To honor the memory of their son and brother, Allan, the Sharlin family has generously donated funds to the Social Science History Association to promote scholarly contributions in the fields in which Allan was active.

Allan exemplified the finest traditions of social science history. His training and scholarship were broadly interdisciplinary and he used both quantitative and more traditional methodologies. He received his B.A. in History from the University of Chicago and his Ph.D. in History from the University of Wisconsin, he studied demography for two years at the Office of Population Research at Princeton University, and, at the time of his death in March 1983, he was on the faculty of the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. During his brief scholarly career he published articles on sociological theory, on social and spatial mobility in German cities, and on new techniques for estimating demographic parameters in historical populations.

The Allan Sharlin Memorial Award is presented annually for an outstanding book in social science history published in the previous year (2009). The amount of the award is $1000.

Announcement of the winner of the 2010 Sharlin Memorial Award will be made at the upcoming annual meeting of the Social Science History Association in Chicago, IL, 18-21 November 2010.

The deadline for submission is July 23, 2010. A copy of the book should be sent to EACH member of the committee listed below, including one copy to the Association's Executive Director.  Note:  books submitted for this competition will not be returned.

The Social Science History Association announces the annual President's Book Award of $1000 for a new manuscript. The prize rewards an especially meritorious first work by a beginning scholar. Scholars who have a previously-published book are not eligible for this award. Entrants will be judged on the criteria of scholarly significance, interdisciplinary reach, and methodological innovativeness, within the broad category of monographs analyzing past structures and events and change over time. SSHA invites studies of family and demography, popular mentalities, political economy, state-society relationships, electoral and legislative behavior, and the history of the social and behavioral sciences; other substantive realms may also be represented. The Association includes in consideration theoretically-informed accounts examined from quantitative, interpretive, and other perspectives.

Manuscripts can be under consideration by a press at the time of submission to the award committee but must not be in print before the prize is awarded (this year, in November). A letter from the press stating that the manuscript will not be published before December 2010 is required. A manuscript may only be submitted for this award once; manuscripts that were submitted in an earlier year but are not yet in print are not allowed.

The deadline for submission is June 30, 2010. A copy of the manuscript and a current CV should be sent to each member of the committee listed below, including one copy to the Association’s Executive Director. Note: manuscripts submitted for this award will not be returned.

Announcement of the winner of the 2010 President’s Book Award will be made at the November 2010 meeting of the Social Science History Association in Chicago, IL.

2010 Charles and Louise Tilly Prize for the Best Graduate Paper in Social Science History.

The competition is open to all graduate students who will be presenting an unpublished grad student-authored paper at the Social Science History Association (SSHA) conference in November 2010. The winner will be announced at the conference.

The work of Charles and Louise Tilly represents the strongest traditions of both historical social science and social science history. These traditions are also the watchwords of the SSHA. The winning paper will forge a creative link between the social and historical in order to better illuminate or explain something important about the world.

If you are a graduate student and would like to submit your SSHA paper for consideration, send an electronic copy to Bill Block, SSHA Executive Director, at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . The submission deadline is TBD.

Note that papers, which must be unpublished (but may be forthcoming at the time of the conference), must be no more than 12,500 words, not including supplementary material such as notes, tables, figures, and bibliography. Papers may be collectively authored as long as all of the authors are graduate students.