Beth Lew-Williams receives Bancroft Prize for distinguished work in American history

Beth Lew-Williams, a professor of history and the director of the Program in Asian American Studies at Princeton, has been awarded the Bancroft Prize in American History and Diplomacy for her book, “John Doe Chinaman: A Forgotten History of Chinese Life Under American Racial Law” (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2025).

The Bancroft Prize, which includes an award of $10,000, is considered one of the most prestigious prizes in the field of American history and is administered annually by Columbia University. “The winners are judged in terms of scope, significance, depth of research, and richness of interpretation that they present in the areas of American history and diplomacy,” according to the prize organizers.

Lew-Williams’ book, which was supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, traces the history of legal discrimination against Chinese immigrants in the U.S. 

The Bancroft selection committee noted the impact of Lew-Williams’ work, saying “‘John Doe Chinaman’ gives a new face to the story of Chinese immigrants, exposing the vast scale of legal limitations they endured. In this timely, humane, and necessary book, Beth Lew-Williams digs under the stereotypes and limited records of all too many people dismissed with terms such as ‘John Doe Chinaman’ to excavate a rich and vibrant history of unnamed (and misnamed) Chinese men and women and their world in the 19th-century Pacific West.” 

“For me, the most exciting thing about receiving this prize is the opportunity to reach new readers,” Lew-Williams said. “I care deeply about the history of Chinese immigration to America, and I think more people need to know about it.”

Read a Q&A about the book on the Princeton Humanities Council website.

Lew-Williams, who has taught at Princeton since 2014, is an expert on Asian American history and a historian of migration and race. She is also the author of “The Chinese Must Go: Violence, Exclusion and the Making of the Alien in America” (Harvard University Press, 2018), which won the 2019 Ray Allen Billington Prize and the Ellis W. Hawley Prize from the Organization of American Historians.

Lew-Williams is one of two recipients of the 2026 Bancroft Prize. Emilie Connolly, an assistant professor of history at Brandeis University, was also recognized for her book “Vested Interests: Trusteeship and Native Dispossession in the United States” (Princeton University Press, 2025).

A public program to honor the winners will take place on April 23 at the Forum at Columbia University.