Rare Documents, Conversation with Author Highlight George Washington Book Prize Celebration Friday, September 16

CHESTERTOWN, MD— A conversation with this year’s prize winner, historian Pauline Maier, and a rare look at one of Maryland’s greatest historical treasures—the state’s original parchment copy of the United States Constitution—will highlight the 7th annual George Washington Book Prize Celebration Friday, September 16, at Washington College.

Maier, whose Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788 earned the $50,000 Book Prize, will share insights into a series of debates that played out after the drafting of the Constitution, as citizens, journalists, and politicians argued state by state over whether to ratify the nation’s founding document.

Hosted by the College’s C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, which administers the Prize, the event begins at 4 p.m. with a book signing in the lobby of the Daniel Z. Gibson Center for the Arts. Following at 5 p.m. in Decker Theatre is “Making History: A Conversation with Pauline Maier,” where Adam Goodheart, director of the Starr Center, will lead an interview and audience Q&A.

The conversation will be followed by a reception in the Underwood Lobby. All events are free and open to the public.

The display of the 1788 copy of the Constitution is by special arrangement with the Maryland State Archives, and will complement Maier’s remarks on the ratification process that played out across all 13 original states.

When the Maryland Ratification Convention voted to accept the Constitution, 63 delegates marked the occasion by ceremonially signing their names to a large parchment copy. Edward C. Papenfuse, the Maryland State Archivist and Commissioner of Land Patents, says the extraordinary document is, “in a sense, Maryland’s ‘birth certificate’ as a member of the new federal union. Its last public appearance was in the State House rotunda during the bicentennial celebrations of 1987-88,” he adds.

Papenfuse will bring with him to Chestertown other unique documents related to Maryland’s role in adopting the Constitution. These will include the minutes of the state convention’s debates, which were kept secret until the late 20^th century and have never been displayed publicly. In addition, the Archives is lending a replica of the Federalist, the ship that was the centerpiece of a grand parade in 1788 marking Maryland’s ratification of the Constitution; it later sailed to Mount Vernon to be presented as a personal gift to George Washington.

Also on display at Friday’s event will be delegate William Paca’s manuscript proposing 22 amendments to the Constitution, which helped lay the groundwork for the federal Bill of Rights.

Washington College, which was founded in 1782, has special historic ties to the Constitution’s creation, notes Goodheart: “Our founding patron and member of the Board of Visitors and Governors, George Washington, presided over the Constitutional Convention of 1787. And no fewer than six other members of our Board were delegates to Maryland’s state ratifying convention — five voted in favor of the Constitution, one against it. Here, as in much of the nation, the debate was passionate and sometimes vehement.”

Honoree Pauline Maier is William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of American History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is the author of several previous books on American history, including From Resistance to Revolution: Colonial Radicals and the Development of American Opposition to Britain, 1765-1776 (W.W. Norton, 1992); The Old Revolutionaries: Political Lives in the Age of Samuel Adams (Knopf, 1980); and American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence, (Knopf, 1997), which was on the New York Times Book Review “Editor's Choice” list of the best 11 books of 1997 and a Finalist for the National Book Critics' Circle Award.

The jury that chose Ratification as a finalist from among 59 entries called it “a tour de force of extraordinary research and scholarship.” Ratification has received praise from innumerable reviewers and readers, including the eminent American historian Richard Beeman, who called it “a magnificent, comprehensive account of the political contests by which the people of America, in James Madison’s words, breathed ‘life and validity’ into the United States Constitution.” Historian Jack Rakove said, “One finally comes away from Maier’s story with a profound respect for the political enterprise and intellectual commitment that made ratification a sublime inaugural moment of American democratic politics.”

“It’s been the work of my life to explore the popular components of the Revolution,” Maier said. “We tend to think that it is the contribution of a very few well known heroes but I think there’s a bigger story going on. I am impressed always with the intelligence and the eloquence that comes out of ‘ordinary people.’ People were following events. They understood that their fate and the fate of their children was involved in it and they were very capable of expressing their views. And it’s part of the story we need to know.”

