Casual Friday

Call for applications for those of you research gender in the American West:

The Coalition for Western Women’s History announces the 15th Annual Irene Ledesma Prize, 2013 for Ph.D. graduate student research in western women’s history.

Deadline for submission: May 15, 2013.


The $1,000 prize supports travel to collections or other research expenses related to the histories of women and gender in the American West. Applicants must be enrolled in a Ph.D. program and be members of the Coalition of Western Women’s History (CWWH) at the time of application.  The prize honors the memory of Irene Ledesma, whose contributions to Chicana and working-class history were ended by her untimely death in 1997.

The CWWH will award the prize at the CWWH Breakfast during the 53rd Annual Western History Association conference at Tucson, Arizona,

October 9-12, 2013.

Proposals will be evaluated according to the following criteria:

 - How well the applicant stated her or his research question and the significance of the overall project.
- How well the applicant demonstrated her or his knowledge of the primary source materials related to the proposal.
- How well the applicant framed her or his project in terms of the broader theoretical and historiographic issues significant to the topic.
 - How well the proposal addressed issues of gender and/or women’s history in the U.S. West.
- How well the proposed budget dovetails with the applicant’s stated research agenda.


To apply, submit one copy of each of the following (as a PDF file) to committee chair Cynthia Prescott at <cynthia.culver@gmail.com>:

 - A CV
 - A brief description of the research project and an explanation of how the prize funds would support the research (not exceeding three pages, double spaced, addressing the criteria)
- A line-item budget
- A letter of support from the student's major advisor