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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 1, 2005

Contact: Angie Joe
713.743.8153 (office)
713.617.7138 (pager)
ajoe@uh.edu

HOUSTON, April 1, 2005 – The Organization of American Historians (OAH) has named University of Houston Professor of History Steven Mintz the recipient of the Merle Curti Award for the book “Huck’s Raft: A History of American Childhood.”

The Curti Award recognizes the best book published in American social, intellectual, or cultural history. OAH President James O. Horton and President-Elect Vicki L. Ruiz will present the award to Mintz during its 98th annual meeting April 2 in San José, Calif.

“Huck’s Raft” provides the first comprehensive history of American childhood encompassing both the child’s and the adult’s tumultuous early years of life.

Reviews have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, Houston Chronicle, San Antonio Express-News, Publisher’s Weekly, Booklist and Library Journal Reviews, among others.

The Washington Post calls Huck’s Raft “a rich and stimulating book, revealing how much childhood has changed over the centuries and how much some things never change.”

The book is also the recipient of the Association of American Publishers’ R.R. Hawkins Award for the Outstanding Scholarly Book of 2004.

Mintz is director of the American Cultures Program at UH. A leading authority on the history of the family, he has written extensively on reform, slavery and film history. He is a pioneer in the use of application of new technologies to the study of history and a former vice president of H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online. Mintz is co-chair of the Council on Contemporary Families and a member of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History board. He currently directs two U.S. Department of Education “Teaching American History” grants.

The 2005 Curti Award committee members were Lois E. Horton, George Mason University; Richard Latner, Tulane University, Committee Chair; Joanne Pope Melish, University of Kentucky; Jane Rhodes, University of California, San Diego; and David Wrobel, University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Founded in 1907, the OAH is the largest professional society dedicated to the teaching and study of the American past. The organization 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. Members in the U.S. and abroad include college and university professors; students; precollegiate teachers; archivists, museum curators and other public historians employed in government and the private sector.

For information about OAH, go to http://www.oah.org.

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