Langum Foundation News
This page is for current and upcoming news of the Trust and its work. Check back here periodically for links to news stories, upcoming deadlines, and late-breaking information.
MAY 2, 2024
The Winner of the 2023 David J. Langum, Sr. Prize in American Legal History is Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights, by Dylan C. Penningroth
In this capaciously conceived study, Dylan Penningroth looks beyond the familiar narrative of the post-Civil Rights Movement to explain how Blacks used the law in their daily lives to promote their rights, going back as far as the era of slavery. His meticulous research, which draws upon the archives of his own family, demonstrates how Blacks effectively made use of the the law of contracts, property, tort, domestic relations, and inheritance. By providing a more expansive and nuanced understanding of Black freedom, Before the Movement is a transformative achievement. – D.S.
FEBRUARY 15, 2024
The winner of the 2023 David J. Langum, Sr. Prize in American Historical Fiction is Susanna Moore, The Lost Wife
Susanna Moore’s new novel explores a lesser known incident of American history. Forced to the breaking point by undelivered rations and shrinking territory, starving Dakotas waged war against white settlers in Minnesota in 1862. The Dakota War lasted six weeks. During that time, the Dakotas attacked settlers and took over 100 women and children captive.
The Lost Wife documents the story of one such captive: Sarah Brinton. However, Brinton’s story of a woman’s precarious survival in nineteenth-century America begins much earlier. First she escapes from an abusive husband in Rhode Island. She travels west to join a friend only to discover that her friend recently perished from cholera. Sarah then marries a widowed doctor John Brinton. She is aware of her lack of past and what power that might have over her. While living on the frontier, Sarah learns the Dakota language and culture, knowledge which serves her later in captivity.
When she is taken, she is protected by a Dakota man called Chaska who claims her as his wife. When the uprising was quelled by the U. S. Army, the captives were returned to their original families. Sarah returns and begs to deaf ears for clemency for the Dakotas who protected her and her two small children.
Throughout the novel, Sarah sits uncomfortably in “two worlds”, not accepted by either. However, this is intensified after captivity and return.
Sarah’s story is loosely based on Sarah F. Wakefield’s Six Weeks in the Sioux Tepees: A Narrative of Indian Captivity (1864). Facing “false and slanderous stories,” Wakefield was careful to portray her Chaska as fatherly and protective. Sarah Brinton also faces shame and gossip upon reintegration. Paraphrasing her husband, Sarah relates: “other white women were not as obliging. They refused to dress in buckskin and moccasins and braid their hair, and did not converse happily with their captors in Dakota, yet they are now at home with their loving families, untainted by shame and dishonour. ‘But perhaps you liked it,’ he said.”
Despite the anguish and atrocities on both sides, Sarah’s first person narration is economical and unflinching. This compact and compelling novel illuminates a forgotten episode of American history. – V.L.
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The finalist of the 2023 David J. Langum, Sr. Prize in American Historical Fiction is American Ending, by Mary Kay Zuravleff
American Ending is an immigrant novel concerned with a community of Old Believers Russian Orthodox settled in the coal-mining districts of early 20th century Pennsylvania. It is filled with details of the time, place, and culture of the people depicted. Almost of necessity the book has an engaging young female protagonist with a primary focus on her and her extended family. However, the author takes care to include the Old Believer community in general, greatly increasing the historical verisimilitude of the work. It is a lively and well-written story. – D.J.L, Sr.
FEBRUARY 13, 2024
David J. Langum, Sr. Reinstated as Executive Director of The Langum Foundation
At the February 12, 20234 meeting, the Board of Directors resolved to reinstate David J. Langum, Sr. as Executive Director of The Langum Foundation, effective immediately. This was done with the approval and support of David J. Langum, Jr., the erstwhile Executive Director.
FEBRUARY 13, 2024
The David J. Langum, Sr. Prize in American Historical Fiction Has Been Suspended
At the February 12, 2024 meeting, the Board of Directors resolved to suspend the operations of the David J. Langum, Sr. Prize in American Historical Fiction. This action was taken at the recommendation of the Selection Committee. The problem is that we have had a recurrent and serious difficulty in acquiring and retaining initial readers. This year we had approximately 45 submissions, and this was somewhat lower than previously. However, we had readers for only the first few months of 2023, and there is no reason to believe this difficulty will be resolved, at least in the immediate future. This volume of books creates an extreme and unsustainable burden for our two-person Selection Committee to handle themselves. The Foundation will continue to award the Langum Prize in American Legal History and Biography and the Malott prize for Recording Community Activism.
JANUARY 8, 2024
Congratulations to Katherine Vaz for Her 2023 Publication of Above the Salt
The Foundation wishes to congratulate Katherine Vaz for her 2023 publication of Above the Salt, a novel about the immigration of protestant Portuguese into antebellum Illinois. Ms. Vaz received a travel grant from The Langum Foundation that enabled her to utilize the Langum Family Papers and the de Mattos Family Papers, both held by the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield, Illinois in the preparation of this book.