David McCullough Essay Prizes: 2022 Contest Winners

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)

  1. Brian Chan, Hunter College High School (New York, NY) for “American Attitudes toward the Annexation of Hawaii: Military, Morality, and Misrepresentation”
  2. Jackson Fels, Brunswick School (Riverside, CT) for “To Peking for Peace: How Daring Diplomacy Transformed Sino-American Relations”
  3. Isaiah Glick, Berkeley Carroll School (Brooklyn, NY) for “‘To Shape the National Debate’: The Coalition against Détente Diplomacy, 1973–1981”
  4. Liliana Hug, Salamander Meadows Homeschool (Mill Run, PA) for “Diplomacy for the People: How Frances Perkins Shaped Landmark Social Legislation of the New Deal”
  5. Maya Narang, The Brearley School (New York, NY) for “How American Was ‘America First’?”
  6. Kevin Park, Ridgewood High School (Ridgewood, NJ) for “The Defense of Iceland Agreement: How a Small, Pacifist Nation Defeated the US”
  7. Victor Robila, Hunter College High School (New York, NY) for “Passenger Pigeons: Technology, a False Sense of Security, and Their Disappearance”
  8. 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”
  9. Myranda Webster, Nashua-Plainfield High School (Nashua, IA) for “Deutsch Verboten: Iowa’s Babel Proclamation Leads to Discrimination”