Celebrating 50 Years of National History Day
National History Day students and teachers from Oklahoma at the NHD 2024 final awards ceremony.
NEH
National History Day students and teachers from Oklahoma at the NHD 2024 final awards ceremony.
NEH
Last week nearly 3,000 middle and high school students from across the country traveled to College Park, Maryland, to participate in the finals of the 2024 National History Day competition. Thirty-two of these impressive young historians took home top prizes as National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) scholars.
The annual event is the culmination of a yearlong academic program in which students in grades 6-12 conduct original research for papers, exhibits, websites, documentaries, and public performances. Each year more than a half million students compete in local, regional, and state competitions for a chance to win a spot at the national finals. Winners are selected by volunteer judges, including history teachers and others.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of National History Day (NHD), which was created as a pilot project with 129 high school students in Cleveland in 1974 by Case Western Reserve University history professor David Van Tassel. NHD has been described by the Washington Post as “the best middle and high school program no one knows about,” and was honored with a 2011 National Humanities Medal. The program numbers more than 8 million alumni who have gone on to a wide range of careers, including Pulitzer Prize-winning violinist Caroline Shaw and Food Network presenter and restaurateur Guy Fieri (whose eighth-grade NHD project was, fittingly, on the history of the pretzel).
Students from Hawaii present their NHD project.
National History Day
NEH has supported National History Day since the 1970s. NEH grants were instrumental in helping National History Day grow from a start-up project into a national and international competition that operates in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, U.S. territories, Department of Defense schools, and international schools in China and South Korea. NEH sponsors National History Day prizes, including the first-place prizes across NHD’s 18 project categories, as well as a special prize for research using the NEH grant-supported Chronicling America database of historical American newspapers. NEH’s website for teachers and students, EDSITEment, provides lesson plans and classroom materials around National History Day topics. This year NEH also awarded special funding to several state and jurisdictional humanities councils to expand NHD programs in their region through the recruitment and training of volunteer judges and workshops for teachers on incorporating NHD into classroom activities.
The week began with students presenting their research projects on the theme of “Turning Points in History” to panels of volunteer judges on site at the University of Maryland, College Park. Revisit National History Day history with this NEH video on the 2013 NHD finals.
Senator Lisa Murkowski on the steps of the Capitol with NHD students from Alaska.
NEH
On Wednesday, several student groups took the opportunity to visit the nation’s capital to meet with their congressional representatives on Capitol Hill and get a glimpse of the federal government in action. U.S. Senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan of Alaska, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, James Risch of Idaho, Susan Collins and Angus King of Maine, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, Jack Reed of Rhode Island, and Maria Cantwell of Washington all welcomed NHD students.
Senator Jack Reed meets with students from Rhode Island in DC for the NHD 2024 finals.
NEH
Senator Susan Collins chats with NHD students from Maine visiting the Capitol.
NEH
Isaac Livingston, a middle school student from Alabama, shared his project on the Tennessee Valley Authority’s transformation of the South during the Great Depression with Senator Tuberville and Representative Dale Strong. A group from Maine that developed an NHD exhibit on the United Nation’s UNOSOM I and II missions to provide humanitarian aid to Somalia in the 1990s stopped to talk history with their congressional delegation, Senators Collins and King and Representative Chellie Pingree. Students from Alaska performed their NHD project on Women’s Army Corps (WAC) switchboard operators in WWII on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.
U.S. Congressman Mike Simpson chats with NHD students from Idaho in his office.
NHD
The final awards ceremony for the program took place on Thursday, June 13, amid raucous cheering from student teams inside the University of Maryland’s packed Xfinity Center arena. NEH Chair Shelly C. Lowe (Navajo) presented the first-place prizes to the “NEH scholars” for best projects in each category at both the junior and senior levels. “We need historians more than ever,” Chair Lowe told the students. “We need people who do the research, who ask questions, who listen for answers.” (Watch a recording of the awards ceremony.)
NEH Senior Deputy Chair Anthony Mitchell bestows awards on National History Day winners.
NEH
NEH Senior Deputy Chair Anthony Mitchell bestows awards on National History Day winners.
NEH
Students from Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Washington, and Singapore took home top prizes for their projects. Among the winners were students from Dunedin Highland Middle School in Florida, who developed a group performance examining the Boston Tea Party; and Ila Lu from Evergreen Middle School in Washington, who took top prize in the junior documentary category for her film “Pocket Books: Turning the Page for American Readers.”
See the complete list of the 2024 National History Day winners.
Students at the NHD 2024 finals in College Park, Maryland.
NEH
At the end of the week, Chair Lowe received a special visit from a group of students from Hawai‘i who prepared National History Day exhibits, documentaries, and performances in Native Hawaiian language and participated in a student showcase event at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. The Hawai‘i History Day program is supported by NEH’s local partner, the Hawai‘i Council for the Humanities. With NEH support, the council is currently working to expand opportunities for Native Hawaiian-speaking students to participate in National History Day by partnering with Hawaiian immersion schools and Hawaiian studies and language departments to recruit additional judges and share resources with teachers and students.
NHD students from Hawaii visit with NEH Chair Shelly Lowe
NEH
NHD students from Hawaii visit with NEH Chair Shelly Lowe
NEH