The School of History is delighted to congratulate Harriet Mercer, who is currently a PhB student in the School and working on an Honours thesis with Angela Woollacott, on being awarded the prestigious Max Kelly Medal by the History Council of NSW.

The Max Kelly Medal plus a prize of $500 is awarded annually to a 'beginning' historian for a work of excellence in any aspect of Australian history. The Medal was established as a tribute to Max Kelly, the first elected President of the History Council, who died suddenly in 1996.

Ms Mercer received the award for her essay 'The Responsibility that rests on our shoulders': Ideas of Race, Gender and Citizenship in Interwar Australian Feminist Activism.

The judges found the work to be a "very mature and intelligent article"  which "offers a valuable contribution to our understanding of an important and largely understudied aspect of mid-twentieth century Australian history"