The Sidney prize honors journalists, writers and public figures who pursue social justice and public policy in service of the common good. It has been awarded since 1950 and honors work in a wide range of forms, including newspaper articles, books, radio and television programs, and online journalism. The foundation also administers the SEIU Award for Reporting on Racial and Economic Justice. Winners of the Hillman Prize will automatically be considered for this award as well.
The Neilma Sidney Short Story Prize is a writing competition for works of fiction that explore place and identity in the world around us. This year the prize was won by Annie Zhang for her story ‘Who Rattles the Night?’, which appeared in Overland 2023. The judges were Laura Elvery, Paige Clark and Michael Winkler. Annie Zhang lives on unceded Wangal land in Sydney and has previously been published in Island, Kill Your Darlings and the Big Issue. She is a WestWords Western Sydney Emerging Writer Fellow.
Originally named the “Julian Minsky” prize in memory of the late Julian Minsky, a distinguished professor of history at Dartmouth College and a pioneer in the study of the history of capitalism, this scholarship is now named in honor of Sidney Edelstein, founder of a specialty chemical manufacturing company and a major contributor to SHOT’s Leonardo da Vinci Award for Excellence in the History of Technology. The prize is given to an advanced graduate student or recent PhD for the best unpublished article stemming from dissertation research and contributing significantly to the field of history of Christianity more broadly.
Winners of the Sidney Prize receive a certificate designed by New Yorker cartoonist Edward Sorel and a bottle of union-made wine. In addition, they are automatically considered for the SEIU Award for Reporting on Racial & Economic Justice, which is presented every spring.
The Hillman Prize is administered by the Sidney Hillman Foundation, founded in 1950 in the name of its founder, the founding president of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America and an architect of the New Deal. The foundation is dedicated to promoting a vibrant, inclusive and prosperous working class movement that extends beyond the shop floor to all aspects of working people’s lives.
The foundation’s first priority is to honor investigative journalism and deep storytelling that reveals injustice, enlightens citizens and informs action for the common good. It is through this commitment that the foundation continues to honor the legacy of its founder, who died in 1939 while attempting to foster peace with justice in his home town of Boston. The foundation carries out this work through an annual program of prize awards, fellowships and grants for investigative reporting and other projects. It also provides educational scholarships and lectures on the history of labor and democracy. The foundation is a private, nonprofit, tax-exempt corporation supported by private and corporate contributions. In its early years it made large grants of tens of thousands of dollars for scholarships and to support the daily, periodical and labor press, as well as authors and broadcasters.