Publications and Press News
Arrington-Prucha Prize
Becky Mathews has been awarded the Arrington-Prucha Prize from the Western History Association for her article "Changing Lives: Baptist Women, Benevolence, and Community on the Crow Reservation, 1904-1980." The article appeared in the Summer 2011 issue of Montana The Magazine of Western History. In recognition of the role played by Leonard Arrington and Father Francis Paul Prucha in Western American religious history, the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University funds this $500 cash prize for the best essay of the year on religious history in the West. The cash prize and plaque were awarded to Mathews and the publisher received a certificate.Montana The Magazine of Western History Recognized for Outstanding Design
The magazine received the first place award in the $250,000 budget
category from the Mountain Plains Museum Association in the 2010
Publication Design Competition. Established in 1953, MPMA is a regional
museum association that provides services to museum professionals in ten
states: Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota,
Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming. MPMA is one of six regional
associations in the United States that work in conjunction with the
American Association of Museums.
Monnett Article Wins Two Major Awards
The article 'My heart now has become changed to softer feelings: A
Northern Cheyenne Woman and Her Family Remember the Long Journey Home"
written by John H. Monnett has received the Westerner's International
Coke Woods Award for Best Article and a Wrangler Award from the National
Cowboy Museum and Western Heritage Center. The piece appeared in the
Summer 2009 issue of Montana The Magazine of Western History.
Montana The Magazine of Western History Wins Seventh Wrangler Award
The National Cowboy Museum and Heritage Center in Oklahoma City, OK holds an annual awards ceremony and gala each spring. One of their awards honors the best nonfiction magazine article on any western history topic. Montana has won seven Wranglers since 1991.2010 John H. Monnett, "'My heart now has become changed to softer
feelings': A Northern Cheyenne Woman and Her Family Remember the Long
Journey Home" (Summer 2009)
2009 Dan Flores, "Bringing Home all the Pretty Horses: The Horse Trade
and the Early American West, 1775–1825" (Summer 2008)
2006 Jeffrey V. Pearson, "Tragedy at Red Cloud Agency: The Surrender,
Confinement, and Death of Crazy Horse" (Summer 2005)
1996 Paul Andrew Hutton, "Showdown at the Hollywood Corral: Wyatt Earp
and the Movies" (Summer 1995)
1994 Raphael Cristy, "Charlie's Hidden Agenda: Realism and Nostalgia in
C. M. Russell's Stories About Indians" (Summer 1993)
1993 Peter H. Hassrick, "Western Art Museums: A Question of Style or
Content" (Summer 1992)
1991 Jerry Keenan, "Yellowstone Kelly: From New York to Paradise"
(Summer 1990)
Spur Awards and Finalists from WWA
Best Western Short Nonfiction
The Spur Awards, given annually by the Western Writers of America for
distinguished writing about the American West, are among the oldest and
most prestigious in American literature. Montana The Magazine of Western
History has been recognized as either an award winner or finalist ten
times since 1990. Lee I. Niedringhaus, "The N Bar N Ranch: A Legend of the Open-Range Cattle Industry, 1885–99" (Spring 2010).
