Three individuals posing for a photo in an indoor setting, featuring a person standing between two others who appear to be adults.

Junior Matt Cummings with his 11th grade history teacher, Christina O’Connor (left) and his 10th grade history teacher, Molly Baggott (right).

Hingham High School continued its exceptional performance in the National History Day competition at Massachusetts History Day on April 6th, and for the eighth time in nine years, HHS will be represented at the national competition in Washington, D.C.  

Topping off the honors was junior Matt Cummings, who won second place in the Individual Website category for his project, “American Turning Point: The Battle of Saratoga.” This outstanding achievement earned him a trip to the national contest in June. 

Other HHS award winners included Lily Dong, who received an honorable mention in the Individual Documentary, and Sergio Munoz Albors who received an honorable mention in the Group Performance category.

In addition to these students, HHS was also represented at the state competition by 13 juniors who had won gold, silver, or bronze medals in their categories at the Foxborough Regional History Day contest on March 2nd.  The complete results of the regional competition are listed below:

Paper

Gold: Cab Amidei: “Getting into the (Twilight) Zone: How Rod Serling’s Battle with Censorship Transformed American Television”

Silver: Nina Murphy: “Silent Spring: The Pivot Point for the Environmental Movement”

Bronze: Audrey Walker: “The Pure Food and Drug Act: How Public Advocacy Transformed Food and Drug Regulation in America” 

Individual Documentary

Gold: Ava Green: “Making Peace with Nature”

Silver: Lily Dong: “‘There’s Blood On Those Grapes!’: How the Delano Grape Strike Revolutionized the American Farm Labor Movement”

Bronze: Alexander Dinardi: “Immigration During the California Gold Rush”

Group Documentary

Silver: Claire Farrington & Neely Sgobbo: “From the Ashes of a Nightclub: The Cocoanut Grove Fire”

Bronze: Ryan Burns & Declan Kelley: “Ryan White’s Journey Shaping the AIDS Narrative” 

Individual Website

Silver: Matty Cummings: “The Battle of Saratoga”

Bronze: Violet Palmer: “Andy Warhol: ​​​​​​​ The Fame of Pop Art”

Individual Exhibit

Gold: Cam Brown: Manhattan Project: From Discovery to Destruction

Silver: Grace Petitti: “Nellie Bly: The Treatment of Mentally Ill”

Bronze: Taylor Sargent: “Clara Barton: The Angel of the Battlefield and Warrior for Women’s Suffrage”

Group Performance

Bronze: Sergio Munoz Albors & Herbert Seto: “The Religious Barrier: How Engel v. Vitale Changed the World”

Established in 1974, National History Day (NHD) is a non-profit education organization that offers year-long academic programs that engage over half a million middle- and high-school students around the world annually in conducting original research on historical topics of interest. These research-based projects are entered into contests at the local and affiliate levels, where the top student projects have the opportunity to advance to the National Contest at the University of Maryland at College Park.  The NHD theme this year is “Turning Points in History.”