Honoring the best in history and material culture

Historic New England’s Book Prize is awarded annually to a book that advances the understanding of life in New England from the past to today by examining its architecture, landscape, and material culture. This also includes works in the decorative arts, archaeology, historic preservation, the history of photography, and other related subjects.

To qualify, works need not deal exclusively with New England but must have a significant New England component. In evaluating the books, the book prize committee will consider new scholarship, fresh perspectives, and accessibility to a broad and diverse audience. In addition to the prizewinner, the committee will also name up to two honor books. The winning books are recognized at an annual event. The prizewinner receives an award of $1,000, and each of the honor books an award of $250. Memberships in Historic New England are given to all of the winning authors.

2022 Winner and Honor Books

The 2022 Historic New England Book Prize goes to Boston’s Oldest Buildings and Where to Find Them, by Joseph M. Bagley.

Boston’s Oldest Buildings and Where to Find Them, by Joseph M. Bagley takes readers on a tour of fifty buildings that pre-date 1800 and illustrate Boston’s early history. Each chapter tells the story of a building, its historical significance, and the efforts made to preserve it over time.

The 2022 Honor Books are Fabric of a Nation: American Quilt Stories, by Pamela A. Parmal, Jennifer M. Swope, Lauren D. Whitley, and Urban Archipelago: An Environmental History of the Boston Harbor Islands by Pavla Šimková.

Past Book Prize Winners

Winners and Honor Books since 1995

2021 Winner: Boston’s Apollo: Thomas McKeller and John Singer Sargent edited by Nathaniel Silver.

• 2021 Honor Books: Maine and American Art: The Farnsworth Art Museum, by Jane Bianco, Michael K. Komanecky, and Angela Waldron, and Frederick Law Olmsted: Plans and Views of Communities and Private Estates edited by Charles E. Beveridge, Lauren Meier, and Irene Mills.

2020 Winner: The Atlas of Boston History, edited by Nancy S. Seasholes

• 2020 Honor Books: Connecticut Architecture: Stories of 100 Places by Christopher Wigren and The Paintings of J.O.J. Frost: An American Story by Bethe Lee Moulton

2019 Winner: Rather Elegant Than Showy: The Classical Furniture of Isaac Vose by Robert D. Mussey Jr. and Clark Pearce

• 2019 Honor Books: Treasures Afoot: Shoe Stories from the Georgian Era by Kimberly S. Alexander and A Story of Maine in 112 Objects: From Prehistory to Modern Times, as told through the collections of the Maine State Museum, edited by Bernard P. Fishman

2018 Winner: Rediscovering an American Community of Color: The Photographs of William Bullard, 1897-1917 by Nancy Kathryn Burns and Janette Thomas Greenwood

• 2018 Honor Books: Drawn from Nature & on Stone: The Lithographs of Fitz Henry Lane by Georgia B. Barnhill and Melissa Geisler Trafton and Musical Clocks of Early America, 1730-1830 by Gary R. Sullivan and Kate Van Winkle Keller

2017 Winner: Art & Industry in Early America: Rhode Island Furniture, 1650-1830 by Patricia E. Kane with contributions from Dennis Carr, Nancy Goyne Evans, Jennifer N. Johnson, and Gary R. Sullivan

• 2017 Honor Books: A History of Boston in 50 Artifacts by Joseph M. Bagley and Maine Photography: A History, 1840-2015 by Libby Bischof, Susan Danly, and Earle G. Shettleworth, Jr.

2016 Winner: Suspended Worlds: Historic Theater Scenery in Northern New England by Christine Hadsel

• 2016 Honor Books: Heroic: Concrete Architecture and the New Boston by Mark Pasnik, Michael Kubo, and Chris Grimley and Rich and Tasty: Vermont Furniture to 1850 by Jean M. Burks and Philip Zea

2015 Winner: Cape Cod Modern: Midcentury Architecture and Community on the Outer Cape by Peter McMahon and Christine Cipriani

• 2015 Honor Books: Bucket Town: Woodenware and Wooden Toys of Hingham, Massachusetts, 1635-1945 by Derin T. Bray and In Plain Sight: Discovering the Furniture of Nathaniel Gould by Kemble Widmer and Joyce King

2014 Winners: Curiosities of the Craft: Treasures from the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts Collection by Aimee E. Newell, Hilary Anderson Stelling, and Catherine Compton Swanson and “With Éclat”: The Boston Athenaeum and the Origin of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston by Hina Hirayama

