Since 1995, the Barnes Club, the graduate student organization in the Department of History at Temple University, has hosted an annual peer-level conference, one of the largest and most prestigious of its kind, drawing participants from across the United States and around the world. The annual 2-day event gives rising scholars the opportunity to present their research, receive critical feedback, and network.
Since 2005, the Army Heritage Center Foundation has supported the Russell F. Weigley Award at the James A. Barnes Club Graduate Conference at Temple University. The Foundation provides a cash stipend to the student with the best military history paper. Established in 1999, the Foundation is the non-profit partner to the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center. The Foundation also works to share Soldier Stories to educate the American Public about the service and sacrifice of our Soldiers and Veterans.
Russell F. Weigley was the Distinguished University Professor of History at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and a noted military historian. His research and teaching interests centered on American and world military history, World War II, and the American Civil War. One of Weigley’s most important contributions was his conceptualization of a specifically American Way of War, i.e. an approach to strategy and military operations, that, while not predetermined, is distinct to the United States due to cultural and historical influences.
A Pennsylvania native, Weigley graduated from Albright College in 1952, attended the University of Pennsylvania for his master’s degree and doctorate, and wrote his dissertation under Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, Roy F. Nichols. After receiving his PhD, Weigley taught at the University of Pennsylvania from 1956 to 1958, and from 1958 to 1962 at Drexel University. Then he joined the faculty at Temple as an associate professor and remained until his retirement in 1998. The school considered him the heart and soul of its History Department, and at one point he had over 30 PhD candidates working under him concurrently. He also was a visiting professor at Dartmouth College and the U.S. Army War College at Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
Weigley’s graduate teaching emphasized military history including operational, larger issues of war and its significance, history of ideas about war, peace, and the armed forces; and soldier’s place in the state and society.
Weigley received a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in 1969–70, the Athenaeum Literary Award in 1983, and the Samuel Eliot Morison Prize from the Society for Military History (SMH) in 1989. His book, The Age of Battles, received the SMH’s Distinguished Book Award in 1992. He has served as president of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and the SMH. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1993.
The Foundation is working to maintain an endowment for the Weigley Award as a tribute to one of the greatest military historians of the previous century. The endowment will provide long-term funding support for this annual award. Keep his legacy alive and support budding military historians by making a charitable contribution to the Weigley Award Endowment.
All donations are tax deductible, and each donor receives a formal thank you. If you have questions or would like more information about this program, please contact Amanda Neal at aneal@armyheritage.org or (717) 258-1102.
Images of Dr. Weigley and his work
Professor Russell F. Weigley Award Recipients
2025
First Place: Felix D. Camacho, George Washington University “The Second Line: The Regular Army’s Black Line Officer Assignment Circuit and the Rise of Racial Activism amid Progressive Era.”
Honorable Mention: Boxi Sun, “Fighting Beyond the Beachers and Landing Grounds: Ming Navy in the Imjin War” & Blake McCready, “Masters of the Lake? Political and Ecological Struggles in the Champlain Basin, 1775.”