Created in 2005 to honor the year’s best book about America’s founding era, the George Washington Book Prize was presented that year to Ron Chernow for Alexander Hamilton. Subsequent winners were Stacy Schiff (2006) for A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America, Charles Rappleye (2007) for Sons of Providence: The Brown Brothers, the Slave Trade, and the American Revolution, Marcus Rediker (2008) for The Slave Ship: A Human History and Annette Gordon-Reed (2009) for The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, which also won the Pulitzer Prize for History, the National Book Award and the Frederick Douglass Prize. Last spring, the 2010 prize was awarded to Richard Beeman for Plain, Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution.

The College co-sponsors the Book Prize with the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and George Washington’s Mount Vernon Estate.

About the Sponsors of the George Washington Book Prize:

Washington College was founded in 1782, the first institution of higher learning established in the new republic. George Washington was not only a principal donor to the college, but also a member of its original governing board. He received an honorary degree from the college in June 1789, two months after assuming the presidency. The C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, founded at the College in 2000, is an innovative center for the study of history, culture and politics, and fosters excellence in the art of written history through fellowships, prizes, and student programs. www.washcoll.edu.

Founded in 1994, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization supporting the study and love of American history through a wide range of programs and resources for students, teachers, scholars, and history enthusiasts throughout the nation. Gilder Lehrman creates and works closely with history-focused schools through its Affiliate School Program; organizes teacher seminars and development programs; produces print and digital publications and traveling exhibitions; hosts lectures by eminent historians; administers a History Teacher of the Year Award in every state and US territory; and offers national book prizes. The Gilder Lehrman website, www.gilderlehrman.org, serves as a gateway to American history online with rich resources for educators designed specifically for K–12 teachers and students.

Since 1860, over 80 million visitors have made George Washington’s Mount Vernon Estate & Gardens the most popular historic home in America. Through thought-provoking tours, entertaining events, and stimulating educational programs on the Estate and in classrooms across the nation, Mount Vernon strives to preserve George Washington’s place in history as “First in War, First in Peace, and First in the Hearts of His Countrymen.” Mount Vernon is owned and operated by the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, America’s oldest national preservation organization, founded in 1853. A picturesque drive to the southern end of the scenic George Washington Memorial Parkway, Mount Vernon is located just 16 miles from the nation’s capital. www.MountVernon.org

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September 12, 2011

George Washington Book Prize Celebration Honors 2011 Winner Pauline Maier, September 16

CHESTERTOWN, MD—Americans, including both ordinary citizens and political leaders, have been arguing about the Constitution for more than two centuries. It’s a debate that began almost as soon as the ink was dry on the document in 1787, according to a recent book by Pauline Maier, the winner of this year’s $50,000 George Washington Book Prize.

Maier, whose prizewinning book is Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788, will speak about her work on Friday, September 16, when she is honored at the Seventh Annual George Washington Book Prize Celebration at Washington College. She will share insights into a series of debates that played out after the drafting of the Constitution, as citizens, journalists, and politicians argued state by state over whether to ratify the nation’s founding document.

Hosted by the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, which administers the Prize, the event begins at 4 p.m. with a book signing in the lobby of the Daniel Z. Gibson Center for the Arts. Following at 5 p.m. in Decker Theatre is “Making History: A Conversation with Pauline Maier,” where Adam Goodheart, director of the Starr Center, will lead an interview and audience Q&A. The conversation will be followed by a reception in the Underwood Lobby. All events are free and open to the public.

By special arrangement with the Maryland State Archives, a replica of the ship Federalist will be displayed at the September 16 event. The Federalist was the centerpiece of a grand parade in 1788 marking Maryland’s ratification of the Constitution, and later sailed to Mount Vernon to be presented as a personal gift to George Washington. Audience members will also receive facsimile copies of rare 18^th-century Maryland documents related to the Constitution.

