Established in 2025, the Lepage Center Award is offered annually to recognize outstanding historical work in the public interest that informs how the past shapes the present. The award was originally created in 1984 in honor of Herbert Feis (1893–1972), public servant and historian of American foreign policy.
The current prize amount is $1,000.
Eligibility
Individuals and groups are eligible for nomination or application. Eligible work might include administration of a public history group or the creation or production of a public history project. The award may recognize the cumulative results of historical work in the public interest or a singular contribution of major importance, such as a pathbreaking museum exhibit. Historical work in the public interest is defined as work created according to the disciplinary standards of historical thinking and primarily directed at audiences outside of schools and academic contexts. Those audiences could be very broad (e.g., television viewers) or highly specialized (e.g., policymakers). Although the audience should be primarily outside of academia, the recipient(s) of the award could be employed at a college or university.
Application Process
Log into your MY AHA account at historians.org/myaha and click “Available Application Forms” in the AHA Awards, Grants, and Jobs section. If you don’t have an account, create one for free at historians.org/createaccount. If nominating someone else, select the Nominate button and search for the nominee’s existing record or create a new record. (For a group nomination, select one person to be the main nominee and include other names later.)
- Fill in the application form, which includes the nominee’s contact information and the names of additional nominees (if group nomination).
- Upload an Application Packet as a single PDF. Include the following documents:
- Nomination letter describing the individual’s or group’s public history contribution
- CV (up to 5 pages) for an individual nominee
- Supporting materials (up to 10 pages). These could be letters of support, exhibit scripts, interpretive plans, National Register nominations, gray literature or policy papers, or finding aids. Please note that books are not accepted as the sole basis for the award, though they can be cited as part of the nominee’s contribution to the field of public history.
Nominees not selected in previous years may resubmit with updates.
Please Note: The competition will open in mid-March. Entries must be received by May 15, 2025, to be eligible for the 2025 competition. Entries will not be returned. Recipients will be announced on the AHA website in October 2025 and recognized during a ceremony at the January 2026 AHA annual meeting in Chicago.
For questions, please contact the Prize Administrator.
Past Recipients
Current Recipient
Erin Kimmerle, University of South Florida
Erin Kimmerle makes an impressive contribution to public history through the What Lies Beneath project. Using interdisciplinary methods, she uncovered 45 burial grounds, half African American, that had been lost to memory. A museum exhibit, to which her students contributed, told the story of these cemeteries to community members, connecting her discoveries to intimate familial stories. She provides a model for other communities seeking to tell the story of predatory land practices while providing a way to honor a community’s ancestors.