 | Edmund S. Morgan |
Edmund S. Morgan, Sterling Professor of History Emeritus, has been honored with a Special Citation as part of the 90th annual Pulitzer Prizes.
Morgan, an authority on early American history, received the citation "for a creative and deeply influential body of work as an American historian that spans the last half century."
The Yale historian is one of two individuals to be so honored: a posthumous Special Citation was made to American composer Thelonious Monk for his musical contribution and impact on the evolution of jazz.
"I was pleased and surprised because the Pulitzer is ordinarily awarded to a particular book, and this citation was for the work of many years," Morgan says of the special recognition.
The Pulitzer Special Citation is the latest in a long list of awards Morgan has garnered during his career. In 2000, he was awarded a National Humanities Medal by President Bill Clinton for his "extraordinary contributions to American cultural life and thought." In 1972, he was the first recipient of the Douglas Adair Memorial Award for Scholarship in early American history, and in 1986 he received the Distinguished Scholar Award of the American Historical Association. He was honored with the William Clyde DeVane Medal for outstanding teaching and scholarship by the Yale chapter of Phi Beta Kappa in 1971, and he has received numerous fellowships and a number of honorary degrees.
Morgan's dozens of books on Puritan and early colonial history, which are acclaimed both for their scholarship and their appeal to a general audience, have also won prizes. These include "Inventing the People: The Rise of Popular Sovereignty in England and America," winner of Columbia University's Bancroft Prize in 1989, and "American Slavery, American Freedom" (1975), which won the Society of American Historians' Francis Parkman Prize, the Southern Historical Association's Charles S. Sydnor Prize and the American Historical Association's Albert J. Beveridge Award. His other books include "Birth of the Republic," "The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop," "The Mirror of the Indian," "Visible Saints: The History of a Puritan Idea," "The American Revolution: Two Centuries of Interpretation" as well as biographies of Ezra Stiles, Roger Williams and Benjamin Franklin and a book on George Washington. His most recent book is "The Genuine Article: A Historian Looks at Early America."
Morgan joined the Yale faculty in 1955 and retired in 1986. Students in his classes praised his style of teaching history through colorful storytelling, rather than through fact-filled lectures. In an interview with the Yale Bulletin & Calendar when he was awarded the National Humanities Medal, the historian said, "My view has always been that an analysis of historical developments should be embodied in narrative. A historian should not be didactic -- that is a word that makes my blood run cold."
Morgan has served as chair of the board of The Benjamin Franklin Papers, the University's project to publish writings by the Founding Father and inventor. He is also a professional woodturner, whose artistic creations have been exhibited in New Haven and beyond.
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