Washington College, which was founded in 1782, has special historic ties to the Constitution’s creation, notes Goodheart: “Our founding patron and member of the Board of Visitors and Governors, George Washington, presided over the Constitutional Convention of 1787. And no fewer than six other members of our Board were delegates to Maryland’s state ratifying convention — five voted in favor of the Constitution, one against it. Here, as in much of the nation, the debate was passionate and sometimes vehement.”

Maier is William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of American History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is the author of several previous books on American history, including From Resistance to Revolution: Colonial Radicals and the Development of American Opposition to Britain, 1765-1776 (W.W. Norton, 1992); The Old Revolutionaries: Political Lives in the Age of Samuel Adams (Knopf, 1980); and American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence, (Knopf, 1997), which was on the New York Times Book Review "Editor's Choice" list of the best 11 books of 1997 and a Finalist for the National Book Critics' Circle Award.

The jury that chose Ratification as a finalist from among 59 entries called it “a tour de force of extraordinary research and scholarship.” Ratification has received praise from innumerable reviewers and readers, including the eminent American historian Richard Beeman, who called it “a magnificent, comprehensive account of the political contests by which the people of America, in James Madison’s words, breathed ‘life and validity’ into the United States Constitution.” Historian Jack Rakove said, “One finally comes away from Maier’s story with a profound respect for the political enterprise and intellectual commitment that made ratification a sublime inaugural moment of American democratic politics.”

“It’s been the work of my life to explore the popular components of the Revolution,” Maier said. “We tend to think that it is the contribution of a very few well known heroes but I think there’s a bigger story going on. I am impressed always with the intelligence and the eloquence that comes out of ‘ordinary people.’ People were following events. They understood that their fate and the fate of their children was involved in it and they were very capable of expressing their views. And it’s part of the story we need to know.”

Created in 2005 to honor the year’s best book about America’s founding era, the George Washington Book Prize was presented that year to Ron Chernow for Alexander Hamilton. Subsequent winners were Stacy Schiff (2006) for A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America, Charles Rappleye (2007) for Sons of Providence: The Brown Brothers, the Slave Trade, and the American Revolution, Marcus Rediker (2008) for The Slave Ship: A Human History and Annette Gordon-Reed (2009) for The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, which also won the Pulitzer Prize for History, the National Book Award and the Frederick Douglass Prize. Last spring, the 2010 prize was awarded to Richard Beeman for Plain, Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution.

The College co-sponsors the Book Prize with the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and George Washington’s Mount Vernon Estate.

About the Sponsors of the George Washington Book Prize:

Washington College was founded in 1782, the first institution of higher learning established in the new republic. George Washington was not only a principal donor to the college, but also a member of its original governing board. He received an honorary degree from the college in June 1789, two months after assuming the presidency. The C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, founded at the College in 2000, is an innovative center for the study of history, culture and politics, and fosters excellence in the art of written history through fellowships, prizes, and student programs. www.washcoll.edu.

Founded in 1994, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization supporting the study and love of American history through a wide range of programs and resources for students, teachers, scholars, and history enthusiasts throughout the nation. Gilder Lehrman creates and works closely with history-focused schools through its Affiliate School Program; organizes teacher seminars and development programs; produces print and digital publications and traveling exhibitions; hosts lectures by eminent historians; administers a History Teacher of the Year Award in every state and US territory; and offers national book prizes. The Gilder Lehrman website, www.gilderlehrman.org, serves as a gateway to American history online with rich resources for educators designed specifically for K–12 teachers and students.

Since 1860, over 80 million visitors have made George Washington’s Mount Vernon Estate & Gardens the most popular historic home in America. Through thought-provoking tours, entertaining events, and stimulating educational programs on the Estate and in classrooms across the nation, Mount Vernon strives to preserve George Washington’s place in history as “First in War, First in Peace, and First in the Hearts of His Countrymen.” Mount Vernon is owned and operated by the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, America’s oldest national preservation organization, founded in 1853. A picturesque drive to the southern end of the scenic George Washington Memorial Parkway, Mount Vernon is located just 16 miles from the nation’s capital. www.MountVernon.org.

