CU Boulder professor wins prestigious award to pursue book on Sacagawea, indigenous women

For many Americans, history class teaches that Sacagawea was a Native American woman who became a companion for Lewis and Clark’s expeditions in the western half of the continent. Her story, which is much more than that, is the focus of a new project by a University of Colorado Boulder professor, thanks to a sizable research award.

Elizabeth Fenn, a distinguished professor of history at CU, is one of 15 individuals in the country to receive a 2019 National Endowment for the Humanities’ Public Scholar Award. The accolade comes with $60,000 to be used in support of Fenn’s research on Sacagawea, which she intends to compile into a book titled “Sacagawea’s World.” Her previous book, “Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People,” won her a Pulitzer Prize for History in 2015.