CLAGUE AND CAROL VAN SLYKE ARTICLE PRIZE
Clague and Carol Van Slyke
Clague and Carol Van Slyke, brother and sister, were born and raised in Benson, Minnesota. Tenth-generation descendants of Cornelis Antonissen Van Skyck—who settled in the area around present-day Albany and Schenectady in 1634—they also claimed Swedish, Norwegian, English, Manx, German, French and Native American heritage.
Clague A. Van Slyke was born in 1924 and served in the Army during World War II before graduating from the University of Minnesota with both his bachelor's and law degrees. In the early 1950s he settled in Tucson, Arizona, where he and his wife Sally (Beardsley) raised their family of four children, and where he practiced law for almost 60 years. Clague was a patron of the arts, a peace activist and a supporter of social justice causes, and was deeply involved in the civic affairs of a burgeoning Tucson up until his death in 2008.
Carol Van Slyke Lazo was born in 1927 and graduated from Macalaster College before going to West Germany as a civilian employee of the U.S. Army during the Korean War. There she met and married Sgt. Kent Lazo, with whom she raised a family of four children in Germany, Denver, Cincinnati, Houston and England. She was a bird lover, painter, writer and fervent supporter of liberal causes. In her later years, she lived in Breckenridge and Grand Junction, Colorado, where she died in 2011.
The Clague and Carol Van Slyke Article Prize is named in their memory, and given in honor of their New Netherland ancestry.
The New Netherland Institute now offers an annual $1,000 prize for the best published article relating to the Dutch colonial experience in the Atlantic world, with a special sensitivity to New Netherland or its legacy. A committee of scholars will consider entries in the fields of history, archaeology, literature, language, geography, biography, and the arts. Entries must be based upon original research. Articles must be written in English and be published for the first time no earlier than two calendar years before the deadline, e.g. no earlier than 2020 for the 2022 prize. Chapters from a monograph, works of fiction, and encyclopedia entries will not be considered. Only one submission per author will be accepted. Articles previously submitted for consideration may not be resubmitted. Both academic and independent scholars are invited to participate.
Submissions should make an important contribution to the understanding of New Netherland and its legacy, specifically or broadly defined, exhibit exceptional research and be well written. Submissions may come from self-nomination, an outside nomination, committee members, or in response to invitations to submit articles from committee members.
Articles for consideration must be submitted by the author, editor, colleague, or other interested party by April 1st to nni@newnetherlandinstitute.org. The article must be provided in a PDF (portable document format). Please include your e-mail address and mailing address with your submission. The winner will be notified by August and the prize will be presented at the Institute's Annual Conference.
Annual Award Prize Winners
2022 Erin Kramer "'That she shall be forever banished from this country': Alcohol, Sovereignty, and Social Segregation in New Netherland," Early American Studies.
2021 Dennis Maika “To ‘experiment with a parcel of negros’: Incentive, Collaboration, and Competition in New Amsterdam’s Slave Trade,” Journal of Early American History 10 (2020), 33-69.
2021 Susanah Shaw Romney “Reytory Angola, Seventeenth-Century Manhattan (US),” in Erica L. Ball, Tatiana Seijas, & Terri L. Snyder (eds.), As If She Were Free: A Collective Biography of Women and Emancipation in the Americas (pp. 58-78), (Cambridge University Press, 2020).
2020 D.L. Noorlander, "The Lost Poems of Jacob Steendman," New York History 100, no. 1 (Summer 2019).
2019 Jaap Jacobs, "'Act with the Cunning of a Fox': The Political Dimensions of the Struggle for Hegemony over New Netherland, 1647–1653," Journal of Early American History 8, no. 2 (October 2018).
2018 Reinoud Vermoesen and Rogier van Kooten, "Peasants’ Paradise: A Comparison of Kings County, New York, and Inland Flanders Economies in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries," de Halve Maen 90, no. 1 (2017).
2017 Lou Roper, “The Fall of New Netherland and Seventeenth-Century Anglo-American Imperial Formation, 1654–1676," New England Quarterly 87, no. 4 (2014).
2016 Jeroen Dewulf, "‘A Strong Barbaric Accent?’ America’s Dutch-Speaking Black Community from Seventeenth-Century New Netherland to Nineteenth-Century New York and New Jersey," American Speech 90, No. 2 (2015).
2015 Jeroen DeWulf, "Emulating a Portuguese Model: The Slave Policy of the West India Company and the Dutch Reformed Church in Dutch Brazil (1630-1654)," Journal of Early American History 4, Issue 1 (2014).
2014 David Voorhees, "English Law through Dutch Eyes: The Leislerian Understanding of the English Legal System in New York," published in Opening Statements: Law, Jurisprudence, and the Legacy of Dutch New York.
2013 Mark Meuwese, “The Dutch Connection: New Netherland, the Pequots, and the Puritans in Southern New England, 1620–1638,” Early American Studies, Vol. 9 (Spring 2011), 295-323.
