Eligibility requirements and application instructions are sent to current History majors through the History Undergraduate Listserv.

Honors Theses Awards (2024-2025):

  • Carey McWilliams Award is to recognize the best History Honors Thesis

First Place (tied) – Cecelia Fischer’s “Abraham Joshua Heschel and the Rejudaization of Christianity: The German Intellectual Provenance of Jewish-Christian Encounters After the Holocaust“

First Place (tied) – Ellen Lu’s “Laundry Swindlers & Lost Sisters: The Gendered Dimensions of Anti-Chinese Activism, 1868-1905“

  • Mary Ritter Beard Award is for the best research paper dealing with the subject of History/Gender Studies in the UCLA History class

First Place – Ellen Lu’s “Laundry Swindlers & Lost Sisters: The Gendered Dimensions of Anti-Chinese Activism, 1868-1905“


Carey McWilliams Award

Zipeng Tang’s “Li Zubai and the Theory of a Western Christian Origin of Chinese Civilization“

Mary Ritter Beard Award

Jakob Johnson’s “Reframing an Epidemic and Recentering Gay Life Amid AIDS“

Carey McWilliams Award

(First Place) – Dongshi Zhang’s “Laolao’s Foxes: A Microhistory of the Persistence of ‘Superstitious’ Folk Religion in the People’s Republic of China“

(Second Place) – Gillian Rebecca Gluck Smith’s “Burned like Witches: Petty Treason in Early Modern England Examined through the Trial and Execution of Margery Beddingfield“

Mary Ritter Beard Award

(First Place) – Dongshi Zhang’s “Laolao’s Foxes: A Microhistory of the Persistence of ‘Superstitious’ Folk Religion in the People’s Republic of China“

(Second Place) – Elise Hutalla Dulay’s “Between and Beyond the Racial Binary: A Genealogical Examination of the American Mestiza Immigrant Experience“

Carey McWilliams Award

Eve (Evelyn) Boyd’s “Britain’s Second Empire: The City of London and the Rise of Offshore Tax Havens“

Alexis Gabrielle Canelo’s “Lynching, A California Tradition: An Analysis of the 1892 Francisco Torres Lynching Memory Through Newspapers“

Mary Ritter Beard Award

Sara Elisabeth Eckmann’s “Gender Conceptualization in the Courtly Literature of Twelfth Century Germany“

Cindy Quach’s “Feminist Waves Through the Decades: The History of FEM Newsmagazine“

Carey McWilliams Award

(First Place) – Ashley Huendo’s “How Afro-Cuban Religions Have Been Influenced by African Religious Traditions“

(Second Place) – Catherine Colson’s “Development of Anti-Communist Sentiment in the U.S., First Decades of 20th Century“

(Third Place) – Brandon Broukhim’s “Development of Anti-Communist Sentiment in the U.S., First Decades of 20th Century“

Mary Ritter Beard Award

(First Place) – Elizabeth Hanczor’s “Gender Conceptualization in the Courtly Literature of Twelfth Century Germany“

(Second Place) – Elder Madison’s “The Effects of the 30 Years’ War and the Treaty of Westphalia“