K. Austin Kerr Prize
The K. Austin Kerr Prize is awarded for the best first paper delivered at the annual meeting of the Business History Conference by a new scholar (doctoral student or those within three years of receiving their Ph.D.). It honors K. Austin Kerr, professor of history at the Ohio State University since 1965 and president of the Business History Conference during 1992-1993. Author of many books and articles in business history, and a founder of H-Business, Professor Kerr has always encouraged excellence in scholarship and in professional and classroom presentations. Criteria for awarding the prize include scholarly excellence; innovation in subject, method, or findings; and effectiveness of presentation. Presentations at the Krooss Dissertation Prize sessions are not eligible for the Kerr Prize. Persons who have also presented in the Krooss Prize sessions at previous BHC annual meetings are eligible for the Kerr Prize as long as they are graduate students or within three years of receiving their Ph.D. The Kerr Prize Committee is to consist of four members, one of whom will serve as chair. Each member serves a three-year term, rotating onto the committee as junior member, then becoming chair (or co-chair), and then exiting after serving a final year as senior member. Potential awardees will be asked to designate themselves as such and to submit their paper in advance of the meeting, by a specified date. The Kerr Prize Committee will evaluate the papers in advance, selecting up to 15 finalists whose presentations they will attend during the annual meeting. The Committee will meet prior to the awards ceremony to make a decision that will be announced by the Committee chair at the ceremony.
The Kerr Prize was not awarded in 2020 due to the extraordinary circumstances resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.
2024 K. Austin Kerr Prize Recipient
University of Wisconsin - Madison
Honorable Mention:
Emmet von Stackelberg
"From the World to Rochester: The Raw Materials of Kodak’s Motion Picture Film"
2023 K. Austin Kerr Prize Recipient
Cornell University
2022 K. Austin Kerr Prize Recipient
Harvard University
Honorable Mention:
Charles Petersen, “Flexible Accumulation, Flexible Organization, Flexible Masculinity: Silicon Valley and the Birth of a New Subjectivity, 1957-1998”
2021 K. Austin Kerr Prize Recipient
Harvard University
2019 K. Austin Kerr Prize Recipient
Westmont College
Honorable Mention:
Kate Epstein, Rutgers University, Camden
"Arms and the State: American Torpedoes, Intellectual Property Rights, and the Origins of the Military-Industrial Complex before World War I"
2018 K. Austin Kerr Prize Recipient
Assistant Professor, The Ohio State University
2017 K. Austin Kerr Prize Recipient
2016 K. Austin Kerr Prize Recipient
New York University
2015 K. Austin Kerr Prize Co-recipient
Wesleyan University
2015 K. Austin Kerr Prize Co-recipient
Assistant Professor and John W. and Jeanne M. Rowe Chair in the History of Politics, Institutions, and Political Economy, University of Wisconsin-Madison
2014 K. Austin Kerr Prize Recipient
University of Minnesota
2013 K. Austin Kerr Prize Recipient
(1980-2020)
Honorable Mention:
Joshua Specht, Monash University
"Hard Winters, International Capital, and the Rise and Fall of the Land and Cattle Company in the United States"
2012 K. Austin Kerr Prize Recipient
Duke University
Honorable Mention:
Judge Glock, Rutgers University
"The Federal Housing Administration: Did It Really Favor the Suburbs?"
2011 K. Austin Kerr Prize Recipient
Harvard University
Honorable Mention:
Kelly Brennan Arehart
"'To Put a Mass of Putrefying Animal Matter into a Fine Plush Casket': The Development of Professional Knowledge among Morticians, 1880-1920"
Johan Mathew, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey - New Brunswick
"Controlling Currency and Smuggling Specie in the Arabian Sea, 1873-1966"
2010 K. Austin Kerr Prize Recipient
University of Pennsylvania
2009 K. Austin Kerr Prize Recipient
University of Goettingen
2008 K. Austin Kerr Prize Recipient
LKQ Corporation
2007 K. Austin Kerr Prize Recipient
Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation, Smithsonian Institution
2006 K. Austin Kerr Prize Recipient
Stockton College of New Jersey
2005 K. Austin Kerr Prize Recipient
Providence College
2004 K. Austin Kerr Prize Co-recipient
Department of History, University of California, Davis
2004 K. Austin Kerr Prize Co-recipient
Assistant Professor, Seoul National University of Science and Technology
2003 K. Austin Kerr Prize Co-recipient
York University
2003 K. Austin Kerr Prize Co-recipient
Mystic Seaport Museum