Prizes

Two annual awards recognize originality, excellence, and creativity in article research and writing. Each bestows a cash prize of $600. Two judges and the Minnesota History editors select the winners.

• The Solon J. Buck Award, named for the magazine’s first editor (1915-31) and, later, United States Archivist, is awarded to the best article of the year.
• The Theodore C. Blegen Award, named for the Minnesota Historical Society’s superintendent (1931-39), is given to the best article written by an MHS staff member (not eligible for the Buck Award).

History Day Award

This award is given to the best senior-division History Day paper written on a Minnesota topic. The award is accompanied by a $50 cash prize. The judges are the editors of Minnesota History.

This year’s theme was “The Individual in History: Actions and Legacies,” and the winner is Jack Schnettler, a student at Blake School in Minneapolis. His paper, “Man of the Hour: How Hubert H. Humphrey Broke the Longest Filibuster in History and Passed the Landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964,” examines the senator’s long commitment to civil rights, as well as his behind-the-scenes strategy that finally enabled passage of the politically fraught legislation.

2007 Winners

• Solon J. Buck Award: The winner of the Solon J. Buck award for the best article of 2007 is Jane Lamm Carroll, an associate professor of history at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul. Her essay, “This Higgledy-Piggledy Assembly: The McLeods, an Anglo-Dakota Family in Early Minnesota,” appeared in the Summer issue of the magazine. Focusing on a Scots-Canadian fur trader, his young Anglo-Dakota wife, and the family they raised, the article examines the gradual but dramatic social, cultural, and economic shifts that by the 1860s had changed the world the family had known.
• Theodore C. Blegen Award: The 2007 Theodore C. Blegen Award goes to MHS senior exhibit developer Kate Roberts, whose article “Educated Food for Educated People: Richards Treat Cafeteria, 1924–1957” appeared in the Fall issue. Drawing on oral history, artifacts, published sources, and the voluminous manuscript records of this landmark Minneapolis eatery, the article shows how two home economics professors successfully put theory into practice, creating a long-lived institution and serving nutritious, homelike food while always keeping an eye on new trends, competition, and the bottom line.
• Judges:
  • Kurt Kortenhof, history instructor at Saint Paul College and a contributing editor to The History Channel Magazine
  • Danielle Dart, public programs associate for the History Center at the Minnesota Historical Society
  • Anne Kaplan, editor of Minnesota History
  • Pamela McClanahan, MHS Press publisher
• History Day: Jacob Nelson, for “Stained by the Blood of Our Children: The Ojibwa’s Triumph over Bureaucracy following the Sandy Lake Tragedy.”

2006 Winners

• Solon J. Buck Award: Mark H. Davis, history instructor at Century College, White Bear Lake, for “Market Hunters vs. Sportsmen on the Prairie: The Case of William Kerr and Robert Poole” (Summer 2006).
• Theodore C. Blegen Award: Brian Horrigan, MHS exhibit developer, for “Of Generations and Greatness” (Winter 2006—07).
• History Day: Laura Gardner, for "Taking A Stand in History: Rosalie Wahl."

2005 Winners

• Solon J. Buck Award: Rae Katherine Eighmey, food historian, “Food Will Win the War: Minnesota Conservation Efforts, 1917–18” (Fall 2005),
• Theodore C. Blegen Award: Patrick Coleman, MHS acquisitions librarian, for “A Rare Find: The Treaty of Washington, 1858” (Spring 2005).

2004 Winners

• Solon J. Buck Award: Laura Weber, director of communications at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities General College, for “The House that Bullard Built,” (Summer 2004).
• Theodore C. Blegen Award: Benjamin Filene, senior exhibit developer at the Minnesota Historical Society, for Open House Journal essays “A Vision of History” and “Telling Their Story.&rdquo (Summer and Winter, 2004 or online.)
• History Day: John Carroll for “Exploring the Idea of Two Races Worshipping God Together: The Encounter and Exchanges of Kindness, Good Fellowship, and the Ideas between Border and Hennepin Churches.”

2003 Awards

• Solon J. Buck Award: Annette Atkins, professor of history and Michael Blecker Professor of Humanities at St. John’s University, Collegeville, for ”At Home in the Heart of the City“ (Spring/Summer 2003).
• Theodore C. Blegen Award: Scott F. Anfinson, National Register archaeologist in the State Historic Preservation Office, for “Unearthing the Invisible: Archaeology at the Riverfront” (Spring/Summer 2003).
• History Day: Rose Kantor for “The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness Act of 1978: Striking the Balance Between Environmental Rights and Responsibilities.”

2002 Awards

• Solon J. Buck Award: Jim Norris, associate professorof history at North Dakota State University in Fargo, for “Bargaining for Beets: Migrants and Growers in the Red River Valley” (Winter 2002–03).
• Theodore C. Blegen Award: Brian Horrigan, exhibit developer, for “‘My Own Mind and Pen’: Charles Lindbergh, Autobiography, and Memory” (Spring 2002)
• History Day: Anna M. Rice for "General ChristopherC. Andrews: Leading the Minnesota Forestry Revolution." Her paper took first place at National History Day.

2001 Awards

• Solon J. Buck Award: Steve Leikin, lecturer in U.S. history at San Francisco State University, for “The Cooperative Coopers of Minneapolis” (Winter 2001–02).
• Theodore C. Blegen Award: Patty Dean, supervisory curator for museum collections, for “‘It Is Here We Live’: Minneapolis Homes and the Arts and Crafts Movement” (Spring 2001).
• History Day: Michael Anderson for “Minnesota’s John Day Smith Law and the Death Penalty Debate” (Summer 2002).

2000 Awards

• Solon J. Buck Award: Geoffrey Blodgett, professor emeritus of history, Oberlin College, for his article “Cass Gilbert and Julia Finch: Falling in Love in the 1880s” (Spring 2000).
• Theodore C. Blegen Award: Sherri Gebert Fuller, project manager for museum collections, for “Mirrored Identities: The Moys of St. Paul” (Winter 2000-2001) or available online.