Prof. David Gellman Wins Award for His Writing

June 14, 2001

June 15, 2001, Greencastle, Ind. - David Gellman, assistant professor of history at DePauw University, has been awarded the Ralph D. Gray Prize for the best article published in volume 20 (2000) of the Journal of the Early Republic. Dr. Gellman will be recognized at the 23rd annual meeting of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic (SHEAR), July 19-22, at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.

Gellman's prize-winning article is entitled, "Race, the Public Sphere, and Abolition in Late Eighteenth Century New York." A summary of the piece on the Journal's Web site states, "this essay argues that competing white renditions of largely fictional black speakers enabled New Yorkers to address two vital issues: 1) the future of racial bondage in the largest slave state north of Maryland; and 2) who counted as a citizen in the republican society emerging in the American Revolution's wake. The essay further argues that the different types of language used by the supposed black speakers conveyed messages both hostile to and supportive of possible black freedom."

Dr. Gellman will receive a plaque and a check for winning the Gray Prize.

You can learn more about the Journal of the Early Republic at http://www.sla.purdue.edu/jer/.

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