Awards and Honors

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The Albert Einstein Medal and $5,000 award of the Lewis and Rosa Strauss Memorial Fund were given to Dr. Edward Teller.

Mrs. May Roper Coker, a mother of eight from Hartsville, South Carolina, was chosen American Mother of 1958 on May 6.

May Roper Coker

For discoveries bearing on biochemical bases of thought and behavior, