Jason DeParle Wins the 2005 New York Public Library Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism

Award Honors DeParle’s Book, American Dream: Three Women, Ten Kids, and a Nations’s Drive to End Welfare

New York, NY, May 3, 2005 -- The New York Public Library Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism was presented today to Jason DeParle for his book American Dream: Three Women, Ten Kids, and a Nation’s Drive to End Welfare (Viking). The award, which includes a $15,000 prize, was presented by Dr. Paul LeClerc, the Library's President, and James Hoge, Editor of Foreign Affairs and member of the award's Selection Committee, at a ceremony held in the Humanities and Social Sciences Library at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue. Jason DeParle is a writer for The New York Times and has covered social policy, poverty, and welfare reform for over a dozen years.

The Bernstein Award is given annually to an outstanding journalist whose book has brought an important issue, event, or policy to public attention. “Mr. DeParle’s poignant tale of three welfare mothers and their families, intertwined with the history and politics of welfare and its reform in 1996 gives us all a fascinating front row look at the results and consequences of one of the most important social policies in decades,” said Mr. Hoge. “American Dream is a wonderful piece of journalism -- meticulously researched, beautifully written, insightful, and highly readable.”

Over 100 books were nominated for this year’s Bernstein competition by publishers, editors, and executives of major newspapers, magazines, and publishing houses. Five finalists were chosen by a review committee of New York Public Library librarians. The four finalists, each of whom received a $1,000 prize, are: Seymour M. Hersh for Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib (HarperCollins Publishers); Paul Roberts for The End of Oil: On the Edge of a Perilous New World (Houghton Mifflin Company); Andrew Schneider and David McCumber for An Air That Kills: How the Asbestos Poisoning of Libby, Montana, Uncovered a National Scandal (G. P. Putnam’s Sons); and David K. Shipler for The Working Poor: Invisible America (Alfred A. Knopf).

“Jason DeParle’s work, and indeed the outstanding contributions of all of the finalists for the Bernstein Award for Excellence in Journalism show that journalists provide a great and essential service by investigating, questioning, and illuminating policies, events, and scandals that truly affect us all,” said Dr. LeClerc in presenting the award to Mr. DeParle. “I would also like to warmly thank Helen Bernstein Fealy and Joe Bernstein for their generous commitment to the Library, to this award, which is one of the largest literary prizes in the country, and to the recognition of the important work that journalists do and the social change which their writing makes possible.”

About American Dream: Three Women, Ten Kids, and a Nation’s Drive to End Welfare
In 1992 Bill Clinton vowed to “end welfare as we know it” during his first run for president. Four years later the Republican Congress translated this slogan into a law that sent 9 million women and children streaming from the rolls. In American Dream, Jason DeParle asks the question did it work? He writes, “This book represents a seven-year effort to find out what happened next.” DeParle chronicles the story of the politicians who enacted welfare reform and the people who lived it. His story follows three women as they arrive in Milwaukee just as that city becomes the epicenter of the antiwelfare crusade. Their responses vex the expectations of the political left and right. After a dozen years on welfare, Angie Jobe thrives as a worker, with a car, two jobs, and a 401(k), yet her children struggle in school, and her boyfriend tries to shoot her. Jewell Reed, glamorous even in sweatpants, isn’t focused on work; what she cares about are her kids and the imprisoned man she wants to marry. Opal Caples combines an antic wit with an appetite for cocaine, while the for-profit welfare agency handling her case squanders the taxpayers’ millions. Tracing their story back six generations to a common ancestor — a Mississippi slave — DeParle adds intellectuals, caseworkers, reformers, politicians, and rogues to an epic tale of adversity variously overcome, compounded, or merely endured.

The welfare debate at times “puts the very idea of America on trial,” says DeParle. “This is a country where anyone can make it; yet generation after generation, some families don’t. To argue about welfare is to argue about why. I’ll be pleased if this story challenges, and informs, the assumptions on both sides as much as it has challenged my own.”

About the Author
Jason DeParle is a senior writer for The New York Times and a frequent contributor to The New York Times Magazine. A graduate of Duke University, DeParle won a George Polk Award in 1999 and was a two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the welfare system. He lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife and children

About the Selection Committee
The winner of the Library’s Bernstein Award for Excellence in Journalism is chosen by an independent committee of professional journalists and publishers, chaired by Osborn Elliott, former Editor-in-Chief of Newsweek and Founding Chairman of the Citizens Committee for New York City. This year’s committee members are Ellis Cose, Contributing Editor of Newsweek; James F. Hoge, Jr., Editor of Foreign Affairs; Harold W. (Terry) McGraw III, Chairman, President, and CEO of The McGraw-Hill Companies; Jack Rosenthal, President, The New York Times Company Foundation; Dana Priest, National Security Correspondent, Washington Post; Elaine Sciolino, Paris Bureau Chief, The New York Times; Ray Sokolov, writer; and Alair Townsend, Publisher, Crain’s New York Business.

About the Bernstein Book Award
Established in 1987, The New York Public Library Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism honors journalists and their unique role in drawing the attention of the public to important current issues. The award was established with a gift from Joseph F. Bernstein in honor of Helen Bernstein, a former journalist in Palm Beach, Florida. The gift also included an endowment for the position of the Helen Bernstein Chief Librarian for Periodicals and Journals in the General Research Division of the Library. The chair is currently held by Stewart Bodner, who oversees a collection of 11,500 current periodicals in 24 languages. This collection is used by approximately 60,000 researchers annually and is an invaluable resource for writers, artists, journalists, broadcasters, business people, and students. Information about the award and the nomination process is available online.

Previous Winners
2004: Dana Priest, The Mission: Waging War and Keeping Peace with America’s Military

2003: Keith Bradsher, High and Mighty: SUVs -- The World’s Most Dangerous Vehicles and How They Got That Way

2002: Nina Bernstein, The Lost Children of Wilder: The Epic Struggle to Change Foster Care

2001: Elaine Sciolino, Persian Mirrors: The Elusive Face of Iran

2000 (joint award): James Mann, About Face: A History of America’s Curious Relationship with China, from Nixon to Clinton; Patrick Tyler, A Great Wall: Six Presidents and China: An Investigative History

1999: Philip Gourevitch, We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families: stories from Rwanda

1998: Patti Waldmeir, Anatomy of a Miracle: The End of Apartheid and the Birth of the New South Africa

1997: David Quammen, The Song of the Dodo: Island Biography in an Age of Extinctions

1996:Tina Rosenberg, The Haunted Land: Facing Europe’s Ghosts After Communism

1995: Joseph Nocera, A Piece of the Action: How the Middle Class Joined the Money Class

1994: David Remnick, Lenin’s Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire

1993: Samuel Freedman, Upon This Rock: The Miracles of a Black Church

1992: Alex P. Kotlowitz, There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other America

1991: Nicholas Lemann, The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America

1990: Thomas Friedman, From Beirut to Jerusalem

1989: Judy Woodruff for her series of television reports focusing on the Iran-Contra affair

1988: James Reston, in special recognition of his 50-year contribution to journalism.

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Press contact: Jennifer Bertrand, 212-704-8600