George C. Rogers Jr. Award

The George C. Rogers Jr. Award is presented annually by the South Carolina Historical Society to the author of the best book of South Carolina history published during the previous year. Finalists for the award are selected by the editor and Editorial Board of the South Carolina Historical Magazine, and the winner is determined by a panel of independent judges.

The award is named in memory of George C. Rogers Jr. (1922-1997), longtime professor of history at the University of South Carolina, who was widely regarded as “the dean of South Carolina historians.” Rogers served the Historical Society in various capacities through the years, including editor of the South Carolina Historical Magazine from 1964 to 1970 and president of the society from 1978 to 1980.

Recipient of 2019 George C. Rogers Jr. Award.

2023
A Brief Moment in the Sun: Francis Cardozo and Reconstruction in South Carolina, by Neil Kinghan (Louisiana State University Press)

2022
Becoming Catawba: Catawba Indian Women and Nation-Building, 1540–1840, by Brooke M. Bauer for (University of Alabama Press)

2021
The Slow Undoing: The Federal Courts and the Long Struggle for Civil Rights in South Carolina, by Stephen H. Lowe (University of South Carolina Press)

2020
Eliza Lucas Pinckney: An Independent Woman in the Age of Revolution, by Lorri Glover (Yale University Press)

2019
George Galphin’s Intimate Empire: The Creek Indians, Family, and Colonialism in Early America, by Bryan C. Rindfleisch (University of Alabama Press)

2018
Trade, Politics, and Revolution: South Carolina and Britain’s Atlantic Commerce, 1730–1790, by Huw David (University of South Carolina Press)

2017
Newspaper Wars: Civil Rights and White Resistance in South Carolina, 1935–1965, by Sid Bedingfield (University of Illinois Press)

2016
From Revolution to Reunion: The Reintegration of the South Carolina Loyalists, by Rebecca Brannon (University of South Carolina Press)

2015
Carolina in Crisis: Cherokees, Colonists, and Slaves in the American Southeast, 1756–1763, by Daniel J. Tortora (University of North Carolina Press)

2014
Stinking Stones and Rocks of Gold: Phosphate, Fertilizer, and Industrialization in Postbellum South Carolina, by Shepherd W. McKinley (University Press of Florida)

2013
The Charleston Orphan House: Children’s Lives in the First Public Orphanage in America, by John E. Murray (University of Chicago Press)

2012
The Strange Career of Porgy and Bess: Race, Culture, and America’s Most Famous Opera, by Ellen Noonan (University of North Carolina Press)

2011
Forging Freedom: Black Women and the Pursuit of Liberty in Antebellum Charleston, by Amrita Chakrabarti Myers (University of North Carolina Press)

2010
Freedom’s Teacher: The Life of Septima Clark, by Katherine Mellen Charron (University of North Carolina Press)

2009
Entangled by White Supremacy: Reform in World War I-era South Carolina, by Janet G. Hudson (University Press of Kentucky)

2008
The Yamasee War: A Study of Culture, Economy, and Conflict in the Colonial South, by William L. Ramsey (University of Nebraska Press)

2007
World of Toil and Strife: Community Transformation in Backcountry South Carolina, 1750-1805, by Peter N. Moore (University of South Carolina Press)

2006
Plantation Enterprise in Colonial South Carolina, by S. Max Edelson (Harvard University Press)

2005
The Politics of Taste in Antebellum Charleston, by Maurie D. McInnis (University of North Carolina Press)

2004
Never Surrender: Confederate Memory and Conservatism in the South Carolina Upcountry, by W. Scott Poole (University of Georgia Press)

2003
A Gallant Defense: The Siege of Charleston, 1780, by Carl P. Borick (University of South Carolina Press)

2002
Rhett: The Turbulent Life and Times of a Fire-Eater, by William C. Davis (University of South Carolina Press)

2001
Long Green: The Rise and Fall of Tobacco in South Carolina, by Eldred E. Prince Jr. (University of Georgia Press)

2000
Ben Tillman and the Reconstruction of White Supremacy, by Stephen Kantrowitz (University of North Carolina Press)

1999
Domesticating Slavery: The Master Class in Georgia and South Carolina, 1670-1837, by Jeffrey Robert Young (University of North Carolina Press)

For more information on the George C. Rogers Jr. Award, contact Matthew Lockhart, editor of the South Carolina Historical Magazine and chair of the award committee. Formal nominations are not accepted, but publishers and authors are invited to bring new titles on topics of South Carolina history to the attention of the award committee. Only monographs are eligible for the award.