Penningroth Honored for Article on Slaves

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Dylan C. Penningroth, associate professor of history in the Northwestern University Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, has received the 2009 EBSCOhost America: History and Life award.

Sponsored by the Organization of American Historians (OAH), the award recognizes journal literature that advances new perspectives on accepted interpretations or previously unconsidered topics. In particular, it acknowledges creative achievement that veers from conventional thinking in its approach to historical sources.

Penningroth received the award for his October 2007 article titled "The Claims of Slaves and Ex-Slaves to Family and Property: A Transatlantic Comparison," published in the American Historical Review.

Affiliated with the department of African American Studies and holding a joint appointment as research professor at the American Bar Foundation, Penningroth teaches courses on African American history, American legal history, history of slavery and emancipation, and comparative history.

Penningroth also received the Avery O. Craven Award and was named a Distinguished Lecturer, both by OAH. In 2006, he was awarded a Newberry Library National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship and was named a Lane Professor in the Humanities by the Alice Berline Kaplan Institute for the Humanities.

He is author of "The Claims of Kinfolk: African American Property and Community in the Nineteenth-Century South" (2003), and serves on the editorial board of the Journal of American History.

Founded in 1907, OAH is the largest learned society and professional organization dedicated to the teaching and study of the American past. OAH promotes excellence in the scholarship, teaching, and presentation of American history, and encourages wide discussion of historical questions and equitable treatment of all practitioners of history.