2020
First Place: Jared D. Wigton, Princeton University, “Leading in Defeat: Frederick Weyand, Vietnam, and the Decline of the Citizen-Soldier”
Honorable Mention: Benjamin Remillard, University of New Hampshire, “Race, Relief, and Relationships after the Revolution”
2019
First Place: Benjamin M. Schneider, George Mason University, “Killing is the Object of Our Efforts: Combat Training, International Law, and War Crimes in the U.S. Army During the Second World War”
Honorable Mention: Alexandre Caillot, Temple University, “The 17th Vermont Volunteer Infantry Regiment and the Problem of “Eleventh-Hour Soldiers”: A Preliminary Investigation”
2018
First Place: Thomas Jamison, Harvard University, “The Esmeralda/Izumi (1881-1894/1894-1907): An International History of Regional Competition and the U.S. “New Navy”
Honorable Mention: Katrina Ponti, University of Rochester, “Emissaries of Abolition: Surgeons in the British West Africa Squadron”
2017
First Place: Kaete O’Connell, Temple University, “Chocolate, Corn, and Lady’s Beer: A Taste of Civil-Military Relations in US-Occupied Germany”
Honorable Mention: Alexandre F. Caillot, Temple University, “Individualism and Authority: Vermont Soldiers’ Attitudes toward Military Discipline in the Civil War”
2016
First Place: Christina Welsch, Princeton University, “‘I may very shortly be a great a man as Tippoo’: History and Hysteria in Colonial India”
Honorable Mention: James Kopaczewski, Temple University, “’If I Get Home Safe’: William C. White’s Experiences in the American Civil War”
2015
First Place: Thomas A. Reinstein, Temple University, “The Way a Drunk Uses a Lamp Post: The Intelligence and the Bombing of North Vietnam”
Honorable Mention: Kaete O’Connell, Temple University, “Humanitarianism and the Meaning of Democracy in the Berlin Airlift”
2014
First Place: Jeong Min Kim, “American GIs, Korean Women, and the Black Market during the Korean War (1950-1953)”
Honorable Mention: Mark R. Folse, University of Alabama, “The Impact of the Great War on Marines in Hispaniola, 1917-1919”
2013
First Place: Robert Hutchinson, “Friendly Advice: German General Staffers and the Foreign Military Studies Program, 1945-1954”
Honorable Mention: Thomas A. Reinstein, Temple University, “Tonto As Official Policy: The Kit Carson Scouts and Frontier Mythology in the US-Vietnam War”
2012
First Place: Martin G. Clemis, Temple University, “Violent Pacification: Force, Coercion, and the ‘Other War’ in Vietnam, 1968-1972”
Honorable Mention: Patrick Gartland, Temple University, “The Question of Loyalty: Japanese-American Student Relocation in World War II”
Honorable Mention: John Worsencroft, Temple University, “Family Matters: The United States Army, Family, and the Search for Stability, 1980-1984”
2011
First Place: Alec Lalonde, The Royal Military College of Canada, “Why ‘Europe First’?: The Economic and Ideological Underpinnings of America’s Europe-First Strategy, 1940-1941”
Honorable Mention: Ryan Johnson, Temple University, “Silent Casualty: Chemical Warfare and the Environment on the Western Front”
2010
First Place: Matthew Cheser, University of Maryland, “The Many Deaths of General Braddock: Remembering Braddock, Washington, and Fawcett at the Battle of the Monogahela, 1755-1855″
Honorable Mention: Gerald F. Goodwin, Ohio University, “‘You’re the same as us’: African-American Soldiers and the Vietnamese”
2009
First Place: Earl J. Catagnus, Jr., Temple University, “Innovation and Adaptation in the U.S. Army Infantry, 1930-1941”
Honorable Mention: Christopher Golding, Temple University, “British Combined Operations of the Napoleonic Wars: The Battle of Copenhagen and the Walcheren Expedition”
2008
First Place: John Castaldo, Temple University, “Our Mohammedan Moros: American Perceptions of the Moro People during the Military Occupation of Southern Philippines, 1902-1913”
Honorable Mention: Martin G. Clemis, Temple University, “An Unprecedented Collaboration: Academic Participation in Counterinsurgency Doctrine during the Cold War and Today”
2007
First Place: Erik Mathisen, University of Pennsylvania, “Schools of Citizenship: Allegiance & Statecraft in the Confederate Army, 1861-65”
Honorable Mention: Jason Smith, Temple University, “Instrument of Imperialism: The United States Navy’s Hydrographic Office, 1890-1904”
2006
First Place: Richard Grippaldi, Temple University, “The Best Possible Appointments Should Be Made: The Officers of the U.S. Regiment of Dragoons and Military Professionalism”
Honorable Mention: Eric Klinek, Temple University, “The Army’s Orphans: The United States Replacement System during World War II and Its Impact on Combat Effectiveness”