How to Enter
The Maynard Redfield History Essay Competition Committee invites students to enter their best history essay in an annual competition. The committee will accept and evaluate papers of any length-- submitted in a history course offered at SUNY Oneonta. Each category has a prize winner and honorable mention. Students may present one essay for consideration in each category:
- Introductory Course Essay (an Introductory course 1000- 2000- level).
- Short Essay (1-12 pages);
- Long Historiographic Essay (13 or more pages);
- Long Research Essay (13 or more pages).
Students may contact the History Department for deadlines and application.
Essays become the property of the History Department and each will be properly disposed of at the end of the competition. Students are required to submit three copies of their paper.
Maynard Redfield Essay Winners
| Award | Student | Title |
|---|---|---|
| Introductory Essay Winner | Aaron Vrablic | "The Papal States and Italian Unification: How the Pope Became the 'Prisoner of the Vatican' " |
| Short Essay Winner | Conor S. Brandt | "The Vendee: A Mischaracterized Conquest" |
| Short Essay Honorable Mention | Luca Montana | "German Antisemitism in the Context of Greater Europe: A Secondary Cause for the Holocaust" |
| Long Historiographic Essay Winner | Raynella Clarke | "An Analysis of the Study of Spanish Influence on Mayan Religion Through Language" |
| Long Research Essay Winner | Grace Witkowski | "Exploring Depictions of American and Russian Women and Natives on Popular Culture's Imagined Frontiers" |
| Long Research Essay Honorable Mention | Olivia Neumann | "Research Essay on the Great Irish Famine" |
| Award | Student | Title |
|---|---|---|
| Introductory Essay Winner | Aaron Vrablic | "Christianity and the Kikuyu People" |
| Introductory Essay Honorable Mention | Renata Palladino | "Moral Perfection During the Renaissance: Who, What, Where, When, and Why?" |
| Short Essay Winner | Amanda Marro- Pendergrass | "Importance of Elizabeth I Proclaiming She Was 'Virgin Queen' " |
| Short Essay Honorable Mention | Brendan Muller | "Causes of the English Civil War" |
| Long Historiographic Essay Winner | Douglas Samalin | "A Historiography of the Jews in European Colonialism" |
| Long Historiographic Essay Honorable Mention | Amanda Marro- Pendergrass | "The Historiography of Cotton Mather: America's Favorite Puritan" |
| Long Research Essay Winner | Christopher Smouse | "Examine at Least Two Assassination Plots Against Elizabeth I. How Was She Able to Survive the Threat of Assassination During Her Reign?" |
| Award | Student | Title |
|---|---|---|
| Introductory Essay Winner | Richard Contreras | "Christian Victims and Christian Oppressors: European Politics and the Evolution of Christianity" |
| Introductory Essay Honorable Mention | Alec Hodge | "What the Treatments and Portrayals of Women Under the Laws and Religions in Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt Tell You About their Society" |
| Short Essay Winner | Amanda Hartwig | "The Age of Infanticide in Early 19th Century London" |
| Short Essay Honorable Mention | Amanda Marro- Pendergrass | "The Nuns of New France: There Were Never Such Devoted Sisters" |
| Long Historiographic Essay Winner | Jacob Lyons | "A More Comfortable Journey" |
| Long Research Essay Winner | Kelly Boyer | "Narratives of Revival an Race: Romanticizing Irish Revolutionary Nationalist Violence in the Easter Rising" |
| Long Research Essay Honorable Mention | Kylee Wignall | "Interracial Relationships: The Power Dynamics of Race and Gender in the British Empire" |
| Award | Student | Title |
|---|---|---|
| Introductory Essay Winner | Johnathon Shannon | "Greek Superiority" |
| Introductory Essay Honorable Mention | Alyssa Chrysler | "The Bourbon Kings: The Cause of the French Revolution" |
| Short Essay Winner | Olivia Hopkins | "Women in the French Resistance Against Nazi Occupation" |
| Short Essay Honorable Mention | Eliza Cechnicki | "The 1863 Draft Riots" |
| Long Historiographic Essay Winner | Jaclyn Kennedy | "The Way of Life During the Industrial Revolution" |
| Long Research Essay Winner | Sarah Snyder | "The Influence of Creation Myths and Ancestors on Incan Religious Life" |
| Award | Student | Title |
|---|---|---|
| Short Essay Winner | Sabrina Cahenzli | "Medieval Attitudes and the Development of Women's Reproductive Health" |
| Short Essay Honorable Mention | Connor Davidson | "Austria Erit in Orbe Ultima: Nationalism, Imperialism, and the Fall of the Hapsburg Empire" |
| Long Historiographic Essay Winner | Marissa Ferguson | "Adopting the Fire and Brimstone" |
