Magruder-Newman Student Award

The PHA sponsors a poster and multi-media sessions at the Annual Meeting for undergraduate and graduate students to present their research as emerging scholars in the field of Pennsylvania and Mid-Atlantic history. From 2011 through 2019, the PHA recognized the most rigorous posters presented by students at our Annual Meetings. Paul Newman, PhD, a longtime PHA member and past editor of Pennsylvania History endowed this prize in 2022 in honor of his parents. The PHA now awards the Magruder-Newman Award for Student Research Presented at the Annual Meeting.

Adriana Vagelli (left) receives her first place award from Dr. Jeanine Mazak-Kahne (right) at the 2019 annual meeting.

October 2022

October 2019

  • 1st: Adriana Vagelli (Pennsylvania State University – Abington College), Who was Thomas Weir? 
  • 2nd: Nikol Damato (Slippery Rock University), Women and Scholarship: Women in Higher Education in Bellevue, PA, 1904-1914.
  • 3rd: Nicole Stepp (Slippery Rock University), The Female Physicians of Bellevue, Pennsylvania in 1914.

October 2018

  • 1st: Arion Dominique and David Michael (Messiah College), Spaces of Fear: Race, Housing, and Travel in South Central Pennsylvania
  • 2nd: Dominic Boston (Westminster College), Examining the Influenza Epidemic of 1918 in Lawrence County, Pennsylvania

October 2017

  • 1st: Alysha Federkeil (Slippery Rock University), A Great Disturbance: The Butler Typhoid Epidemic 1903-1904
  • 2nd: Maura Burns (University of Scranton), Scranton and the Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902

October 2016

Graduate:

  • Amber Noecker (Shippensburg University), The I-W Alternative Service Program:  A Snapshot of Religious Conscientious Objection in Cold War America

Undergraduate:

  • 1st: Carolyn Wasser (Kutztown University), The Citizen’s Commission to Investigate the FBI:  The Media, PA, Burglary and the Actions of Citizens 
  • 2nd: Christina Noto (Gettysburg College), Turning Points:  Women at Gettysburg College, 1965-1975
  • 3rd: Maggie Slawson (Lycoming College), The Forgotten Men of the Susquehanna River Valley: Ordinary Soldiers and their Will to Fight, 1775-1783

October 2015

Graduate:

  • Joana Arruda (Temple University), Internationalizing the National Park Service (NPS): A Study of the NPS Division of International Affairs, 1956-1970

Undergraduate:

  • Rachel Baer (Susquehanna University), “Every Town Has. . .Half a Dozen Lunatics”: Insanity in Snyder County, Pennsylvania

November 2014

  • 1st: Shelby Heisler and Alex Tabor (Slippery Rock University), “We Have Had It Up to Here”:  Murder, Riot, and Civil Rights in a Western Pennsylvania Industrial Town
  • 2nd: Alexander Lawrence Ames (University of Delaware), The Letter and the Spirit: Toward a Quantitative Method for the Study of Pennsylvania German Calligraphy and Manuscript Illumination, ca. 1683-1855
  • 3rd: James Kopaczewski (Villanova University), William White’s War:  An Irish-Philadelphian’s Experiences in the American Civil War

October 2013

  • 1st: Nora Schillinger (Edinboro University), Erie’s Brewing History and Renaissance (First Place)
  • 2nd (tie): Dori Gorczyca, Jordan Cinderich, and Heather Clancy (Gettysburg College), All in One Room 
  • 2nd (tie): Kate Lukaszewicz (Duquesne University), “Fortified With Iodide of Potash”: Pittsburgh’s Healing Priest

November 2012

  • 1st: Eileen Fresta (Penn State Brandywine), Charting the Health History of Middletown Township, Pennsylvania, through a Study of the Cumberland Cemetery Interment Records
  • 2nd: Jonathan Goos and Mark Shifflet (Shippensburg University), Tycoons in Tailcoats
  • 3rd: Camille Kaszubowski (Indiana University of Pennsylvania), Loyalism, Property and Widowhood in Revolutionary Pennsylvania: The Case of Hannah Lewis
  • 4th: Anthony Julius Scibilia (Slippery Rock University), Being Prometheus in 1943 – Bringing Penicillin to the Working Man
  • 5th: Erin Zito (Slippery Rock University), The Women of Homestead

November 2011

  • 1st: Sarah Myers (Susquehanna University), An Erroneous Idea Entertained that the Common School is at War”: Perserverance to Establish Public Schools in Pennsylvania, 1834-1854
  • 2nd: MB Mulligan (Assumption College), A Very Active Clever Lad”: Male Impersonators in Mid-Atlantic Newspapers, 1789-1815
  • 3rd: Spencer Cadden (Slippery Rock University), The Town General Electric Built”: A Saga of Anti-Labor Activity in Small Town America