2011 Western Writers of America Spur Award
Michael A. Amundson, "These Men Play Real Polo: An Elite Sport in the Cowboy Sate, 1890-1930" (Spring 2009)
Finalist, 2010 Western Writers of America Spur Award
Clyde Ellis, "'More Real Than the Indians Themselves': The Early Years of the Indian Lore Movement in the United States" (Fall 2008)
Finalist, 2009 Western Writers of America Spur Award
Dan Flores, "Bringing Home all the Pretty Horses: The Horse Trade and the Early American West, 1775–1825" (Summer 2008)
Finalist, 2009 Western Writers of America Spur Award
Paul Hedren, "The Contradictory Legacies of Buffalo Bill Cody's First Scalp for Custer" (Spring 2005)
2006 Western Writers of America Spur Award
Judy Daubenmier, "Empty Saddles: Desertion From the Dashing U.S. Cavalry" (Autumn 2004)
2005 Western Writers of America Spur Award
Paul Schullery and Lee Whittlesey, "Yellowstone's Creation Myth: Can We Live with Our Own Legends?" (Spring 2003)
Finalist, 2004 Western Writers of America Spur Award
Kerry R. Oman, "Winter in the Rockies: Winter Quarters of the Mountain Men" (Spring 2002)
2003 Western Writers of America Spur Award
Elliott West, "Golden Dreams: Colorado, California, and the Reimagining of America" (Fall 1999)
2000 Western Writers of America Spur Award
Valerie S. Mathes , "Helen Hunt Jackson and the Ponca Controversy" (Winter 1989)
1990 Western Writers of America Spur Award
Governor's Award Goes to Glenda Bradshaw
Photo Editor Glenda Bradshaw received the 2009 Governor's Award for Excellence in Performance. She is responsible for researching and obtaining photographs, maps, cover art, and other illustrations for Montana The Magazine of Western History and books published by the Montana Historical Society Press. She also assists on editing all of the materials that the Publications Program produces.Ray Allen Billington Award
Dan Flores and Montana The Magazine of Western History received the Ray Allen Billington Award at this falls Western History Association meetings held in Denver, Colorado. The article recognized was "Bringing Home All The Pretty Horses: The Horse Trade in the Early American West, 1775 - 1825," published in the Summer 2008 issue.In recognition of the late Ray Allen Billington's leadership in the field of Western history, and of his services as the first president of the Western History Association, the Ray Allen Billington Award was established to recognize the best article (essay of 10,000 words or less) on Western history published in any journal other than the Western Historical Quarterly. The award is $400 to the author and $100 to the journal in which the article was published. The purpose of the award is to encourage authors and editors alike to seek excellence in the field of Western history.
Montana Wins in Wyoming!
Michael A. Amundson received an award given by the Wyoming State Historical Society in recognition of accomplishments in the promotion and reservation of Wyoming History in the field of Publications, Magazines, and Newspapers for his article "These Men Play Real Polo: An Elite Sport in the Cowboy Sate, 1890-1930." The article was published in the Spring 2009 issue of Montana The Magazine of Western History.Wild West History Association Awards Tiffany Clay
Montana The Magazine of Western History and historian Tiffany Clay won an award from the Wild West History Association for an article in 2008 titled "A Call to Order: Law, Violence, and the Development of Montana's Early Stockmen's Organizations." The award was announced at the WWHA's meetings held in San Antonio, Texas. The manuscript was a 2006 winner of the Montana Historical Society-Montana The Magazine of Western History Merrill G. Burlingame-K. Ross Toole Competition for undergraduate or graduate students writing on the subjects of Montana or western history. An interview with Clay can be viewed here: http://www.wildwesthistory.org/awards/2009_Clay.aspVivian Paladin Award Winners
Every magazine likes to win prizes, but we confess our delight in
giving them too: each year the editorial board of Montana The
Magazine of Western History selects the best article published
during the previous year as the winner of the Vivian A. Paladin Award.
The Montana Historical Society Board of Trustees created the award in
1978 to honor the career achievements and high editorial standards of
legendary editor Vivian A. Paladin who served the magazine for twenty
years (1958-1978). We present the award at the annual Montana History
Conference. Here is the list of authors who have won this award.
Winners of the Vivian A. Paladin Award
2012 Brian Leech, "Protest, Power, and the Pit: Fighting Open-Pit
