The Organization of American Historians selected William Chafe, Alice Mary Baldwin professor of history, to receive the 2010 Roy Rosenzweig Distinguished Service Award. The honor recognizes individuals’ contributions to American history.
Chafe will receive the award in Washington, D.C. April 10. The selection was announced in an OAH news release Thursday.
Chafe has chronicled race and gender equality in America, and his books include “A History of Our Time: Readings on Postwar America” and “The American Woman: Her Changing Social, Economic, and Political Roles, 1920-1970.”
“He has been a path breaking scholar, one of the few who can write both brilliant monographs and critical and influential syntheses,” the statement reads.
Chafe has been an OAH member since 1980, serving as president, a member of the executive board and on various committees.
“He incarnates the combination of public service and scholarship that this organization at its best represents,” the release reads. “He is the kind of academic citizen at large that this organization needs in order to thrive.”
The award, which was first given in 1981, is usually granted to scholars or officeholders who have worked with the OAH, according to the organization’s Web site. Respected historian and civil rights leader John Hope Franklin, former James B. Duke professor emeritus of history who passed away last year, received the honor in 1995 and 2002.
Chafe has also received the Robert F. Kennedy, Sidney Hillman and Lillian Smith Book Awards.
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