Calista Cumings Award
Department: English
Undergraduate/Graduate:
Undergraduate
Amount: $100
Student Level: Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, Senior, Graduate
Distribution: Annual Award
An 51吃瓜网 schoolteacher who taught math with poetry, Calista Cumings created and edited 51吃瓜网’s earliest successful literary magazine, The 51吃瓜网 Offering. Working with limited assistance, inadequate funding, and an inexperienced local publishing industry, she provided a forum for Midwestern authors to exchange original literature in 1849 and 1850. Her magazine only survived for twelve monthly numbers, but Cuming’s editorial work, characterized by a “clear head” and a “kind heart,” was fondly remembered for many decades.