Mining in Butte, Montana" (Summer 2012)
2011 Andrew R. Graybill, "Helen P. Clarke in ‘the Age of Tribes’:
Montana’s Changing Racial Landscape, 1870-1920" (Spring 2011)
2010 Dawn Nickel, "Dying in the West: Hospitals and Health Care
in Montana and Alberta, 1880-1950" (Autumn 2009 and Winter 2009)
2009 Clyde Ellis, "’More Real than the Indians Themselves’: The
Early Years of the Indian Lore Movement in the United States" (Autumn
2008)
2008 (Two articles tie) Megan Benson, "The Fight for Crow Water,
Part 1" and "The Early Reservation Years Through the Indian New Deal,
Part 2"( Winter 2007 and Spring 2008) and Dan Flores, "Bringing Home All
the Pretty Horse: The Horse Trade and the Early American West, 1775-1825
(Summer 2008)
2007 Kenneth N. Owens, "Frontiersman for the Tsar: Timofe,
Tarakanov and the Expansion of Russian America" (Autumn 2006)
2006 Melody Graulich, "Monopolizing The Virginian (or,
Railroading Wister)" (Spring 2006)
2005 Paul Hedren, "The Contradictory Legacies of Buffalo Bill
Cody's First Scalp for Custer" (Spring 2005)
2004 William E. Farr, "Going to Buffalo: Indian Hunting
Migrations across the Rocky Mountains" (Spring 2004)
2003 Christine K. Erickson, "'Kluxer Blues': The Klan Confronts
Catholics in Butte, Montana, 1923" (Spring 2003)
2002 Linda Peavy and Ursula Smith, "World Champions: The 1904
Girls' Basketball Team from Fort Shaw Indian Boarding School" (Winter
2001)
2001 Brian Dippie, "'Flying Buffaloes': Artists and the Buffalo
Hunt" (Summer 2001)
2000 Liping Zhu, "No Need to Rush: The Chinese, Placer Mining,
and the Western Environment" (Autumn 1999)
1999 Ellen Baumler, "Devil's Perch: Prostitution from Suite to
Cellar in Butte, Montana" (Autumn 1998)
1998 Michael C. Steiner, "Frontierland as Tomorrowland: Walt
Disney and the Architectural Packing of the Mythic West" (Spring 1998)
1997 Quintard Taylor, "From Esteban to Rodney King: Five
Centuries of African American History in the West" (Winter 1996)
1996 Liping Zhu, "'A Chinaman's Chance' on the Rocky Mountain
Mining Frontier" (Autumn/Winter 1995)
1995 James P. Ronda, "A Moment in Time: The West-September 1806"
(Autumn 1994)
1994 William E. Farr "Troubled Bundles, Troubled Blackfeet: The
Travail of Cultural and Religious Renewal" (Autumn 1993)
1993 John Phillip Reid, "Certainty of Vengeance: The Hudson's Bay
Company and Retaliation in Kind against Indian Offenders in New
Caledonia" (Winter 1993)
1992 Brian W. Dippie, "Photographic Allegories and Indian
Destinies" (Summer 1992)
1991 Paul A. Hutton, "'Correct in Every Detail': General Custer
in Hollywood" (Winter 1991)
1990 Albert L. Hurtado, "Public History and the Native American"
(Spring 1990)
Friends' Choice Award Winner Announced
Each year the Friends of the Montana Historical Society, the
organization of MHS volunteers, vote for their favorite article in
Montana The Magazine of Western History. Established in 2004, this
award represents the opinion of a diverse group who have a strong interest
in Montana and western history. The following is a list of award
recipients thus far.
2011 Joseph M. Hartmann, "'Our Snow Covered Trail': A Montana
Freighter Recalls the Hard Winter of 1906-1907" (Winter 2011)
2010 Lincoln Bramwell, "When the Mountains Roared: The 1910
Northern Rockies Fires" (Autumn 2010)
2009 Ellen Baumler, "Montana Deaconess School to Intermountain: A
Centennial of Restoring Hope for Children, 1909-2009" (Spring 2009)
2008 Dan Flores, "Bringing Home All the Pretty Horses: The Horse
Trade and the Early American West, 1775-1825" (Summer 2008)
2007 Fredric Quivik, "The Tragic Montana Career of Dr. D. E.
Salmon" (Spring 2007)
2006 Seena B. Kohl, "Love, Valor, and Endurance: World War II War
Brides Making a Home in Montana" (Autumn 2006)
2005 Ellen Baumler, "The Masonic Apron of Meriwether Lewis and
the Legacy of Masonry in Montana" (Winter 2005)
2004 Aaron Parrett, "Montana's Worst Natural Disaster: The 1964
Flood on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation" (Summer 2004)
Copper Chorus Wins Spur Award
"Copper Chorus: Mining, Politics and the Montana Press, 1889-1959" wins the 2007 Spur Award for best nonfiction-contemporary book. The Spur Awards, given annually for distinguished writing about the American West, are among the oldest and most prestigious in American literature. Written by University of Montana Journalism Professor Dennis Swibold, "Copper Chorus" reads like a front-page story complete with greed, propaganda, corruption, and back rooms filled with cigar smoke and power brokers. Winners and finalists will be honored June 12-16 at the Western Writers of America Convention in Springfield, Missouri.Cheers to 50 Years!
