March 2006
History professor Walter Licht, along with co-author Thomas Dublin, have received the Merle Curti Prize for their book, The Face of Decline: The Pennsylvania Anthracite Region in the Twentieth Century. The Merle Curti Prize is awarded annually by the Organization of American Historians for the best book on U.S. social, intellectual and/or cultural history.
The authors tell a poignant story of how businesses, residents and governments responded to dwindling demand for anthracite coal, especially after World War II. By 2000, fewer than 1,000 miners were employed in the region's coalfields, which had provided work for 181,000 at the industry's height before World War I.
Walter Licht, who came to Penn in 1977, is chair of the history department. His research focuses on the history of work and labor markets. A recipient of the Ira Abrams Memorial Award for Distinguished Teaching, he teaches courses in American economic and labor history. Thomas Dublin is a professor of history at Binghamton University, SUNY.