Joseph L. Arnold Prize for Outstanding Writing on Baltimore’s History
Joseph L. Arnold Prize for Outstanding Writing on Baltimore’s History in 2025
Joseph L. Arnold, Professor of History at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, died in 2004, at the age of sixty-six. He was a vital and enormously important member of the UMBC faculty for some three and a half decades as well as a leading historian of urban and planning history. He also played an active, and often leading role with a variety of private and public historical institutions in the Baltimore area, and at his death was hailed as the "dean of Baltimore historians."
Thanks to the generosity of the Byrnes Family, in memory of Joseph R. and Anne S. Byrnes, the BCHS presents an annual Joseph L. Arnold Prize for Outstanding Writing on Baltimore's History, in the amount of $500.
New Submission Deadline: April 8, 2026
Entries should be unpublished manuscripts between 15 and 45 double-spaced pages in length (including footnotes/endnotes).
To submit an entry, address an e-mail message to: ArnoldPrizeBCHS@gmail.com.
* attach the entry as a single document in either MS Word or PC convertible format.
* include any illustrations within the text of the document.
There will be a “blind judging” of entries by a panel of historians. Criteria for selection are: significance, originality, quality of research and clarity of presentation.
The 2025 winner will be announced in Spring 2026. The BCHS reserves the right to not to award the prize.
The winning entry will be posted to the BCHS webpage and considered for publication in the Maryland Historical Magazine. Also, the winner may be invited to be a presenter during a future BCHS Baltimore History Evening.
Historians, graduate students, independent researchers, authors: All are welcome to apply. The winner does not have to reside in Baltimore. For further information send a message to Dr. Ida Jones at ArnoldPrizeBCHS@gmail.com or leave a voicemail at 443-885-4294.
2024 Award
The winner of the 2024 Joseph Arnold Prize was William J. Thompson for the essay “Theodore R. McKeldin and Baltimore’s Long Hot Year.”
2023 Award
The winner of the 2023 Joseph Arnold Prize was Paul Besse for the essay “Grasping for Air: Baltimore's Aviation Ambitions and Glenn L. Martin, 1925-1941.”
2022 Award
The winners of the 2022 Joseph Arnold Prize were Sydney Van Morgan, Edward C. Papenfuse, Stan Becker, and Samuel B. Hopkins for the essay “A Maryland Mystery: Johns Hopkins, the 1850 Census, and Slavery.”
2021 Award
The winner of the 2021 Joseph Arnold Prize was Daphne Tang for the essay “The Legacies of Baltimore’s Holy Week Uprising in 1968 on the Demonstrations in 2015 Against Police Brutality.”
2020 Award
The winner of the 2020 Joseph Arnold Prize was Richard Bell for the essay “Border State, Border War: Fighting for Freedom and Slavery in Antebellum Maryland.”
2019 Award
The winner of the 2019 Joseph Arnold Prize was John Tilghman for the essay “‘The Show of Strength Such Has Seldom Seen:’ Blockbusting and the Black Electoral Politics in 1950s Baltimore’s West Side.”
2018 Award
The winner of the 2018 Joseph Arnold Prize was Anne Louise Hollmuller for the essay “Judged by the Generations: Baltimore’s Confederate Monuments and the Shaping of Historical Memory.”
2017 Award
The winner of the 2017 Joseph Arnold Prize was Amy Rosenkrans for the essay "The 'Good Work': The Franciscan Sisters of Saint Mary, Mill Hill and the African American Mission in Baltimore."
2016 Award
The winner of the 2016 Joseph Arnold Prize was Barry Kessler for the essay “‘Fresh Air and Cheer’: The Origins of Camp Louise in the Settlement House Movement of Baltimore’s Jewish Community.”
2015 Award
The winner of the 2015 Joseph Arnold Prize was Aiden Faust for the essay “Neighborhood Matters: What Baltimore Learned from the War on Poverty.”
2014 Award
The winners of the 2014 Joseph Arnold Prize are Deborah Weiner for the essay “Insiders and Outsiders: Jewish-Gentile Relations in Baltimore During the Interwar Era” and Dennis Halpin for the essay, 'For My Race Against All Political Parties': Building a Radical African-American Activist Foundation in Baltimore, 1870s-1885.”
2013 Award
The winner of the 2013 Joseph Arnold Prize was Charlotte F. Gerczak for the essay ”The Courage of her Convictions: The Story of Miriam Brailey.”
2012 Award
The winner of the 2012 Joseph Arnold Prize was Eric L. Goldstein for the essay “How German Were ‘German’ Jews in America in the Nineteenth Century? A View from Baltimore.”
2011 Award
The winner of the 2011 contest was Sara Patenaude for the essay “Playing Fair: The Fight for Interracial Athletics in Baltimore.”
2010 Award
The winners of the 2010 Joseph Arnold Prize were Eric M. Daniel for the essay “Northwest Real Estate Company v. Serio: The "Invasion" of a Northwest Baltimore Suburb” and Jordan Vardon for the essay “Green v. Garrett: How the Economic Boom of Professional Sports Helped to Create, and Destroy, Baltimore's Memorial Stadium.”
