Barbara “Penny” Kanner Award
The Barbara “Penny” Kanner Award honors...
an historian whose book, book chapter, article, or verifiably published or posted electronic media illustrates the use of a specific set of primary sources (diaries, letters, interviews etc).
Award: $500
Open for submissions: October 2025
Deadline: TBD
Eligibility
- Applicants must have membership that is current through the award year (December 31, 2026) when they submit their application. If your membership expires prior to December 31, 2026, please renew prior to applying in order to avoid disqualification. If you are not a member, please join to gain access to the application.
- current WAWH board members are not eligible to apply.
- The publication must be in English and have a publication date within the two years (2024 or 2025) prior to the award year.
- A published item may only be submitted for consideration once (no resubmissions in subsequent years).
- A published item may only be submitted in a given year for consideration for a single award (please do not submit a single item for multiple award categories). Please select the prize that best fits the work.
Submission Requirements
Applicants for the Barbara “Penny” Kanner Award must submit the following through the application portal (see green button below):
- An award application form.
- One copy of the entry for each committee member (addresses may be found on the application). Book entries: The committee will accept only hard copies of books for the 2026 cycle.
- Statement that the applicant is a member of the WAWH.
Applicants are strongly encouraged to read about the award and the selection process in the Barbara “Penny” Kanner Award bylaws.
Disqualification: Applicants who do not meet the deadline for submission or include all the required materials will not be considered.
Francis Richardson Keller (left) and Barbara "Penny" Kanner (right), former WAWH president (1980-198
Previous Recipients
2025
Cameron Blevins and Annelise Heinz,
“‘Separated, but far from alone’: Forging Lesbian Networks in the 1970s–1980s,” Pacific Historical Review (2024) 93 (3): 417–444.
2024
Celia Crifasi, "Fluid Bodies: Wet Nurses and Breastmilk Anxieties in 18th Century Madrid," Journal of Women's History (Spring 2023)
Honorable Mention: Alejandra Dubcovsky, "Anohebasisiro Nimanibota / We Want to Talk to the Honored One: Timuca Language and Its Uses, Silences, and Protests," Native American and Indigenous Studies (Fall 2023).
2023
Adria Imada, An Archive of Skin, an Archive of Kin: Diasability and Life-Making During Medical Incarceration (University of California Press, 2022)
Honorable Mention: Natalia Molina, A Place at the Nayarit: How a Mexican restaurant Nourished a Community (University of California Press, 2022)
2022
Celeste R. Menchaca, “Staging Crossings: Policing Intimacy and Performing Respectability at the U.S.-Mexico Border, 1907-1917,” Pacific Historical Review (Winter 2020)
2021
Erika Denise Edwards, Hiding in Plain Sight: Black Women and the Construction of a White Argentine Republic (University of Alabama, 2020)
Honorable mention: Mona L. Siegel, Peace on Our Terms: The Global Battle for Women’s Rights after the First World War (Columbia University Press, 2020)
2020
Katherine M. Marino, Feminism for the Americas: The Making of an International Human Rights Movement (UNC Press, 2019)
2019
Miroslava Chávez García, Migrant Letter Writing Across the U.S.–Mexico Borderlands (The University of North Carolina Press, 2018)
2018
Lynne Marie Getz, Abolitionists, Doctors, Ranchers and Writers: A Family Journey through American History (University Press of Kansas, 2017)
2017
Doreen Mattingly, A Feminist in the White House (Oxford University Press, 2016)
2016
Sharony Green, Remember Me to Miss Louisa: Hidden Black-White Intimacies in Antebellum America (Northern Illinois University Press, 2015)
2015
Kathleen B. Jones, Diving for Pearls: A Thinking Journey with Hannah Arendt (Thinking Women Books, 2013)
2014
Andrea Germer, “Visible Culture, Invisible Politics: Propaganda in the Magazine NipponFujin, 1942-1945”
2013
Lois W. Banner, MM–Personal: From the Private Archive of Marilyn Monroe (Harry N. Abrams, 2011)
2012
Nwando Achebe, The Female King of Colonial Nigeria: Ahebi Ugbabe (Indiana University Press, 2011)
Honorable Mention: Elizabeth Heineman, Before Porn was Legal: The Erotica Empire of Beate Uhse (University of Chicago, 2011)
2011
Nupur Chaudhuri, Sherry Katz, and Mary Elizabeth Perry, eds. Contesting Archives: Finding Women in the Sources (University of Illinois Press, 2010)
2010
Melissa Lambert Milewski, Before the Manifesto: The Life Writings of Mary Lois Walker Morris (Utah State University Press, 2007)
2009
No prize awarded.
2008
No prize awarded.
2007
Christine Bard, Annie Metz et Valérie Neveu (dir.), Guide des sources de l’histoire du feminisme (Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2006)
2006
Ronald Loftus, Telling Lives: Women’s Self Writing in Modern Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2004)
2005
Allison Booth, How to Make it as a Woman: Collective Biographical History from Victoria to Present (University of Chicago Press, 2004)
2004
Lynn Hudson, The Making of Mammy Pleasant: A Black Entrepreneur in Nineteenth-Century San Francisco (University of Illinois Press, 2002)
2003
Sheridan Harvey, et al., Eds. American Women: A Library of Congress Guide for the Study of Women’s History and Culture in the United States (Lebanon, NH: University of New England Press, 2002)
2002
No prize awarded.
2001
No prize awarded.
2000
No prize awarded.
1999
Karen J. Blair, Northwest Women: An Annotated Bibliography of Sources on the History of Oregon and Washington Women, 1787-1970 (Washington State University Press, 1997)
1998
No prize awarded.
1997 Mary Lynn McCree, Nancy Slote, and Maree De Anguary, The Jane Addams Papers: A Comprehensive Guide (Indiana University Press, 1996)
1996
No prize awarded.
1995
Candace Falk, Emma Goldman: A Guide to Her Life and Documentary Sources, (Chadwyck-Healy, 1995)
1994
Yaffa Claire Draznin, “My Other Self”: The Letters of Olive Schreiner and Havelock Ellis, 1884-1920 (Peter Lang Publishing, 1992)