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Charles Rappleye
photo by Tulsa Kinney
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Sons of Providence
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Black-tie
dinner at Historic Mount Vernon honors best book on the
founding era
MOUNT VERNON, Va. – The third annual $50,000 George
Washington Book Prize, honoring the most important new
book about America's founding era, was awarded at Mount
Vernon on May 22 to Charles Rappleye for Sons of Providence:
The Brown Brothers, The Slave Trade, and The American
Revolution (Simon and Schuster, 2006). An award-winning
journalist and independent scholar, Rappleye tells the
story of John and Moses Brown, brothers who were partners
in business, politics, and the founding of Brown University,
yet who passionately opposed one another on one of the
most divisive issues of the day – the slave trade.
"I wanted to do justice to a wonderful story and
refresh our understanding of the dilemma posed by slavery
in the early days of the Republic," said Rappleye.
"It's very gratifying to think that, on the strength
of this award, that story might reach a wider audience."
Presented to Rappleye at a black-tie dinner attended by
some 200 dignitaries, including descendants of the Brown
brothers and luminaries from the worlds of book publishing,
politics, journalism, and academia, the George Washington
Book Prize included a medal and $50,000 – one of
the most generous book awards in the United States, with
a monetary prize greater than the Pulitzer Prize for History
($7,500) and the National Book Award ($10,000).
Complete with fireworks and candlelit tours of Washington's
Mansion, the Mount Vernon event also celebrated the works
of the two other finalists: Catherine Allgor for A
Perfect Union: Dolley Madison and the Creation of the
American Nation (Holt, 2006) and François
Furstenberg for In the Name of the Father: Washington's
Legacy, Slavery and the Making of a Nation (Penguin,
2006). The finalists were selected by a jury of prominent
American historians: Richard Bushman of Columbia University;
Theodore J. Crackel of the University of Virginia; and
Pauline Maier of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
In their report on the winning entry, the jurors wrote
that "Rappleye, a journalist, spotted the ideological
polarity represented by Moses and John Brown and turned
the greatest contradiction in the Revolutionary period
into the history of two men: one a Baptist-turned-Quaker
opponent of slavery and the other a passionate revolutionary
who was a major actor in the slave trade. Rappleye's book
shows how this contradiction was not a conflict between
North and South but a battle waged in the North, within
a state thought to be one of the most independent and
liberal of any in the Union, and in fact within one family."
The winner was chosen by a panel of two representatives
from each of the three institutions that created and sponsor
the prize -- Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland,
the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History in New
York City, and the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association –
plus historian Barbara Oberg of Princeton University.
"For more than 200 years, Americans have been engaged
in an ongoing – and sometimes contentious –
conversation about the meaning and significance of our
founding era," 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. "The Washington Prize honors books that
contribute fresh insights to that national conversation.
Sons of Providence tells a tale few Americans
know – yet one that, with its sibling rivalries
and ancestral burdens, seems almost Shakespearean."
"Charles Rappleye's Sons of Providence tells
a fascinating story from the Founding Era that speaks
to our time," said James G. Basker, President of
the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. "His
research is exhaustive, yet his writing is so clear and
compelling that he makes history read like a novel."
Created in 2005, the George Washington Book Prize was
awarded in its inaugural year to Ron Chernow for Alexander
Hamilton and last year to Stacy Schiff for A
Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of
America.
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.
Founded in 1994 by Richard Gilder and Lewis E. Lehrman,
the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History promotes
the study and love of American history. Increasingly national
and international in scope, the Institute targets audiences
ranging from students to scholars to the general public.
It helps create history-centered schools and academic
research centers, organizes seminars and enrichment programs
for educators, partners with school districts to implement
Teaching American History grants, produces print and electronic
publications and traveling exhibitions, and sponsors lectures
by historians. The Institute also funds the Lincoln Prize
and Frederick Douglass Book Prize and offers fellowships
for scholars to work in history archives, including the
Gilder Lehrman Collection.
With its new Donald W. Reynolds Museum and Education Center,
the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association has created the equivalent
of a presidential library for George Washington. "We
want to be the first place people think of when they have
a question about George Washington," noted James
Rees, Mount Vernon's Executive Director. "The George
Washington Book Prize is an important component in our
aggressive outreach program to historians, teachers, and
students."
About Charles Rappleye
Charles Rappleye is a writer and editor who has specialized
in the media, police, and organized crime. Rappleye grew
up in New England, attended school in Wisconsin, and lives
in Los Angeles. He spent most of the past decade as news
editor at the LA Weekly, where he won awards as a columnist
and for investigative journalism. This is his second book.
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