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The Pulitzer Prize for Biography is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. The award honors "a distinguished and appropriately documented biography by an American author."[1] Award winners received $15,000 USD.[1]
From 1917 to 2022, this prize was known as the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography and was awarded to a distinguished biography, autobiography or memoir[2] by an American author or co-authors, published during the preceding calendar year. Thus it is one of the original Pulitzers, for the program was inaugurated in 1917 with seven prizes, four of which were awarded that year.[3]
Recipients
In its first 97 years to 2013, the Biography Pulitzer was awarded 97 times. Two were given in 1938, and none in 1962.[4]
1910s-1940s
| Year | Author | Title | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1917 | Laura E. Richards and Maud Howe Elliott, assisted by Florence Howe Hall | Julia Ward Howe | |
| 1918 | William Cabell Bruce | Benjamin Franklin, Self-Revealed | |
| 1919 | Henry Adams | The Education of Henry Adams | |
| 1920 | Albert J. Beveridge | The Life of John Marshall, 4 vols. | |
| 1921 | Edward Bok | The Americanization of Edward Bok: The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After | |
| 1922 | Hamlin Garland | A Daughter of the Middle Border | |
| 1923 | Burton J. Hendrick | The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page | |
| 1924 | Michael I. Pupin | From Immigrant to Inventor | |
| 1925 | M. A. Dewolfe Howe | Barrett Wendell and His Letters | |
| 1926 | Harvey Cushing | The Life of Sir William Osler, 2 vols. | |
| 1927 | Emory Holloway | Whitman | |
| 1928 | Charles Edward Russell | The American Orchestra and Theodore Thomas | |
| 1929 | Burton J. Hendrick | The Training of an American: The Earlier Life and Letters of Walter H. Page | |
| 1930 | Marquis James | The Raven: A Biography of Sam Houston | |
| 1931 | Henry James | Charles W. Eliot, President of Harvard University, 1869–1901 | |
| 1932 | Henry F. Pringle | Theodore Roosevelt: A Biography | |
| 1933 | Allan Nevins | Grover Cleveland: A Study in Courage | |
| 1934 | Tyler Dennett | John Hay | |
| 1935 | Douglas S. Freeman | R. E. Lee | |
| 1936 | Ralph Barton Perry | The Thought and Character of William James | |
| 1937 | Allan Nevins | Hamilton Fish | |
| 1938 | Marquis James | Andrew Jackson, 2 vols. | |
| Odell Shepard | Pedlar's Progress: The Life of Bronson Alcott | ||
| 1939 | Carl Van Doren | Benjamin Franklin | |
| 1940 | Ray Stannard Baker | Woodrow Wilson, Life and Letters. Vols. VII and VIII | |
| 1941 | Ola Elizabeth Winslow | Jonathan Edwards, 1703–1758: a biography | |
| 1942 | Forrest Wilson | Crusader in Crinoline: The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe | |
| 1943 | Samuel Eliot Morison | Admiral of the Ocean Sea | |
| 1944 | Carleton Mabee | The American Leonardo: The Life of Samuel F. B. Morse | [5] |
| 1945 | Russel Blaine Nye | George Bancroft: Brahmin Rebel | |
| 1946 | Linnie Marsh Wolfe | Son of the Wilderness: The Life of John Muir | |
| 1947 | William Allen White | The Autobiography of William Allen White | |
| 1948 | Margaret Clapp | Forgotten First Citizen: John Bigelow | |
| 1949 | Robert E. Sherwood | Roosevelt and Hopkins |
1950s-1970s
| Year | Author | Title | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1950 | Samuel Flagg Bemis | John Quincy Adams and the Foundations of American Foreign Policy | |
| 1951 | Margaret Louise Coit | John C. Calhoun: American Portrait | |
| 1952 | Merlo J. Pusey | Charles Evans Hughes | |
| 1953 | David J. Mays | Edmund Pendleton 1721–1803 | |
| 1954 | Charles A. Lindbergh | The Spirit of St. Louis | |
| 1955 | William S. White | The Taft Story | |
| 1956 | Talbot Faulkner Hamlin | Benjamin Henry Latrobe | |
| 1957 | John F. Kennedy | Profiles in Courage | [6] |
| 1958 | Douglas Southall Freeman with John Alexander Carroll and Mary Wells Ashworth | George Washington, vols. I-VII | |
| 1959 | Arthur Walworth | Woodrow Wilson, American Prophet | |
| 1960 | Samuel Eliot Morison | John Paul Jones | |
| 1961 | David Donald | Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War | |
| 1962 | No award presented[7] | ||
| 1963 | Leon Edel | Henry James | |
| 1964 | Walter Jackson Bate | John Keats | |
| 1965 | Ernest Samuels | Henry Adams, 3 vols. | |
| 1966 | Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. | A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House | [8] |
| 1967 | Justin Kaplan | Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain | [9] |
| 1968 | George F. Kennan | Memoirs | |
| 1969 | Benjamin Lawrence Reid | The Man from New York: John Quinn and His Friends | |
| 1970 | Thomas Harry Williams | Huey Long | [10] |
| 1971 | Lawrance Thompson | Robert Frost: The Years of Triumph, 1915–1938, | |
| 1972 | Joseph P. Lash | Eleanor and Franklin | |
| 1973 | W. A. Swanberg | Luce and His Empire | |
| 1974 | Louis Sheaffer | O'Neill, Son and Artist | |
| 1975 | Robert Caro | The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York | [11] |
| 1976 | R. W. B. Lewis | Edith Wharton: A Biography | |
| 1977 | John E. Mack | A Prince of Our Disorder: The Life of T. E. Lawrence | |
| 1978 | Walter Jackson Bate | Samuel Johnson | |
| 1979 | Leonard Baker | Days of Sorrow and Pain: Leo Baeck and the Berlin Jews | |
1980s
Entries from this point on include the finalists listed after the winner for each year.