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.
2025 Winner and Honor Books
The 2025 Historic New England Book Prize goes to Jeremy Frey: Woven, edited by Theresa Secord and Ramey Mize.
The 2025 Honor Books: Henry Hobson Richardson: Drawings from the Collection of Houghton Library,Harvard University, by Jay Wickersham, Chris Milford, and Hope Mayo, and Art, Ecology, and the Resilience of a Maine Island: The Monhegan Wildlands by Barry A. Logan, Jennifer Pye, and Frank H. Goodyear III.
Past Book Prize Winners
Winners and Honor Books Since 1995
2024
Winner
Trailblazing Women Printmakers: Virginia Lee Burton Demetrios and the Folly Cove Designers
by Elena M. Sarni
Honor Books
Boston’s Franklin Park: Olmsted, Recreation, and the Modern City
by Ethan Carr
Painting the Inhabited Landscape: Fitz H. Lane and the Global Reach of Antebellum America
by Margaretta Markle Lovell
2023
Winner
Born in Cambridge: 400 Years of Ideas and Innovators
by Karen Weintraub and Michael Kuchta
Honor Book
The Builder Book: Carpenters, Masons and Contractors in Historic New Haven
by Susan Godshall and Jack Tripp
2022
Winner
Boston’s Oldest Buildings and Where to Find Them
Joseph M. Bagley
Honor Books
Fabric of a Nation: American Quilt Stories
by Pamela A. Parmal, Jennifer M. Swope, Lauren D. Whitley
Urban Archipelago: An Environmental History of the Boston Harbor Islands
by Pavla Šimková
2021
Winner
Boston’s Apollo: Thomas McKeller and John Singer Sargent
edited by Nathaniel Silver
Honor Books
Maine and American Art: The Farnsworth Art Museum
by Jane Bianco, Michael K. Komanecky, and Angela Waldron
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
Honor Books
Connecticut Architecture: Stories of 100 Places
by Christopher Wigren
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
Honor Books
Treasures Afoot: Shoe Stories from the Georgian Era
by Kimberly S. Alexander
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
Honor Books
Drawn from Nature & on Stone: The Lithographs of Fitz Henry Lane
by Georgia B. Barnhill and Melissa Geisler Trafton
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
Honor Books
A History of Boston in 50 Artifacts
by Joseph M. Bagley
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
Honor Books
Heroic: Concrete Architecture and the New Boston
by Mark Pasnik, Michael Kubo, and Chris Grimley
Rich and Tasty: Vermont Furniture to 1850
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
Honor Books
Bucket Town: Woodenware and Wooden Toys of Hingham, Massachusetts, 1635-1945
by Derin T. Bray
In Plain Sight: Discovering the Furniture of Nathaniel Gould
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
“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
Honor Books
Meetinghouses of Early New England
by Peter Benes
Women’s Work: Embroidery in Colonial Boston
by Pamela A. Parmal
2012
Winner
Litchfield: The Making of a New England Town
by Rachel Carley
Honor Books
A Landscape History of New England
edited by Blake Harrison and Richard W. Judd
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
Honor Books
Connecticut Needlework: Women, Art, and Family, 1740-1840
by Susan P. Schoelwer
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
Honor Books
Beatrix Farrand: Private Gardens, Public Landscapes
by Judith B.Tankard
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
Honor Book
Shaker Design: Out of This World
edited by Jean Burks
2008
Winner
Samuel McIntire: Carving an American Style
by Dean T. Lahikainen
Honor Books
Inventing American Modernism: Joseph Hudnut, Walter Gropius, and the Bauhaus Legacy at Harvard
by Jill Pearlman
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
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
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
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
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
Honor Books
The Artisan of Ipswich: Craftsmanship and Community in Colonial New England
by Robert Tarule
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.
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
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
