Oscar Lewis Awards 2026
The Book Club of California congratulates the recipients of the 2026 Oscar Lewis Awards:
William Deverell
Oscar Lewis Award for Western History
William Deverell is an historian with a focus on the nineteenth and twentieth century American West and the founding director of the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West, a collaborative research and teaching entity between USC’s College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences and the Huntington Library.
He has written works on political, social, ethnic, and environmental history and has published numerous books and papers on the history of California and the American West including To Bind Up the Nation’s Wounds: The American West After the Civil War, Land of Sunshine: An Environmental History of Metropolitan Los Angeles, and Whitewashed Adobe: The Rise of Los Angeles and the Remaking of Its Mexican Past which examines the historical relationship between the growth of Los Angeles and Southern California’s complex history of racial and ethnic conflict and accommodation.
He has served on the Editorial Boards for the Western Historical Quarterly, Pacific Historical Review, and San Diego History.
Deverell earned a B.A. in American Studies from Stanford University and a M.A. and Ph.D. in History from Princeton University. Since 2004 he has served as Professor of History, University of Southern California.
_________________________________________
John Demerritt
Oscar Lewis Award for Book Arts
John DeMerritt owns and operates John DeMerritt Bookbinding, in Emeryville, CA. Since 1995, John’s studio has produced books and portfolios for artists, galleries, fine press publishers and institutions. He has produced work for Richard Misrach, Emily McVarish, Granary Books, David Hockney, Crown Point Press, Peter Koch and the Codex Foundation, The Book Club of California, Richard Wagener and Nawakum Press, Lapis Press, The Fine Arts Museums of SF, Paulson Fontaine Press, Mullowney Printmaking, Michael Light, Magnolia Editions, Pier 24, Russell Maret, Koen Van Mechelen and many more.
John has taught and lectured at The San Francisco Center for the Book, The Kala Institute, Columbia College Center for Book and Paper, Visual Studies Workshop, Oregon College or Arts and Craft, The Guild of Bookworkers, The North Bennett Street School, UC Santa Cruz, Dartmouth College, Mullowney Printmaking, Paper and Book Intensive and the Penland School of Craft.
John is the previous president of the Hand Bookbinders of California and for 8 years was the co-president, with Steve Woodall, of the Colophon Club.
From 2000 to 2013, he taught Book Structure at the San Francisco Art Institute.
Since 2024, John has been the Design Consultant at Arion Press.
John and his wife, Nora Pauwels, publish collaborative projects with artists under their imprint DeMerritt | Pauwels Editions.
_________________________________________
The Oscar Lewis Awards were established by the Book Club of California in 1994 in honor of Oscar Lewis (1893-1992), San Francisco author, historian, and club secretary from 1921-1946.
Past recipients of the Oscar Lewis Award for Western History:
Dr. Shirley Ann Wilson Moore (2025)
Dr. Albert L. Hurtado (2024)
Dorothy Lazard (2023)
Charles Wollenberg (2022)
Charles Fracchia (2021)
John Briscoe (2020)
Dr. Rose Marie Beebe and Dr. Robert Senkewicz (2019)
Brewster Kahle (2018)
Robert Bringhurst (2017)
James Karman (2016)
Dr. Gray Brechin (2015)
Rebecca Solnit (2014)
W. Michael Mathes (2012)
Philip P. Choy (2011)
Thomas Pinney (2010)
Robert J. Chandler (2009)
Malcolm Margolin (2008)
Carl Nolte (2007)
Robert V. Hine (2006)
David F. Myrick (2005)
Robert G. Harlan (2004)
Kevin Starr (2003)
Ferol Egan (2002)
Muir Dawson (2001) and Glen Dawson (2001)
J. S. Holliday (2000), Msgr. Francis J. Weber (2000)
Allan R. Ottley (1999)
Gary F. Kurutz (1998)
Richard H. Dillon (1997)
Lawrence Clark Powell (1996)
Doyce B. Nunis, Jr., (1996)
Michael Harrison (1995)
Dr. Albert Shumate (1994)
Past recipients of the Oscar Lewis Award for the Book Arts:
Norman Clayton (2025)
Lawrence G. Van Velzer and Peggy Gotthold (2024)
Richard Seibert (2023)
Mary Risala Laird (2022)
Wesley B. Tanner (2021)
Mary Austin & Kathleen Burch (2020)
Fred and Barbara Voltmer (2019)
Betsy Davids (2018)
Kitty Maryatt (2017)
Richard Wagener (2016)
Harry & Sandra Reese (2015)
Johanna Drucker (2014)
Carolee Campbell (2013)
Jonathan Clark (2012)
Clifford Burke (2011)
Charles Hobson (2010)
Graham Mackintosh (2009)
David Lance Goines (2008)
Patrick W. Reagh (2007)
Peter Rutledge Koch (2006)
Joseph J. D’Ambrosio (2005)
Eleanore Edwards Ramsey (2004)
Joanne Margarethe Sonnichsen (2003)
Carolyn and James Robertson (2002)
Wolfgang Lederer (2001)
Andrew Hoyem (2000)
Jack W. Stauffacher (1999)
S. Gale Herrick (1998)
Sandra Kirshenbaum (1998)
Marjorie G. Stern (1997)
Lewis and Dorothy Allen (1996)
Albert Sperisen (1995)
Stella Patri (1995)
Ward Ritchie (1994)