Miller, Schlesinger Are Awarded Pulitzers For History, Biography

Perry G. E. Miller, Powell M. Cabot Professor of American Literature until his death in 1963, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for history yesterday.

Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. '38, former professor of History, received the prize in biography.

Miller won the history award posthumously for his book. The Life of the Mind in America: From the Revolution to the Civil War. He had not finished the book when he died, and it was completed by his wife.

As an historian, Miller tried to describ and explain the national spirit of the United States. His analysis of this spirit began with the Puritans, and he became famous for destroying the traditional conception of the Puritans as narrow-minded hypocrites. His books on early New England include Orthodoxy in Massachusetts (1933). The New England Mind (1939), Jonathan Edwards (1949), and Roger Williams (1953).

Miller joined the Harvard Faculty in 1931. He helped establish the American division of the History and Literature Department, and the graduate department of American Studies. He was teaching English 70 when he died.

Schlesinger received the Pulitzer award in biography for his book, A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House. In his preface, he called the work a "personal memoir by one who served in the White House during the Kennedy yars." It was praised by reviewers for conveying the spirit of the New Frontier.

Second Pulitzer Prize

In 1946, Schlesinger won the history prize for The Age of Jackson. He became an associate professor at Harvard the same year, and taught here until 1961.

After Kennedy's election. Schlesinger was appointed special assistant to the President. He held that position for three years. He is now at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton.

Katherine Anne Porter received the Pulitzer prize for fiction, and Richard Eberhart won the poetry award. On the unanimous recommendation of the drama-advisory board, no 1966 drama prize was awarded.