CCWH Prelinger Award Winner

ANNE MARIE WILSON (2007)

The Coordinating Council for Women in History is pleased to announce that Ann Marie Wilson has been awarded the tenth annual CCWH-Prelinger Scholarship Award of $20,000. Ms. Wilson is a Ph.D. candidate at Harvard University and will use the Prelinger Award to complete her dissertation on, “Taking Liberties Abroad: Americans and International Humanitarianism, 1880-1920.”

Ms. Wilson’s project is “an investigation into the origins of modern American human rights activism.” She is looking at how “traditions, tropes and memories of mid-nineteenth century Christian missionary and anti-slavery movements” shaped a civil rights movement in the 1920’s and the role played by humanitarian activists, especially women, in shaping American foreign policy. She will be concentrating on three specific “causes”—the massacres of Armenians in Turkey, the Siberian exile system in Russia, and slave labor policies in the Congo Free State. Wilson’s work highlights women, both in terms of the American women activists and of the foreign women who were the focus of American humanitarian activities The Award Committee was particularly impressed by Wilson’s interest in understanding trans-Atlantic networks and in putting American history into a larger trans-Atlantic framework.

Ms. Wilson started graduate school at the age of thirty. After completing her B.A. in 1994, she spent several years in San Francisco working freelance jobs in the technology industry, alternating with teaching English, citizenship and history to recent immigrants. Active in the women’s movement, she helped organize a Student Forum on Gender and Sexuality at San Francisco State University, where she was a part-time student, co-edited the History Department’s graduate student journal, and served on the program committee for the Western Association of Women Historians in 2003. At Harvard, she also worked as co-coordinator of the Gender History Workshop. During this time, she has also been struggling to overcome health problems. The Prelinger Award Committee was impressed with Ms. Wilson’s activism and believes she is a good example of the non-traditional academic career path which the award was established to honor.

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The Coordinating Council for Women in History, an organization for women in the historical profession, is committee to exploring the diverse experiences and histories of all women. Its primary goals are to educate men and women on the status of women in the historical profession and to promote research and interpretation in the areas of women’s history.

Information about the Prelinger Prize and other CCWH awards is available here.