Essay Prizes
In 2017, in response to the Royal Historical Society and BAAS reports on race, ethnicity, diversity and inclusion across historical studies, the SASA Committee decided that we could do more to address the issues facing the discipline. Thus, the Ellen Craft Essay Prize was born. The prize is aimed at postgraduate students, and its success spurred us on to create a further two prizes. In 2021 we launched the Sophia-Jex Blake Essay Prize, which is aimed at Scottish secondary school students. Finally, in 2022, we added our third prize: The Marcella LaBeau Prize for Scottish Undergraduate students.
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The Prompt
Write an essay on a topic relating to women, gender or minority studies within the Americas.
SASA recognises a broad definition of the Americas and includes anything situated within North, South or Latin America, at any point in history.
Sophia Jex-Blake Essay Prize
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The Sophia Jex-Blake Essay Prize is awarded to a student aged 15 to 18 who attends a Scottish secondary school.
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Essays should be 800-1200 excluding a bibliography.
Not running for the 2025 conference--see below for this year's essay prizes
The namesake of this prize, Sophia Jex-Blake, was a champion of education and equality. She travelled extensively within the United States and worked at the New England Woman’s Hospital. Whilst at the hospital, she discovered a passion for medicine and women’s education. In 1869, after years of rejected applications, she and six other women matriculated at the University of Edinburgh - becoming the first women admitted to study medicine in the UK. The women experienced extreme discrimination and, after completing their coursework and exams, the University refused to grant them degrees. Jex-Blake continued to advocate for women’s education and practice medicine for the rest of her life, going on to found two women’s medical schools and become the first female practicing physician in Edinburgh. The creators of this award found Sophia Jex-Blake a fitting and inspiring namesake, and emblematic of the type of scholarship this award hopes to promote.
Winners
2021:
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2 students in S5 from Eyemouth High School. Taught by Miss Riddell.
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1 student in S6 from Boroughmuir High School. Taught by Miss Robb.
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Winners
2021:
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2 students in S5 from Eyemouth High School. Taught by Miss Riddell.
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1 student in S6 from Boroughmuir High School. Taught by Miss Robb.
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Marcella LeBeau Essay Prize
Submissions Close: 10 January 2025
The Undergraduate Americanist Essay Prize is awarded to an undergrad who attends a Scottish University.
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Essays should be 1,500-2,500 words in length, including references but excluding a bibliography.
Winners
2022: Connall MacLennan
“Squeezing the Orange Juice Queen: The Gay Boycott of Anita Bryant’s Florida Citrus Products and the Creation of National Queer Activism"
The namesake of this prize, Marcella Rose Ryan LeBeau (1919-2021), of the Two Kettle Band of the Cheyenne River Lakota Nation, served in the Second World War in the US Army Nurse Corps, and attained the rank of First Lieutenant. Upon return home, LeBeau worked as a registered nurse and health advocate, serving on the tribal council, and making her reservation one of the first smoke-free settlements in the US. LeBeau played a key role in the repatriation of a ghost dance shirt which had been given to Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Gallery by an interpreter of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show in 1892. In the last years of her life, LeBeau defended her nation’s prerogative to operate health check points during the Covid-19 pandemic, and supported the US Congress’ Remove the Stain Bill to rescind the medals given to military personnel who participated in the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890.
The namesake of this prize, Ellen Craft, was an activist and freedom fighter who fled enslavement in 1848. Dressed as a white, male enslaver, Ellen, along with her husband dressed as an enslaved person, escaped across 1000 miles of slave states to freedom. Following their escape, the couple travelled to the UK where they gave a series of lectures on their lives as enslaved people and their journey. The creators of this award found Ellen Craft a fitting namesake. Her often forgotten story is emblematic of the type of scholarship this award hopes to promote.
Ellen Craft Essay Prize
The Ellen Craft Essay Prize is awarded annually to the best essay by a graduate student or early-career researcher.
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Essays should be 3000-4000 words in length, including references but excluding a bibliography.
Submissions Close: 13 December 2024
Previous Winners
2024: Dr Laura Wilson
Essay: '"You don't belie your name": African American Maternity, Futurity, and Biblical Significance in Angelina Weld Grimke's Rachel’
2021: Jack Hodgson
Essay: '#boysdancetoo: Ballet, (Toxic) Masculinity, and Boyhood in modern America'
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2020: Katie Arthur
Essay: ‘Arousing Disgust: Visceral Configurations of Obscenity through Literary, Literal, and Governmental Bodies in William S. Burroughs’ Naked Lunch (1957)’
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2019: Rebecca Macklin
Essay: ‘Natural Bodies, Unnatural Violence: Animacy Hierarchies in Narratives of Violence against Indigenous Women.’