The Montana Historical Society celebrated its fiftieth anniversary of publishing books. K. Ross Toole and J. W. Smurr edited the first book in 1957, Historical Essays on Montana and the Northwest. Then, the Society published under the moniker of the Western Press. Not long after, the name changed to the Montana Historical Society Press . With more than fifty titles in print, the MHS Press has reached a broad audience and earned a reputation as one of the most respected publishers of western history in the high plains and northern Rockies.Baumler received the AASLH Award for Beyond Spirit Tailings
Ellen Baumler has received the American Association for State and Local History Award of Merit for Beyond Spirit Tailings: Montana's Mysteries, Ghosts, and Haunted Places , published by the Montana Historical Society.
Beyond Spirit Tailings, its predecessor Spirit Tailings: Ghost Tales form Virginia City, Butte, and Helena, and the audio book Beyond Spirit Tailings with music by Philip Aaberg, can each be purchased through the Montana Historical Society Museum Store.
James E. Potter Named Finalist
The Army Historical Foundation has named James E. Potter a finalist in their 2005 Distinguished Writing Awards. Potter's article "Hunting in the Frontier Army: 'The Great Source of Amusement,'" appeared in the Autumn 2005 issue of Montana The Magazine of Western History. In his article, Potter discusses the importance of hunting on the frontier as a form of recreation and sustenance for soldiers. Potter is a senior research historian at the Nebraska State Historical Society.
Ellen Baumler and Philip Aaberg Release Audiobook
In a new and exciting twist, Ellen Baumler's ever-popular historical ghost stories found an enthusiastic reader in world-famous composer Philip Aaberg. Inspired by the stories, he encouraged Ellen to produce and audio version of Beyond Spirit Tailings to which he could add his music. Ellen and Philip's spooky collaboration will evoke those places and images that make our imagination such a wonderful (and sometimes unearthly) destination. For more information about ordering your copy of this five-disc set, visit the MHS Museum Store online, or call 1-800-243-9900.
Tammy Ryan Wins 2005 Governor's Award
Publications program staff member Tammy Ryan was recently awarded the Governor's Award for Excellence in Performance. In a cermony on the campus of Carroll College, Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer presented the award to Ryan and other state employees representing a variety of state agencies. Former Montana Governor Sam Stephens established this award in 1990, which recognizes state employees across Montana. Winners are selected based upon a variety of professional, leadership, and service criteria. Since 1988, Tammy Ryan has brought energy, integrity, initiative, talent, and collegiality to the publications program as circulation and advertising manager of Montana The Magazine of Western History. We extend our congratulations to Tammy for her service to our organization.
Montana in Germany
William E. Farr's two-part article titled "Going to the Buffalo: Indian Hunting Migrations across the Rocky Mountains," originally published in Montana The Magazine of Western History, has been translated into German and published by Verlag Amerikanistik D. Kuegler. The article previously received recognition by winning the 2004 Vivian Paladin Award from the Montana Historical Society.
Baumler and MHS Press Recognized by Women Writing the West
Ellen Baumler's Girl From the Gulches: The Story of Mary Ronan, published by the Montana Historical Society Press, has been selected as a Finalist Award Winner in the 2004 WILLA Literary Awards in the Memoir/Essay category. Awarded annually for outstanding literature featuring women's stories set in the West, the WILLA Literary Awards are chosen by a distinguished panel of twenty-one professional librarians.
Hope in Hard Times Wins Montana Book Award
The Montana Historical Society Press is pleased to annouce that Hope in Hard Times: New Deal Photographs of Montana, 1936-1942 by Mary Murphy was selected as the first place winner of the Montana Book Award. This annual award recognizes literary and/or artistic excellence in a book published in the previous year.
Montana Wins Award from Forest History Society for Second Year in a Row
We are delighted to announce that for the second year in a row, the magazine has won the Theodore C. Blegen Award from the Forest History Society. Sara Dant Ewert's "Evolution of an Environmentalist: Senator Frank Church and the Hells Canyon Controversy" (Montana The Magazine of Western History, Spring 2001) won for 2002, and Alice Wondrak's "Wrestling with Horace Albright: Edmund Rogers, Visitors, and Bears in Yellowstone National Park" (Autumn-Winter 2002) won for 2003. The Blegen Award is given annually to the author of the best article in a journal other than Environmental History. The author receives a $500 award and plaque.
For more on The Forest History Society, visit www.foresthistory.org.
Society Historic Guide Wins National Honor
Allan Mathews's A Guide to Historic Missoula, volume 6 in the Montana Mainstreets series, received a Certificate of Commendation, which recognizes excellence, from the American Association for State and Local History.
