DESCRIPTION AND GUIDELINES FOR THE 2026 PRIZE
Special Collections and Archives at the Denver Public Library awards the Caroline Bancroft History Prize annually. According to the terms of the will of the late Caroline Bancroft, provision is made for an annual prize "to be awarded to the author of the best book on Colorado or Western American History published during the current year, to be known as the Caroline Bancroft History Prize." The 2026 prize will be for $1,000. Honor books may be named but will not receive a monetary prize.
The competition is open to all United States and foreign citizens, except those persons directly affiliated with Denver Public Library as current employees, volunteers, or Library Commission members. The winner of the 2026 prize will be announced in January 2027.
Only books published in 2025 will be considered for the 2026 prize. Books published in 2026 will be considered for the 2027 prize. To be accepted into the competition, books must include footnotes or endnotes, a bibliography, and an index.
"Colorado or Western American History" is defined geographically as being inclusive of the trans-Mississippi West from prehistoric times to the present. This includes all states west of the Mississippi River, Alaska, Hawaii, and the Canadian and Mexican borderlands.
In defining the term "best book," the Caroline Bancroft History Prize committee - which is comprised of Denver Public Library employees - will consider books that make a significant contribution to historical knowledge, that present thorough and original research, that bring a new perspective to some well-known question, and that are of high literary quality. The Caroline Bancroft History Prize committee will select the winning book/author.
Publishers and authors can submit entries to:
The Caroline Bancroft Prize
Special Collections and Archives,
Denver Public Library
10 West Fourteenth Avenue Parkway
Denver, CO 80204
preferably as soon as they are published, but no later than May 1, 2026. Denver Public Library requests two copies of each book along with a letter stating they are for the Caroline Bancroft Prize competition so the library can send an acknowledgment. All submitted copies will become the property of Denver Public Library.
THE 2025 CAROLINE BANCROFT HISTORY PRIZE WINNER
Alaska Native Resilience: Voices from World War II by Holly Miowak Guise. University of Washington Press
2025 CAROLINE BANCROFT HISTORY PRIZE HONOR BOOK
Shopping All the Way to the Woods: How the Outdoor Industry Sold Nature to America by Rachel S. Gross. Yale University Press
TITLES ACCEPTED IN THE 2025 COMPETITION
- Alaska Native Resilience: Voices from World War II by Holly Miowak Guise. University of Washington Press
- The Army Under Fire: The Politics of Antimilitarism in the Civil War Era by Cecily N. Zander. Louisiana State Unviersity Press
- Buffalo Bill and the Mormons by Brent M. Rogers. University of Nebraska Press
- The Carey Act and Conservation in Colorado by Gerald C. Morton. University Press of Colorado
- Children of the Storm: The True Story of the Pleasant Hill School Bus Tragedy by Ariana Harner & Clark Secrest. Fulcrum Publishing
- Crossings: Women on the Santa Fe Trail by Frances Levine. University Press of Kansas
- David Crockett in Texas: His Search for New Land by Allen J. Wiener. Texas A&M University Press
- The Edge Rover: The Life and Times of Mountain Man Isaac Slover by Timothy E. Green. Texas Tech University Press
- The Education of Clarence Three Stars: A Lakota American Life by Philip Burnham. University of Nebraska Press
- The Last Stand of the Raven Clan: A Story of Imperial Ambition, Native Resistance and How the Tlingit-Russian War Shaped a Continent by Gerald Easter and Mara Vorhees. Pegasus Books
- A Machine to Move Ocean and Earth: The Making of the Port of Los Angeles--and America by James Tejani. W.W. Norton & Company
- Mound City: The Place of the Indigenous Past and Present in St. Louis by Patricia Cleary. University of Missouri Press
- Muus vs. Muus: The Scandal that Shook Norwegian America by Bodil Stenseth. Minnesota Historical Society Press
- Native Alienation: Spiritual Conquest and the Violence of California Missions by Charles A. Sepulveda. University of Washington Press
- Oregon's Others: Gender, Civil Liberties, and the Surveillance State in the Early Twentieth Century by Kimberly Jensen. University of Washington Press
- The Plot Against Native America: Uncovering the Fateful Legacy of the Native American Boarding Schools by Bill Vaughn. Pegasus Books
- Red Stained: The Life of Hilda Simms by Jokeda "JoJo" Bell. Minnesota Historical Society Press
- Refusing Settler Domesticity: Native Women's Labor and Resistance in the Bay Area Outing Program by Caitlin Keliiaa. University of Washington Press
- Shopping All the Way to the Woods: How the Outdoor Industry Sold Nature to America by Rachel S. Gross. Yale University Press
- To Banish Forever: A Secret Society, the Ho-Chunk, and Ethnic Cleansing in Minnesota by Cathy Coats. Minnesota Historical Society Press
- Unrecognized in California: Federal Acknowledgment and the San Luis Rey Band of Mission Indians by Olivia M. Chilcote. University of Washington Press
- Women of the Colorado Mines by Linda Wommack. Farcountry Press