The Ray Allen Billington Prize is given biennially by the Organization of American Historians (OAH) for the best book about American frontier history. The "American frontier" includes all of North and South America, all post-1492 pioneer experiences, and comparisons between American frontiers and others around the world. First given in 1981, this prize honors Ray Allen Billington, OAH President (1962-1963) and prolific writer about American frontiers. A three-member committee, chosen by the OAH President for a two-year term, selects the winner who receives $1000. The first award was made posthumously to John D. Unruh who died in 1976.[1] No award was made in 1997, and two awards were made in 1999.[2]
The following table lists past recipients.[3]
| Year | Winner | Affiliation | Title | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1981 | John D. Unruh[4] | The Plains Across: The Overland Emigrants and the Trans-Mississippi West, 1840-60[5] | ||
| 1983 | David J. Weber | Southern Methodist University | The Mexican Frontier, 1821-1846: The American Southwest Under Mexico | |
| 1985 | Francis Paul Prucha, S.J. | Marquette University | The Great Father: The United States Government and the American Indians | |
| 1987 | University of New Mexico | Phil Sheridan and His Army | ||
| 1989 | Albert L. Hurtado[6] | Indian Survival on the California Frontier | ||
| 1991 | James N. Gregory[7] | University of Washington | American Exodus: The Dust Bowl Migration and Okie Culture in California | |
| 1993 | University of Pennsylvania | The Ordeal of the Longhouse: The Peoples of the Iroquois League in the Era of European Colonization | ||
| 1995 | John Putnam Demos | Yale University | The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America | |
| 1997 | No award given | |||
| 1999co | Malcolm J. Rohrbough[8] | University of Iowa | Days of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the American Nation | |
| 1999co | Elliott West[9] | University of Arkansas | The Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers, and the Rush to Colorado | |
| 2001 | Gunther Peck[10] | Duke University | Reinventing Free Labor: Padrones and Immigrant Workers in The North American West, 1880-1930 | |
| 2003 | Martha A. Sandweiss[11] | Print the Legend: Photography and the American West | ||
| 2005 | Colin G. Calloway[12] | One Vast Winter Count: The Native American West before Lewis and Clark | ||
| 2007 | Pablo R. Mitchell[13] | Coyote Nation: Sexuality, Race, and Conquest in Modernizing New Mexico, 1880-1920 | ||
| 2009 | Matthew Klingle[14] | Emerald City: An Environmental History of Seattle | ||
| 2011 | Louise Pubols[15] | The Father of All: The de la Guerra Family, Power, and Patriarchy in Mexican California | ||
| 2013 | Peter Boag | Re-Dressing America's Frontier Past | ||
| 2015 | Jared Farmer[16] | Trees in Paradise: A California History | ||
| 2017 | Karl Jacoby | The Strange Career of William Ellis: The Texas Slave Who Became a Mexican Millionaire | ||
| 2019 | Elizabeth Lew-Williams | The Chinese Must Go: Violence, Exclusion, and the Making of the Alien in America | ||
| 2021 | Jeffrey Ostler | University of Oregon | Surviving Genocide: Native Nations and the United States from the American Revolution to Bleeding Kansas | |
| 2023 | Paul Conrad | University of Texas at Arlington | The Apache Diaspora: Four Centuries of Displacement and Survival |