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This Philip M. Hamer and Elizabeth Hamer Kegan Award recognizes an archivist, editor, group of individuals, or institution that has increased public awareness of a specific body of documents (which can be a specific archival collection or thematic aggregation) through compilation, transcription, exhibition, or public presentation of archives or manuscript materials for educational, instructional, or other public purpose. Work that has impact on a local, regional, national, and/or international level is welcomed. Nominee(s) should meet one or more of the following criteria and provide supporting documentation as evidence:
Project was/is achieved through compilation, transcription, exhibition, or public presentation of archives or manuscript materials that go above and beyond conventional archival processing / arrangement and description work.
Project effectively raises public awareness of a specific body of archival or manuscript documents (may include photos, films, etc.).
Project has clear educational, instructional, or other public purpose with evidence provided of the impact of the educational/instructional work, etc.
Individual archivists and editors, groups of individuals, organizations. This award is open to nominees within and outside of the United States, and is not limited to SAA members.
The Society of American Archivists Foundation, with the cash prize underwritten by a fund first established by Elizabeth Hamer Kegan in 1973. The award honors two SAA Fellows and past presidents. Elizabeth Hamer Kegan was appointed Assistant Librarian of Congress in 1963, where she directed information, exhibits, publications, and international visitors' programs and shepherded the American Revolution Bicentennial Program. Her late husband, Philip M. Hamer, was a historian who served successively as head of the Library, Accessions, Reference, and Records Control divisions of the National Archives, and was the first executive director of the National Historical Publications Commission. He was the author of A Guide to Archives and Manuscripts in the United States (1961). The award was modified in 1987, 1991, and 2017.
A certificate and a cash prize of $500.
The Hamer-Kegan Award Subcommittee of the SAA Awards Committee is composed of three members of the Society of American Archivists and one of the co-chairs of the Awards Committee (ex officio). One member of the subcommittee shall be appointed each year by the SAA Vice President to serve a three-year term. The senior member of the subcommittee in years of service shall serve as chair.
Click here to preview the nomination form and/or to start a nomination. All nominations must be submitted by February 28 of each year.
2024: Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library Archives Research Center
Honorable Mention to La Florida: The Interactive Digital Archive of the Americas
2023: Dr. William Fliss
2022: San Diego Air and Space Museum
2021: California State University Japanese American Digitization Project
2020: Laura Wagner
2019: Dickinson College Archives and Special Collections for Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center
2018: Find & Connect, eScholarship Research Centre
2017: The Center for Home Movies
2016: South Asian American Digital Archive
2015: The Legacy Center, Drexel University College of Medicine
2014: Emma Goldman Papers Project
2013: Densho: The Japanese American Legacy Project
2012: Immigration History Research Center, University of Minnesota
2011: March On Milwaukee Civil Rights History Project team (University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee Libraries)
2010: Giza Archives at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
2009: Ward M. Canaday Center for Special Collections of the University of Toledo
2008: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the CBC Digital Archives (Les archives de Radio-Canada)
2007: National Library of Medicine's Profiles in Science
2006: The State Library and Archives of Florida's Florida Folklife Digitization and Education Project
2005: Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation
2004: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
2003: New York State Archives Partnership Trust
2002: Vermont State Archives
2001: Shelly Henley Kelly
2000: Jeffrey D. Marshall, A War of the People: Vermont Civil War Letters
1999: Delaware Public Archives
1998: Linda A. Ries
1997: Minnesota Historical Society
1996: Julie Daniels, Judy Hohmann, Jean West
1995: New York Public Library
1994: American Heritage Center at University of Wyoming
1993: Carl Albert Center at University of Oklahoma
1992: Elaine Forman Crane, Northeastern University Press
1991: James D. Folts, Larry Hackman, Judy Hohmann
1990: Judy Hohmann
1989: Jane Doerr
1988: Nancy Bartlett, Kathleen Koehler
1987: Robert E. Bailey, Elaine S. Evans
1986: Not awarded
1985: Claude-Ann Lopez
1984: David Wilson
1983: Robert E. McCarthy
1982: Mary Dix
1981: Sharon Macpherson
1980: Linda J. Pike
1979: Raymond W. Smock
1978: Philander D. Chase
1977: Dorothy Twohig
1976: Charles F. Hobson
1975: Harold Dean Moser
1974: David W. Hirst
1973: Patricia A. Clark