Cassandra Good, associate editor of the Papers of James Monroe at the University of Mary Washington, received the 2016 Mary Jurich Nickliss Prize in U.S. Women’s and/or Gender History from the Organization of American Historians.
The award, which OAH gives annually for the most original book in U.S. women’s and/or gender history, was presented earlier this month, during the organization’s annual meeting in Providence, R.I.
According to OAH, “Cassandra Good has uncovered a remarkable body of evidence documenting close male-female friendships in the early American republic” in her book, Founding Friendships: Friendships between Men and Women in the Early American Republic (Oxford University Press).
“Long-held custom decreed that affectionate cross-sex friendships could not exist outside the context of courtship and marriage,” according to OAH. “Yet Good finds plenty of epistolary evidence in the founding decades that echoes the well-known example of Thomas Jefferson’s mutually respectful relationship with Abigail Adams. Good reveals the strategies correspondents invoked to allay suspicions of impropriety, ranging from inclusive references to spouses, mutual claims of fictive kinship, and careful deployment of salutations and closings emphasizing esteem rather than love. Literacy and education were central to these relationships, not only for the material production of the letters but also for the way that the letters actuated the friendships. Most remarkably, Good finds that these scores of documented friendships exhibit a relatively egalitarian view of the mental capacities of both sexes. Her book greatly enlarges our understanding of gender in the early republic.”
Good has a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in American Studies from George Washington University and a Ph.D. in history from the University of Pennsylvania.
The Organization of American Historians is the world’s largest professional association dedicated to American history scholarship. With more than 7,500 members from the U.S. and abroad, OAH promotes excellence in the scholarship, teaching, and presentation of American history, encouraging wide discussion of historical questions and equitable treatment of history practitioners. It publishes the quarterly Journal of American History, the leading scholarly publication and journal of record in the field of American history for more than nine decades. It also publishes The American Historian magazine.