2013 Winner: Ingenious Contrivances, Curiously Carved: Scrimshaw in the New Bedford Whaling Museum by Stuart M. Frank

• 2013 Honor Books: Meetinghouses of Early New England by Peter Benes and Women’s Work: Embroidery in Colonial Boston by Pamela A. Parmal

2012 Winner: Litchfield: The Making of a New England Town by Rachel Carley

• 2012 Honor Books: A Landscape History of New England edited by Blake Harrison and Richard W. Judd and Monadnock Summer: The Architectural Legacy of Dublin, New Hampshire by William Morgan

2011 Winner: The History of Shelburne Farms: A Changing Landscape, An Evolving Vision by Erica Huyler Donnis

• 2011 Honor Book: Connecticut Needlework: Women, Art, and Family, 1740-1840 by Susan P. Schoelwer and Eden on the Charles: The Making of Boston by Michael Rawson

2010 Winner: Harbor and Home: Furniture of Southeastern Massachusetts, 1710-1850 by Brock Jobe, Gary R. Sullivan, and Jack O’Brien

• 2010 Honor Books: Beatrix Farrand: Private Gardens, Public Landscapes by Judith B.Tankard and The Glass Industry in South Boston by Joan E. Kaiser

2009 Winner: Henry Austin: In Every Variety of Architectural Style by James F. O’Gorman

• 2009 Honor Book: Shaker Design: Out of This World edited by Jean Burks

2008 Winner: Samuel McIntire: Carving an American Style by Dean T. Lahikainen

• 2008 Honor Books: Inventing American Modernism: Joseph Hudnut, Walter Gropius, and the Bauhaus Legacy at Harvard by Jill Pearlman and Building Victorian Boston: The Architecture of Gridley J. F. Bryant by Roger G. Reed

2007 Winner: Two Carpenters: Architecture and Building in Early New England by J. Ritchie Garrison

• 2007 Honor Books: The Architecture of Leisure: Houses of the Berkshires 1870-1930 by Richard S. Jackson and Cornelia Brooke Gilder, with a forward by Samuel White and An Observant Eye: The Thoreau Collection at the Concord Museum by David F. Wood

2006 Winner: Young America: The Daguerreotypes of Southworth & Hawes edited by Grant B. Romer and Brian Wallis

• 2006 Honor Books: A Brass Menagerie: Metalwork of the Aesthetic Movement by Anna Tobin D’Ambrosio, with contributions by Nina Gray and Katherine A. Holbrow and Gerri Strickler and Connecticut Valley Furniture: Eliphalet Chapin and His Contemporaries, 1750-1800 by Thomas P. Kugelman and Alice K. Kugelman, with Robert Lionetti. Edited by Susan P. Schoelwer

2005 Winner: American Fancy: Exuberance in the Arts, 1790-1840 by Sumpter Priddy

• 2005 Honor Books: The Artisan of Ipswich: Craftsmanship and Community in Colonial New England by Robert Tarule and The Great Meadow: Farmers and the Land in Colonial Concord by Brian Donahue

2004 Winner: The Furniture Masterworks of John and Thomas Seymour by Robert D. Mussey, Jr.

• 2004 Honor Books: The Big House: A Century in the Life of an American Summer Home by George Howe Colt; Wallace Nutting and the Invention of Old America by Thomas Andrew Denenberg and Architecture and the Arts and Crafts Movement in Boston: Harvard’s H. Langford Warren by Maureen Meister

2003 Winner: The Allen Sisters: Pictorial Photographers, 1885-1920 by Suzanne L. Flynt

2002 Winner: A Building History of Northern New England by James L. Garvin

2001 Winner: Hands on the Land: A History of the Vermont Landscape by Jan Albers

2000 Winner: Reclaiming the Commons: Community Farms and Forests in a New England Town by Brian Donahue

1999 Winner: Boston’s Changeful Times: Origins of Preservation and Planning in America by Michael Holleran

1998 Winner: Living Architecture: A Biography of H. H. Richardson by James F. O’Gorman

1997 Winner: Colt: The Making of an American Legend by William N. Hosley

1996 Winner: Dressed for the Photographer: Ordinary Americans and Fashion, 1840-1900 by Joan L. Severa

1995 Winner: How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They’re Built by Stewart Brand