Recent Awards
2007 Outstanding Faculty Achievement Award
2007 University Distinguished Service Award
2006 Hagley Prize for:
Pull: Networking and Success since Benjamin Franklin
2006 Harold F. Williamson Prize
American Association of University Women
2001-2002 Research Leave Fellowship
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2007 Outstanding Faculty Achievement Award
Presented by the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, University of Colorado at Denver, for "outstanding and sustained achievements in research, teaching, and service.
2007 University Distinguished Service Award
Whereas Pamela Walker Laird is the consummate professor, one who combines responsibilities and achievements in service, teaching, and research with apparent ease and joy, and
Whereas Pam Laird has served the University of Colorado with distinction for many years, in her tireless recent work as Chair of the Faculty Council Personnel Committee and as a strong defender of the rights of all faculty, particularly those who are non-tenure track, part-time faculty, and
Whereas Pam Laird is not only tireless but also tenacious in her carrying forward of viewpoints, policies, and administrative statements for the university, and
Whereas Pam Laird has served with distinction on the Academic Policy Working Groups (APWG) in 2006, in order to carry forward the recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Tenure Related Processes (ACTRP 2005-2006), and
Whereas Pam Laird has served with thoughtfulness and concern for years on the Faculty Council of the University of Colorado, therefore,
Be it resolved that the University Distinguished Service Award be presented to Professor Pamela Walker Laird, as a token recognition of all that she has given to the University of Colorado over the years.
Presented with gratitude from the current and past and future members of the Faculty Council of the University of Colorado on 1 May 2007.
2006 Hagley Prize for:
Pull: Networking and Success since Benjamin Franklin
by Pamela Walker Laird
In her book, Pull: Networking and Success since Benjamin Franklin (Harvard University Press, 2005)Pamela Laird, addresses a far-reaching subject that complements and transcends more typical case-study approaches to business history. Painting on a broad canvass encompassing more than two centuries, Laird explicates the limitations inherent in any strictly “meritocratic” explanation for how individuals come to succeed in business/corporate environments. And in focusing on America, a country avowedly dedicated to the breaking of social and economic chains, she directly confronts how Horatio Alger-inspired stories of individual pluck and resourcefulness proved of marginal relevance to both African Americans and women when they sought advancement in the business world of the early and mid 20th century.
Drawing from success stories that cover the careers of such notables as Ben Franklin,
Andrew Carnegie, and Bill Gates, Laird emphasizes how “social capital” – in the form of role models, mentors, personal and ethnic networks, and other culturally driven factors – has proven so important in determining corporate success. In this, she also artfully analyzes how anti-discriminatory “push” policies and legislation -- designed to reconfigure the social contours of the professional work place – can only go so far in the face of traditions revolving around the power of “pull.” While never denying the significance of individual creativity, resourcefulness, and ambition, Laird nonetheless brings to the foreground the momentous consequences of a corporate culture – so often constricted in terms of racial, ethnic, and gender diversity – that replicates itself in its own self image.
Making creative use of primary and secondary sources, Pull is deftly written in a graceful style that easily draws the reader into its analytic narrative. Remarkably, the book succeeds in being compelling and accessible both to business historians as well as to a wide range of scholars, students, businesspersons, and essentially anyone interested in the structure of corporate enterprise. In sum, it is an exemplary work of business history and the committee is proud to award Pamela Walker Laird the Hagley Prize for 2006.
Donald C. Jackson (chair), Per Hansen, Christine Rosen
2006 Harold F. Williamson Prize
The Prize Committee unanimously and enthusiastically recommends that the Harold Williamson Prize for a scholar who has made an outstanding contribution to business history at mid-career be awarded to Pamela Walker Laird. Professor Laird’s contribution to business history begins with her own distinguished record of scholarly achievement. Among her publications are two important books on remarkably different subjects. Laird’s first book, Advertising Progress: American Business and the Rise of Consumer Marketing, published by the Johns Hopkins University Press in 1998, traced the rise of the advertising industry in the United States in the period between the Civil War and 1920. It is at once the single best introduction to the formative era of American advertising and a tightly argued meditation on the transition from proprietary capitalism to corporate capitalism. Painstakingly researched, elegantly written, and beautifully illustrated, it seamlessly integrates into a single engaging narrative a wide range of topics that are as otherwise diverse as the business strategy of advertisers, the iconography of advertising, and the technology of printing. In so doing, it crosses the disciplinary boundaries that so often separate business history, cultural studies, and the history of technology.
The same willingness to cross disciplinary boundaries is evident in Laird’s second book, Pull: Networking and Success Since Benjamin Franklin, published by Harvard University Press in 2006. The book demonstrates how personal networks, or what is today known as social capital, have for over two centuries proved indispensable to business success. Yet only recently, Laird contends, and in response to the difficulty that women and minorities have confronted in ascending the corporate ladder, has the existence of these networks become a focus of systematic analysis. Intriguingly, she concludes that such recent business innovations as mentoring and--more controversially, affirmative action—are best understood as an attempt to make the operation of social capital more accessible by making it more manifest.
Laird’s contributions to business history extend well beyond her own scholarship. Well-known for the generosity and perceptiveness with which she critiques her colleagues’ manuscripts, she has been especially active in the mentoring of young business historians, including, in particular, those working on neglected or unconventional topics. A longtime member of the Business History Conference, for which she has served as a trustee, she has played an indispensable role on several key committees. Laird was, for example, a major advocate of the restructuring of the BHC that led to the rewriting our bylaws. In addition, as the first chair of the Electronic Media Oversight Committee, she initiated the delicate negotiations that resulted in the transfer of H-BUSINESSS to H-NET, and devised a remarkably effective organizational structure that remains in place today.
In short, Laird exemplifies the combination of scholarly distinction and professional service that the Williamson Prize was intended to honor, and is eminently deserving of this award.
Naomi Lamoreaux (chair), John Wilson, Richard John
American Association of University Women
2001-2002 Research Leave Fellowship
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