. Jung (California State University, Sacramento), "Documenting 19th-Century Quartz Mining in Northern California," American Archivist (Summer 1990, Vol. 53, No. 3) 

1988:  Greg Kinney (University of Michigan), "The Records of Land District Offices of the U.S. General Land Office for the States of the Northwest Territory," American Archivist (Spring 1989, Vol. 52, No. 2)