2024 George Washington Prize Finalists Announced

Prestigious $50,000 prize honors the best literary works on the nation’s founding era.

Five books published in 2023 and authored by some of the nation’s most respected historians have been named finalists for the 2024 George Washington Prize. For nearly two decades, the annual literary award has recognized the best book on the nation’s founding era (1760-1820), honoring work that can reach a wide audience and inspire ongoing public conversations on the legacy and meaning of America's revolution and early history. 

Created by Washington College, George Washington’s Mount Vernon, and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, the $50,000 George Washington Prize is one of the nation’s largest and most notable literary awards.  

This year’s finalists, hail from Princeton, Yale, City University of New York, Marymount University, and George Mason University. The works are outstanding examples of robust and thought-provoking explorations of America’s unique history and include: an impressive debut on early dispossession and capitalism; a National Book Award winning look at Native Americans’ role in our nation’s history; a deep dive into the lives of the original First Family; a tale of a wife’s home front battle during the Revolutionary War; and the saga of an enslaved woman turned nationally recognized poet. 

The 2024 George Washington Prize finalists are (in alphabetical order):  

Michael A. Blaakman, Speculation Nation: Land Mania in the Revolutionary American Republic (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2023)  

Ned Blackhawk, The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2023)  

Cassandra A. Good, First Family: George Washington’s Heirs and the Making of America (Toronto, ON: Hanover Square Press, 2023)  

Cynthia A. Kierner, The Tory’s Wife: A Woman and Her Family in Revolutionary America (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2023)  

David Waldstreicher, The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: A Poet’s Journeys through American Slavery and Independence (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2023)  

“At the Starr Center, we uphold a tradition of historical writing that manages simultaneously to be intellectually nuanced, gracefully crafted, and broadly accessible. These books show that after almost two and a half centuries, the events, people, and ideas of the Revolutionary era continue to play major roles in our national conversation,” noted Adam Goodheart, Director of the Washington College Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience. “Now more than ever, understanding this country’s past is essential to navigating through the present.” 

James Basker, President, Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, also lauded the works’ ability to shed new light on the founding era and to transform our understanding of American history. “Focusing variously on Native Americans, African Americans, women, families, and the land they loved, these books remind us that the nation’s founders were many, and that innumerable stories remain to be told," said Basker.  

Mount Vernon President & CEO Doug Bradburn noted that this year’s finalists demonstrated “the great range and focus of historical writing as we enter the eve of America’s 250th year of independence.”  

Each year, the Prize’s three sponsors assemble a jury of distinguished historians who assess dozens of recently published books and assemble a shortlist of nominees. The winner is chosen by a committee of two representatives from Washington College, two from Mount Vernon, and two from Gilder Lehrman, plus an outside scholar. The first was awarded in 2005 to Ron Chernow, for Alexander Hamilton, a biography that later inspired Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway hit “Hamilton: An American Musical.” Miranda himself would win a George Washington Prize in 2015 for the show — a perfect example of how compelling scholarship can have a ripple effect on the public’s perception of history.  

Other notable winners over the past two decades have included such preeminent American historians as Annette Gordon-Reed, Nathaniel Philbrick, Rick Atkinson, and Stacy Schiff. 

The 2024 George Washington Prize winner will be announced at a gala dinner at Mount Vernon on Saturday, September 21. 

For several years, Washington’s participation in the Washington Prize has been generously supported by the London-Scott Family, longtime friends of the College whose ancestor, Dr. John Scott, was among the College’s earliest donors and trustees in 1782. The family’s extraordinary 250-year legacy of philanthropy at Washington College was rekindled by the late Dr. J. Phillip (Jack) London. Along with supporting the Prize itself, the family’s annual gift also funds the London-Scott Family Washington Prize Scholarships, which are awarded to outstanding Washington College first-year students with a strong interest in early American history. 

“Washington College remains dedicated to honoring the stories of our shared past to better understand and shape our future,” said President Mike Sosulski. “The College and Starr Center’s role in launching and sustaining this award is just one of the ways that the College fosters important scholarship on the American past.” 

More information about the George Washington Prize is available at www.mountvernon.org/gwprize.   

 

- Dominique Ellis Falcon