2023 David McCullough Essay Prize

Read the eleven prize winners, selected from more than one hundred and fifty students’ entries. 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:

1st Place ($10,000 + $500 to the school): Charles Scheuermann, Regis High School, New York, NY, for “The Timber Wars: How an Owl Saved the Forests and Divided a Nation”

2nd Place ($5,000 + $500 to the school): Sania Edlich, Trinity School, New York, NY, for “Making the Most of ‘the Grandest Opportunity’: The Impact of the 1893 Columbian Exposition on the Black Women’s Club Movement”

3rd Place (nine awards of $1,000 each, in alphabetical order): 

David McCullough in front of a student-painted American flag at Trinity School..

David McCullough at Trinity School in Manhattan, October 15, 2019

Winning Essays

2022 Contest Winners

Read the eleven prize winners, selected from more than seventy students’ entries.

2021 Winners

Read the twelve prize winners, selected from more than seventy students’ entries.