The 2023 Society of the Cincinnati Prize honors Dr. Friederike Baer for her book Hessians: German Soldiers in the American Revolutionary War (Oxford University Press, 2022), a ground-breaking reimagining of Britain’s war against American independence from the perspective of the German soldiers, a people uniquely positioned both in the midst of the war and at its margins. Collectively known as Hessians, the German soldiers and accompanying civilians, including hundreds of women and children, penned a large body of private and official records that provide detailed accounts of the American war as well as descriptions of the built and natural environment, local customs and manners, the prevalence of slavery and encounters with Native Americans. Through these primary sources, Dr. Baer illuminates the struggles of the estimated thirty thousand German soldiers and officers during the war, examining their perspectives on and participation in the British strategy, and their observations of America. Dr. Baer also conducted research for this book in our library as the recipient of a 2011 Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati fellowship.

Dr. Baer is an associate professor of history and the division head for arts and humanities at Penn State Abington. She earned a Ph.D. in early American history from Brown University. Her research focuses on the experiences of German-speaking people in North America from the 1770s to the late nineteenth century.