Edgar Langsdorf Award for Excellence in Writing

The Edgar Langsdorf Award honors excellence in writing and is presented on an annual basis to authors of articles in the Society's quarterly publication Kansas History. The award is named in honor of a former acting secretary/executive director and long-time Society staff member. Ed Langsdorf also was an exceptional historian and writer, who made many often unheralded contributions to Kansas history.

The Edgar Langsdorf Award for Excellence is an annual award given to the author of the article published in Kansas History: A Journal of the Central Plains during the previous publications year (i.e., entire volume covering that year) that is judged to be most superior considering construction, evidence of research, and contribution to the advancement of knowledge. The editor of Kansas History appoints a panel of judges, not members of the staff of the Kansas Historical Society but experts in grammar, Trans-Mississippi Western and American history, and Great Plains anthropology, to make this determination. The panel consists of five persons, one of whom is appointed chair by the editor, who served at the pleasure of the editor and without compensation. The decision of the judges is forwarded to the editor no later than September 1 of each year and the official announcement is made at the Society's annual fall meeting. The Langsdorf Award consists of a sum of $200 and a small wall plaque properly inscribed. Members of the staff of the Kansas Historical Society are not eligible for this award.

Past Recipients

2007	Joseph B. Herring,"Selling the ‘Noble Savage’ Myth: George Catlin and the Iowa Indians in Europe, 1843-1845." Kansas History 29 (Winter 2006/2007): 226–245.
	Brooke Speer Orr, "Mary Elizabeth Lease: Gendered Discourse and Populist Party Politics in Gilded Age America." Kansas History 29 (Winter 2006/2007): 246–258.
2006	Karen Manners Smith, "Father, Son, and Country on the Eve of War: William Allen White, William Lindsay White, and American Isolationism, 1940-1941." Kansas History 28 (Spring 2005): 30-43.
2005	Frederick D. Seaton, "The Long Road Toward 'The Right Thing to Do': The Troubled History of the Winfield State Hospital." Kansas History 27 (Winter 2004/2005): 250-263.
2004	Jeff R. Bremer - "A Species of Town--Building Madness': Quindaro and Kansas Territory, 1856-1862." Kansas History,26 (Autumn 2003): 156–171.
2003	Kristen A. Tegtmeier Oertel, "'The Free Sons of the North' vs. 'The Myrmidons of Border Ruffianism':What Makes a Man in Bleeding Kansas?" Kansas History 25 (Autumn 2002): 174–189.
2002	Kevin J. Abing, "Before Bleeding Kansas: Christian Missionaries, Slavery, and the Shawnee Indians in Pre-Territorial Kansas, 1844-1854." Kansas History (Spring 2001): 54–71.
2001	Julie Courtwright, "Want to Build a Miracle City?: War Housing in Wichita," Kansas History, 23 (Winter 2000/2001): 218–239.
2000	James R. Shortridge, "Kansas Barns in Time and Place." Kansas History 22 (Spring 1999): 2–25.
1999	Jerry Bergman, "Steeped in Religion: President Eisenhower and the Influence of the Jehovah's Witnesses." Kansas History 21 (Autumn 1998).
1998	Bill Cecil-Fronsman, "'Advocate the Freedom of White Men, As Well As That of the Negroes': The Kansas Free State and Antislavery Westerns in Territorial Kansas." Kansas History 20 (Summer 1997).
1997	Nancy J. Hulston, Kansas City, "Our Schools Must Be Open to All Classes of Citizens: The Desegregation of the University of Kansas School of Medicine, 1938."Kansas History 19 (Summer 1996).
1996	Milton S. Katz and Susan B. Tucker, "A Pioneer in Civil Rights: Esther Brown and the South Park, Desegregation Case of 1948." Kansas History 18 (Winter 1995-1996).
1995	Patrick G. O'Brien, "Kansas at War: The Home Front, 1941 - 1945." Kansas History 17 (Spring 1994).
1994	Homer E. Socolofsky, "The Bittersweet Tale of Sorghum Sugar," Kansas History 16 (Winter 1993-1994).
1993	Paul E. Wilson, "How the Law Came to Kansas," Kansas History 15 (Spring 1992).
1992	James R. Shortridge, "People of the New Frontier: Kansas Population Origins, 1865," Kansas History 14 (Autumn 1991).
1989	Patrick G. O'Brien, Kenneth J. Peake, and Barbara K. Robins, "It May Have Been Illegal, But It Wasn't Wrong': The Kansas 'Balkans' Bootlegging Culture, 1920-1940," Kansas History 12 (Winter 1988 - 1989).
1988	Donald F. Danker, "A High Price for a Lame Cow," Kansas History 11 (Summer 1987).
1987	James L. Forsythe, "George Grant of Victoria: Man and Myth, Kansas History 10 (Autumn 1986).