A spring tradition, students and faculty gathered over tea for the Bisbee award presentations on May 22. The Bisbee Prize honors and celebrates outstanding student research in U. S. history. Faculty teaching the U. S. History and U. S. History in the Modern World courses choose recipients each year, from among their students.
At the event, each Bisbee Prize recipient shares a brief explanation of his or her research paper and answers questions from fellow Prize winners and faculty. Victoria White’s (I) research paper was titled, “The Dissident President: How John Adams Faced the 1798–1800 Federalist-Republican Crisis.”
“I found John Adams to be an interesting figure because he’s not a hero,” says Victoria. “He was a moderate, and not everyone liked moderates back then. I was also fascinated by the fact that less than 20 years after the U.S. was founded, it almost split up. Because John Adams turned against his party, he played a huge role in making sure the United States lasted as a country. He had the guts and willingness to become unpopular for the good of the country.”
The Bisbee Prize was established to honor Ethan Wyatt Bisbee, former history faculty member who retired in 1993, after 40 years of teaching. The Prize was endowed in 2005 through a gift by John Warren, formerly of the history department, and his wife, Laura Warren ’78, former head of Robbins House.
2014 Bisbee Prize Winners
| Ellen Askey | Smith and Carnegie: The Iron-ic Failure of Delusional Capitalism |
| Steven T. Char | Pork Roast: Why the Bay of Pigs Invasion Went up in Flame |
| Francesca Ely-Spence | The Impact of Popular Culture’s Recognition of Women’s Sexuality on the Women’s Rights Movement |
| Charlotte Goddu | Women of the Beat Movement: Repressed Liberators |
| Lindsey Jay | The Model T Ford: How Henry Ford’s Vision Changed America |
| Kate Kehne | Prohibition: How and Why It Failed |
| Max Kliman | Prohibition: A Failed Experiment |
| Jonathan Lawson | America’s 1953 Coup in Iran: The Event That Triggered America’s Cold War Imperialism |
| Conor McManamy | From Saigon to Selma: How the Vietnam War Affected the Civil Rights Movement |
| Eric Menna | The Lincolnian Conflict: A review of the true motives behind The Great Emancipator’s abolitionism and commitment to democracy |
| Hari G. K. Patel | Oil’s Ruthless Pragmatism: The 1973 Oil Crisis and the Watershed Of American Foreign Policy |
| Victoria White | The Dissident President: How John Adams Faced the 1798-1800 Federalist-Republican Crisis |
