Awards & Honors: National Humanities Medals

Poet, for his contributions to American letters. Since his first book was published in 1956, he has been awarded nearly every prize available for poetry, including a Pulitzer Prize and the Grand Prix de Biennales Internationales de Poésie. One of the New York School poets, he has changed how we read poetry and has influenced generations of poets.

 A program that inspires in American students a passion for history. Each year more than half a million children from across the country compete in this event, conducting research and producing websites, papers, performances, and documentaries to tell the human story.

Musician and scholar, for his rare ability to join artistry to the history of culture and ideas. His writings —about Classical composers and Romantic tradition—highlight how music evolves and remains a vibrant, living art.

Literary scholar, for his bold explorations of identity along the border separating the United States and Mexico. Through his studies of Chicano literature and the development of the novel in Europe and America, he beckons us to notice the cultural and literary markings that unite and divide us.

Historian for illuminating the nation’s early history and pioneering the field of Atlantic history. Bailyn, who spent his career at Harvard, has won two Pulitzer Prizes, the first for The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, and the second for Voyagers to the West.

Author for his achievements as a poet, novelist, farmer, and conservationist. The author of more than forty books, Berry has spent his career exploring our relationship with the land and the community.

Historian for a career devoted to fostering public support for the humanities. As director of the American Council of Learned Societies for more than a decade, he expanded the organization’s programs and helped forge ties between libraries, museums, and foundations.

Literary scholar for his work as a biographer and literary critic. His award-winning books have profiled W.E.B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, Jackie Robinson, and Ralph Ellison. He has also edited critical editions of the works of Richard Wright and Langston Hughes.

Museum diurector whose vision has brought great art to an international public and whose leadership revitalized the Metropolitan Museum of Art and fostered arts appreciation among people of all ages.

Historian noted for his insightful examinations of W.E.B. Du Bois, the Dreyfus Affair, and early Islamic-Christian relations in Europe, which have enriched our understanding of the figures and forces that shaped world history.

Philanthropist and collector devoted to sharing early American manuscripts with our Nation’s cultural and educational institutions. His generosity has helped educate countless Americans about those who founded our country.

Biographer and historian who helped reintroduce Americans to the personalities, eccentricities, and noble ideals of our nation’s founders.

Providing a catalyst of unprecedented work in scientific, religious, and philosophical exploration of the deepest concerns of the humanities and the human race.

Children’s book author who has opened young minds to history and made the lessons of the past come alive with rich detail for a new generation.

Radio show host and scholar who combines a scholar’s understanding and a teacher’s openness, making a home in radio for elevated conversation and profound thought.

Author of more than 50 nonfiction books for children, including the Newbery-Medal winning Lincoln: A Photobiography and others on the Wright Brothers, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Marian Anderson.

Philanthropist noted for support of work in the humanities at many cultural organizations, including the New-York Historical Society, the Manhattan Institute, and the New York Public Library.

Author of fiction and literary criticism who is known as “an advocate and practitioner of moral clarity and literary excellence.”

Curator and author who founded Wyoming’s Salt Creek Oil Field Muesum to preserve the facts and artifacts of the human experience on the state’s high plains.

Economist and winner of the 1986 Nobel Prize in economic science best known for developing the discipline of public choice theory.

Professor of comparative literature noted for his translations of Sophocles's Three Theban Plays, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Aeschylus's Oresteia, and Virgil's Aeneid.

Historian and author of many books on the history of the Muslim world, including The Emergence of Modern Turkey; The Political Language of Islam; and Islam and the West.

Historian known for his seven-volume series on the social and cultural history of California, collectively called America and the California Dream.

Colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves responsible for recovering more than 5,000 artifacts looted from the Iraq Museum.

Historian and author of many books including The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1941-1947 and Surprise, Security, and the American Experience.

Scholar of human rights and legal theory and author of many books, among them A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Antiques authority and writer who frequently appears on television shows such as "Find!" and "Antiques Roadshow."

Philanthropist, trustee of the Gilder Lehrman Center at Yale University for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition, and chairman of The Lehrman Institute.

Scholar of Victorian studies and author of eleven books including Poverty and Compassion: The Moral Imagination of the Late Victorians.

Renowned scholar of African American art; curator of pioneering African American art exhibitions.

Philanthropist, humanist, and civic proponent whose leadership has created a lasting humanities legacy on the islands.

A leading voice for human rights, social responsibility and the environment in contemporary American fiction.

Recipient of 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature; author of seven novels on the African-American experience, a collection of essays and dozens of articles and reviews.

One of the 20th century's most influential political philosophers, widely read among political scientists, economists and legal theorists for his views on justice, basic rights and equal opportunity; author of A Theory of Justice (1971) and Political Liberalism (1993).

Author of many popular and critically acclaimed novels about America's last 100 years, including Ragtime and Billy Bathgate; many of his novels have been adapted to film, and a musical version of Ragtime is currently running on Broadway.

Founder and president of MOTHEREAD, Inc., a national family literacy program that enables newly literate adults to improve their reading skills while helping them encourage and guide the learning of their preschool-age children.

Educator, administrator and philanthropist; former president of Brown University and of the New York Public Library; current president of the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Prolific scholar and professor of American history; two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, for The Age of Jackson and A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House; author of The Disuniting of America.