Washington College Announces Finalists for $50,000 George Washington Book Prize

CHESTERTOWN—Washington College has announced the three finalists for the 2011 George Washington Book Prize. President Mitchell B. Reiss revealed the news during the College's annual George Washington's Birthday Convocation held Friday afternoon, February 25.

The honored books include the first comprehensive account of the political contests behind the ratification of the Constitution, a new analysis of the American Revolution, and an illuminating history of the War of 1812. They are Pauline Maier's Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788 (Simon & Schuster), Jack Rakove's Revolutionaries: A New History of the Invention of America (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), and Alan Taylor's The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, & Indian Allies (Knopf).
The $50,000 award—co-sponsored by Washington College, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, and George Washington's Mount Vernon—is the largest prize nationwide for a book on early American history, and one of the largest literary prizes of any kind. It recognizes the year's best books on the nation's founding era, especially those that have the potential to advance broad public understanding of American history.
"The United States was born amid debates and conflicts that engaged not just a few so-called 'Founding Fathers,' but also millions of ordinary men and women," said Adam Goodheart, Hodson Trust-Griswold Director of Washington College's C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, which administers the prize. "Each of this year's finalists captures how Americans participated in the often fractious – and sometimes dangerous – process of creating a new nation."
The winner will be announced at a dinner on May 25 at George Washington's Mount Vernon Estate & Gardens in Virginia.
The finalists were selected by a jury of three distinguished historians: Mary Beth Norton, the Alger Professor of American History at Cornell University, who served as chair; David Armitage, the Blankfein Professor of History at Harvard University; and Daniel Walker Howe, the Rhodes Professor of American History Emeritus at Oxford University and Professor of History Emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles. They selected the finalists after reviewing 59 books published last year on the founding period in American history, from about 1760 to 1820, the time of the creation and consolidation of the young republic.

Pauline Maier's Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution 1787-1788, "demonstrates the author's mastery of a subject that has not previously received such sustained treatment, despite its importance," noted the jurors. Maier is William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of American History at M.I.T. She is the author of several books and textbooks on American history, including From Resistance to Revolution: Colonial Radicals and the Development of American Opposition to Britain, 1765-1776 (W.W. Norton, 1992); The Old Revolutionaries: Political Lives in the Age of Samuel Adams (Knopf, 1980); and American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence, (Knopf, 1997), which was on the New York Times Book Review "Editor's Choice" list of the best 11 books of 1997 and a finalist in General Nonfiction for the National Book Critics' Circle Award.

In praising Revolutionaries: A New History of the Invention of America, the jury wrote, "One can readily imagine a reader who loves history curling up in bed with Jack Rakove's engaging, accessible, and well-written book," adding that it "imaginatively integrates his narrative of the Revolution and its aftermath with a series of biographical sketches of leading American revolutionaries." Rakove is the W.R. Coe Professor of History and American Studies and professor of political science at Stanford University. He has taught at Colgate University and has been a visiting professor at the New York University School of Law. Rakove won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for History for Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution (Knopf, 1996). He is also the author of The Beginnings of National Politics: An Interpretive History of the Continental Congress (Knopf, 1979); James Madison and the Creation of the American Republic (revised edition, Addison, Wesley, Longman, 2001); and Declaring Rights: A Brief History with Documents (Bedford Books, 1997).

Alan Taylor's The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, and Indian Allies is "the most illuminating and original history of the conflict ever written," the jurors wrote. "Taylor's masterly effort to rethink the War of 1812 is strikingly successful in its own terms, as a balanced, superbly grounded, analytically rich, and literarily compelling account of a conflict which, as Taylor says, 'looms small in American memory.' " Alan Taylor teaches American and Canadian history at the University of California, Davis. His books include The Divided Ground: Indians, Settlers, and the Northern Borderground of the American Revolution (Knopf, 2006); American Colonies (Viking, 2001); and William Cooper's Town (Knopf, 1996), which won the Bancroft and Pulitzer prizes for American history. He is a contributing editor to The New Republic.
More information about the George Washington Book Prize is at gwprize.washcoll.edu.

