Ruth & Ray Reister Award for Historical Contributions to the Humanities
About the Ruth & Ray Reister Award
The Ruth & Ray Reister Award for Historical Contributions to the Humanities (Ruth & Ray Reister Award) celebrates individuals whose work deepens our understanding of Minnesota and demonstrates the vital role history plays in helping us understand our communities, our shared experiences, and the world around us.
The Award honors Reister’s legacy by celebrating those whose work keeps Minnesota history visible, relevant, and accessible to communities across the state.
Administered by the Minnesota Humanities Center (MHC), the Ruth & Ray Reister Award recognizes the many ways people research, preserve, interpret, teach, document, and share Minnesota history.
By elevating exceptional contributions to the understanding and appreciation of Minnesota, MHC seeks to strengthen public engagement with the state’s history, broaden the stories and contributions that are recognized, and affirm the past as an essential part of Minnesota’s humanities landscape.
Questions?
For questions about the Ruth & Ray Reister Award, eligibility, or the nomination process, contact:
programs@mnhum.orgAnton Treuer of Bemidji has been named the awardee of the 2026 Ruth & Ray Reister Award for Historical Contributions to the Humanities. Anton Treuer is a professor of Ojibwe at Bemidji State University, author, historian, and cultural educator whose work has advanced understanding of Ojibwe and Minnesota history for more than three decades — by bringing Ojibwe voices, language, oral history, and community knowledge into the historical record and public conversation. Join us in celebrating his contributions to this work.
The inaugural Reister Award for Historical Contributions to the Humanities was presented to Dr. Christopher Lehman. Dr. Lehman’s award-winning scholarship, including Slavery’s Reach: Southern Slaveholders in the North Star State, examines how histories of race and power shaped Minnesota’s development. His work invites Minnesotans to engage more fully with our shared past – centering voices and experiences long excluded from dominant narratives and enriching public understanding of history.
Ruth A. Reister (1936–2015) was a pioneering leader whose career spanned law, finance, and public service at a time when women faced significant professional barriers. From being the only woman in her law school graduating class to serving in senior roles at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis and as Deputy Undersecretary at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Ruth forged a path defined by excellence, determination, and service. Her lifelong commitment to education, history, and civic life reflected a deep belief in the role of the humanities in public life.
Together with her husband, Raymond A. Reister (1929–2005), a distinguished attorney, civic leader, and former Minnesota Humanities Commission Board member, the Reister’s shared a profound commitment to the humanities, intellectual life, and community engagement. Their shared interests in history, literature, and public discourse shaped a legacy grounded in curiosity, learning, and service to others.
In 2016, Ruth’s legacy was transformed into lasting public impact through a bequest to the Minnesota Humanities Center that established the Ruth & Ray Reister Award for Historical Contributions to the Humanities, supported by the Reister Endowment. This annual award recognizes historians whose work deepens understanding of our state’s past and brings history into public conversation – ensuring sustained support for public historical scholarship in Minnesota.
What Is Required
Nominees Must:
- Have a significant connection to Minnesota. Nominees must live or work in Minnesota or demonstrate a substantial body of work focused on Minnesota, its people, communities, histories, or experiences.
- Contribute meaningfully to Minnesota history and the humanities. Contributions may include scholarship, education, cultural work, public programming, storytelling, preservation, interpretation, civic engagement, or related work.
- Demonstrate meaningful impact. The nominee’s work should contribute to public understanding and/or have a meaningful impact on Minnesota communities, institutions, audiences, or the field.
- Demonstrate sustained, distinctive, and/or recent contribution. Nominees should demonstrate a meaningful body of historical work or a particularly significant contribution worthy of statewide recognition. Nominations should also identify significant work or accomplishments from the past 18 months, which may include publications, peer-reviewed scholarship, public or community history projects, exhibits, educational or interpretive work, awards, honors, fellowships, or other notable contributions or recognition.
Additional Eligibility Information
- Individuals may be nominated by another person or organization, and self-nominations are welcome.
- Nominees do not need to be affiliated with a college, university, museum, historical society, or other institution.
- Both professional historians and individuals conducting significant historical work outside of their primary employment may be considered.
- A nominee’s work may be local, regional, statewide, or focused on a particular Minnesota community. Statewide reach is not required.
- Current members of the Ruth A. Reister Award Review Committee are not eligible during the award cycle in which they serve.
- MHC staff and/or Board Members are not eligible.
- Previous Reister Award recipients are not eligible for consecutive award cycles.
What Is Not Required
Nominees are not required to:
- Hold an advanced degree in history or another humanities discipline;
- Hold an academic appointment;
- Work professionally under the title of “historian”;
- Be affiliated with an institution;
- Have published a book or scholarly article; or
- Demonstrate statewide reach.
The Review Committee will evaluate all eligible nominations using the published Reister Award selection criteria and scoring rubric.
Nominations will be considered using the following criteria. Together, these criteria recognize the many ways individuals can contribute to Minnesota history and the humanities- from scholarship and education to storytelling, preservation, interpretation, and community engagement.
Criterion
What We Are Looking For
Points Possible
1. Significant Contribution to the Humanities
Meaningful contributions through scholarship, education, cultural work, public programming, storytelling, preservation, interpretation, civic engagement, or related work.
10
2. Impact on Minnesota Communities
Demonstrated impact on Minnesota’s people, communities, institutions, or public understanding.
10
3. Advancing Understanding Across Experiences and Perspectives
Work that helps Minnesotans better understand themselves, one another, their communities, and the histories and ideas that shape our shared life.
10
4. Sustained or Distinctive Contribution
A sustained body of meaningful work or a particularly significant contribution worthy of statewide recognition. This may include scholarship, publications, public or community history, exhibits, educational and interpretive work, awards, honors, or other notable contributions.
10
5. Alignment with the Spirit of the Ruth & Ray Reister Award
Work that reflects the spirit of the Ruth & Ray Reister Award by advancing the understanding and appreciation of Minnesota history and strengthening its place within the humanities.
10
Maximum score: 50 points
The scoring framework helps provide consistency across nominations while allowing the Review Committee to consider the significance and character of each nominee’s contributions as a whole.