| Long Historiographic Essay Honorable Mention | Danielle Jesnes | "Christopher Columbus: A Historiographic Essay" |
| Long Research Essay Winner | Kelly Tenbus | "Fruit and Foreign Relations: United Fruit Company in Guatemala" |
| Long Research Essay Honorable Mention | Nicholas Baker | "Fear of the Foreign: How Un-American Acts Redefined American Liberties" |
| Award | Student | Title |
|---|---|---|
| Introductory Essay Winner | Connor Davidson | "Dictator Perpetuo: On the Rise of Totalitarianism in Post- World War One Europe" |
| Introductory Essay Honorable Mention | Jan Monchaitanapat | "Bread of Dreams and Nightmares" |
| Short Essay Winner | Matthew Racanello | "Complicit not Passive: German Women and Their Vote for Their Own Enslavement" |
| Short Essay Honorable Mention | Emily Leger | "Perceptions of Trauma and the Great War: Rethinking How the British Homefront Understood Shell Shock" |
| Long Historiographic Essay Winner | Natalie Reyes | "Women and Politics During the French Revolution" |
| Long Historiographic Essay Honorable Mention | Ethan Knoll | "Political Actors in the Revolution" |
| Long Research Essay Winner | Sarah Killeen | "Marie-Antoinette and the Impact of the French Press" |
| Long Research Essay Honorable Mention | Marissa Ferguson | "The Myths of Fire and Ice" |
| Award | Student | Title |
|---|---|---|
| Introductory Essay Winner | Bailey Riekkinen | "The Role of Bread in the Holocaust" |
| Introductory Essay Honorable Mention | Rachel Miller | "Medieval Education at the University of Oxford" |
| Short Essay Winner | Kelly Tenbus | "Understanding the Great War Through Poetry" |
| Short Essay Honorable Mention | Brittany Williams | "Won't Be Forgotten: Women and Their Experience in Ravensbruck Concentration Camp" |
| Long Essay Winner | Tierney Lynch | "Hallowing the Hall: The True Origins of Baseball's Hall of Fame and Museum" |
| Long Essay Honorable Mention | Kaitlin Hair | "Wartime Genesis of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League: 'Look Like Women, Play Like Men' " |
| Award | Student | Title |
|---|---|---|
| Introductory Essay Winner | Kristina DeVenezia | "Aristophanes: Entertainment of the Ancient World" |
| Introductory Essay Honorable Mention | Madilyn Sausville | "The Effect of Institutional Reforms in 19th Century English Insane Asylums" |
| Short Essay Winner | Meagan Moore | "Exposing French Political Insecurities through Orientalist Art During the Egyptian Campaign" |
| Short Essay Honorable Mention | Brett Peters | "The Destined Failure of the Easter Rising of 1916" |
| Long Essay Winner | Madelyn Nicolini | "The Fork Less Traveled: The Decline of Farming and Rise of Wineries on Long Island' North Fork" |
| Long Essay Honorable Mentions |
Giovanna DiFilippo Ian Reill |
"The Unsung Heroines of the British Empire" |
| Award | Student | Title |
|---|---|---|
| Introductory Essay Winner | Gabrielle Huther | "Greek Masculinity Determined by Wine Consumption and Athleticism" |
| Introductory Essay Honorable Mention | Jennifer Southard | "Why Did Full Frontal Male Nudity Become Acceptable for Statues During the Italian Renaissance?" |
| Short Essay Winner | Miles Jahnke | "Cultural Support: The Impact of Culture and Value Systems on Canadian Support for Gun Control" |
| Short Essay Honorable Mention | Alexander Whittaker | "Sex Sells and the Masses Are Buying: Sexuality in Weimar Cabaret" |
| Long Essay Winners |
Sam Benedict
Jerrad Pacatte |
"Cartesian Cats' and Cannibal Rats: Animals Enlighten Philosophers About Morality in Eighteenth- Century Europe" |
| Long Essay Honorable Mention | Hunter Reed | "Calumny and Concubines: The Relationship Between Slander and Sexual Deviance in Colonial New Netherland" |
About Dr. Maynard Redfield
After working his first job as future President Harry Truman's paperboy in Independence, Missouri, Dr. Maynard Redfield received his BA and MA from the University of Missouri and his Ed.D. from Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri. At SUNY Oneonta, he taught U.S. Social and Intellectual History. He researched and published in these fields, notably the work "A Social and Intellectual History of American Religion From 1870 to 1970" in 1973. Maynard Redfield, in addition, became the benefactor to present and future members of the department by establishing a fund, through a generous bequest, that facilitates faculty scholarship; many conference papers and publications have grown out of grants from the Redfield Fund. The Maynard Redfield History Essay Competition for undergraduate students also benefits from Dr. Redfield’s generous donation, and is named after him.