MHS News

First Peter J. Gomes Memorial Book Prize Awarded

Mary Babson Fuhrer recognized for the compelling story of small-town New England transformed between 1815 and 1848 as told in her book A Crisis of Community

At an award ceremony on 29 October 2015, the Massachusetts Historical Society presented the first Peter J. Gomes Memorial Book Prize to Mary Babson Fuhrer for her book A Crisis of Community: The Trials and Transformation of a New England Town, 1815-1848, published in 2014 by the University of North Carolina Press. The Peter J. Gomes Memorial Book Prize is given to the best nonfiction work on the history of Massachusetts published during the preceding year.

In A Crisis of Community, Fuhrer brings to life the troublesome creation of a new social, political, and economic order centered on individual striving and voluntary associations in an expansive nation. Blending family records and a rich trove of community archives, she examines the "age of revolutions" through the lens of Boylston, Mass., a rural community that was swept into the networks of an expanding and urbanizing New England region. This finely detailed history lends new depth to our understanding of a key transformative moment in Massachusetts and American history.

The selection committee received 21 submissions that interpret the history of Massachusetts through an exciting range of subjects, from colonial history to biographies of iconic figures, to politics, art, and sport. The submissions came from a dozen academic, trade, and specialty publishers. "It is certainly appropriate that the first annual prize in memory of someone rooted in his hometown as firmly as Rev. Peter Gomes was should go to the author of a town history," commented MHS Worthington C. Ford Editor and Director of Research Conrad E. Wright. He continued, "Beautifully crafted, gracefully written, Mary Fuhrer’s relation of the development of the small town of Boylston, Massachusetts, is a most worthy recipient of the first annual Peter J. Gomes Memorial Book Prize."

Mary Babson Fuhrer is a public historian who specializes in the social history of New England. She has a B.A. in History from Princeton, an M.A. in Public History from George Mason University, and a Ph.D. in American History from the University of New Hampshire. An accomplished scholar, Fuhrer is recognized among historical societies, museums, and school systems throughout eastern Massachusetts for her stellar work in historical interpretation and educational curricula. She is the consulting historian for the Society's Saltonstall-funded educational program "Old Towns/New Country," which engages teachers, librarians, and local history enthusiasts in connecting their community's resources to the history of the new nation. She has also served as a consultant and presenter for MHS programs funded by the Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati and the NEH. In 2013, the Society's Short-term Fellowship Committee awarded its Cushing Academy Environmental History Fellowship to Fuhrer, and in 2014, the New England Regional Fellowship Consortium granted her support to visit four additional repositories for her current project, "The Experience and Meaning of Tuberculosis in Rural New England, 1800-1850." In addition to A Crisis of Community, Fuhrer is the author of several articles, including “The Worlds of Lexington and Concord Compared,” which appeared in The New England Quarterly in 2012.

About the Peter J. Gomes Memorial Book Prize

The Peter J. Gomes Memorial Book Prize, for the best nonfiction work on the history of Massachusetts published during the preceding year, honors the memory of a respected Harvard scholar and beloved Fellow of the MHS. Peter J. Gomes (1942-2011) was elected to the MHS in 1976 and joined the Board of Overseers in 2010. He was the Plummer Professor of Christian Morals at Harvard Divinity School and the Pusey Minister of Memorial Church.