The Ciceronian Society and the Maibach Fund are thrilled to present the Herbert J. Storing Book Prize to Jane E. Calvert for her book Penman of the Founding: A Biography of John Dickinson (Oxford Univ. Press, 2024.
Jane E. Calvert (Ph.D., University of Chicago, 2003) is the Founding Director and Chief Editor of the John Dickinson Project. She is also the foremost Dickinson scholar, having worked on him for over two decades. Her book, Quaker Constitutionalism and the Political Thought of John Dickinson (Cambridge, 2009), was the first work to give a comprehensive explanation of his thought, action, and contribution to the founding of America. She has taught at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, the University of Kentucky, and Yale University. Her research has been sponsored by top institutions around the country, including the Newberry Library, the Huntington Library, the American Philosophical Society, the Library Company of Philadelphia/Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and the David Library of the American Revolution. Dr. Calvert speaks to academic and public audiences around the country on Dickinson and issues related to the American Founding. She is a member of the Association for Documentary Editing and a 2010 graduate of the Editing Institute sponsored by the National Historic Preservation and Records Commission and the Wisconsin Historical Society.
The influence of John Dickinson (1732-1808) on the American Founding would be difficult to overstate. As Jane writes, Dickinson “was the only leading Founder present and active in America at every phase of the Revolution, from the Stamp Act crisis through the ratification of the Constitution, he held more public offices than any other figure, from revolutionary committees to the presidency of two states, for a while simultaneously.” He had extensive experience in military service and policy, and authored the widely influential, “Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania.” Although Dickinson famously refused to sign the Declaration of Independence or vote on it, he embodied its highest aspirations as a man of conscience, character, and patriotism. His life and, by extension, Dr. Calvert’s book, is a prescient civics lesson for the Semiquincentennial of the United States of America.
2026 Herbert J. Storing Prize Finalists
- Brooke Barbier — King Hancock: The Radical Influence of a Moderate Founder
- Francis Cogliano — A Revolutionary Friendship: Washington, Jefferson, and the American Republic
- Steven Smith — The Godless Constitution and the Providential Republic
- Alan Pell Crawford — This Fierce People: The Untold Story of America’s Revolutionary War in the South