On May 24, 2006, Stacy Schiff, the winner of the 2006
George Washington Book Prize, gave a lecture for more
than 100 students from School Without Walls, a high
school based on the campus of George Washington University
in Washington, D.C. School Without Walls is the only
Gilder Lehrman history school in the District of Columbia.
The lecture, sponsored by the Gilder Lehrman Institute
of American History, was followed by a Q and A session
with the students.
The second annual George Washington Book Prize was
awarded to Schiff at Historic Mount Vernon on May 23
for her book, A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France,
and the Birth of America. The $50,000 prize honors the
most important new book about the founding era. Schiff,
winner of the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for biography, tells
the story of the eight years Benjamin Franklin spent
in France beginning in 1776.
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| Stacy Schiff; Sylvia Isaac,
School Without Walls social studies teacher; Jenine
Pokorak, School Without Walls humanities teacher;
James Basker, President of the Gilder Lehrman Institute
of American History before lecture at the Dorothy
Betts Marvin Theatre at George Washington University. |
The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, Washington
College in Chestertown, Maryland, and the Mount Vernon
Ladies’ Association collaborated in 2005 to create
the prize, awarded in its inaugural year to Ron Chernow
for Alexander Hamilton.
The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History sponsors
31 history schools and 14 Saturday academies nationwide.
Gilder Lehrman history schools are rigorous, college-preparatory
schools centered on American history. They have a track
record of raising test scores and sending more than
90 percent of graduating seniors to college. At the
core of these schools is a four-year sequence of courses
in American history. In many of these schools, the entire
student body participates in the Gilder Lehrman program.
In other schools, a select portion of the student body
participates.
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