More than seventy 10th, 11th, and 12th grade students in our National Academy of American History and Civics submitted essays. These entries were reviewed by a panel of our master teachers, with twenty finalists then reviewed by a jury of historians.
The eleven prize winners, including links to their entries, are as follows:
First Prize and $10,000: Kelsey Carlos-Keli’ikipi, Kamehameha Schools Kapālama Campus (Honolulu, HI) for “Senator Daniel K. Inouye: How Senator Inouye’s Advocacy Helped Native Hawaiians Reclaim Kahoʻolawe”
Second Prize and $5,000: Liliana Feyk, Sage Creek High School (Carlsbad, CA) for “The 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion: African American Women in World War II”
Third Prize and $1,000 (nine winners, listed alphabetically)
- Brian Chan, Hunter College High School (New York, NY) for “American Attitudes toward the Annexation of Hawaii: Military, Morality, and Misrepresentation”
- Jackson Fels, Brunswick School (Riverside, CT) for “To Peking for Peace: How Daring Diplomacy Transformed Sino-American Relations”
- Isaiah Glick, Berkeley Carroll School (Brooklyn, NY) for “‘To Shape the National Debate’: The Coalition against Détente Diplomacy, 1973–1981”
- Liliana Hug, Salamander Meadows Homeschool (Mill Run, PA) for “Diplomacy for the People: How Frances Perkins Shaped Landmark Social Legislation of the New Deal”
- Maya Narang, The Brearley School (New York, NY) for “How American Was ‘America First’?”
- Kevin Park, Ridgewood High School (Ridgewood, NJ) for “The Defense of Iceland Agreement: How a Small, Pacifist Nation Defeated the US”
- Victor Robila, Hunter College High School (New York, NY) for “Passenger Pigeons: Technology, a False Sense of Security, and Their Disappearance”
- Aaron Siegle, Our Lady of Good Counsel High School (Olney, MD) for “Thunder in the Tundra: The Enduring Legacy of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act”
- Myranda Webster, Nashua-Plainfield High School (Nashua, IA) for “Deutsch Verboten: Iowa’s Babel Proclamation Leads to Discrimination”