The 2011 George Washington Book Prize Jurors

Mary Beth Norton, chair, is the Mary Donlon Alger Professor of American History at Cornell University. Norton's book Founding Mothers & Fathers: Gendered Power and the Forming of American Society (Knopf, 1996) was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History. She is also the author of The British-Americans: The Loyalist Exiles in England, 1774—1789 (Little, Brown & Co., 1972); Liberty's Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750—1800 (Cornell University Press, 1980); and In the Devil's Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692 (Knopf, 2002), which was a finalist for the L.A. Times Book Prize in History and which won the English-Speaking Union's Ambassador Book Award in American Studies. She has received four honorary degrees, and in 1999 was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has held fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Guggenheim, Rockefeller, and Starr Foundations, and the Henry E. Huntington Library. In 2005-2006, she was the Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions at the University of Cambridge and Newnham College.
Daniel Walker Howe is a historian of the early national period of American history and specializes in the intellectual and religious history of the United States. He is Rhodes Professor of American History Emeritus at Oxford University in England and Professor of History Emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles. He won the Pulitzer Prize for History for What Hath God Wrought (Oxford University Press, 2007). Other books include The Political Culture of the American Whigs (University of Chicago Press, 1979) and Making the American Self: Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln (Harvard University Press, 1997.) He has been president of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. In 1989–1990, he was Harmsworth Visiting Professor of American History at Oxford and a Fellow of Queen's College. In 1992, he became a permanent member of the Oxford History Faculty and a Fellow of St. Catherine's College, Oxford until his retirement in 2002.
David Armitage is the Lloyd C. Blankfein Professor of History at Harvard and an Honorary Professor of History at the University of Sydney. Among his eleven books to date are The Ideological Origins of the British Empire (2000), which won the Longman/History Today Book of the Year Award, and The Declaration of Independence: A Global History (2007), which was chosen as a Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year. He is co-editor of the Cambridge University Press series Ideas in Context, co-chair of the International Conference for the Study of Political Thought, and a member of the Steering Committee of the Center for the History of British Political Thought at the Folger Shakespeare Library. In 2006, the National Maritime Museum in London awarded him its Caird Medal for "conspicuously important work ... of a nature that involves communicating with the public," and in 2008, Harvard named him a Walter Channing Cabot Fellow for "achievements and scholarly eminence in the fields of literature, history or art."

About the Sponsors of the George Washington Book Prize

Washington College was founded in 1782, the first institution of higher learning established in the new republic. George Washington was not only a principal donor to the college, but also a member of its original governing board. He received an honorary degree from the college in June 1789, two months after assuming the presidency. The C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, founded in 2000, is an innovative center for the study of history, culture and politics, and fosters excellence in the art of written history through fellowships, prizes, and student programs. www.washcoll.edu

Founded in 1994, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History promotes the study and love of American history. The Institute serves teachers, students, scholars, and the general public. It helps create history-centered schools, organizes seminars and programs for educators, produces print and electronic publications and traveling exhibitions, sponsors lectures by eminent historians, and administers a History Teacher of the Year Award in every state. The Institute also awards the Lincoln, Frederick Douglass and George Washington Book Prizes, and offers fellowships for scholars to work in the Gilder Lehrman Collection. The Institute maintains two websites, www.gilderlehrman.org and the quarterly online journal www.historynow.org.
Since 1860, over 80 million visitors have made George Washington's Mount Vernon Estate & Gardens the most popular historic home in America. Through thought-provoking tours, entertaining events, and stimulating educational programs on the Estate and in classrooms across the nation, Mount Vernon strives to preserve George Washington's place in history as "First in War, First in Peace, and First in the Hearts of His Countrymen." Mount Vernon is owned and operated by the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, America's oldest national preservation organization, founded in 1853. www.mountvernon.org.

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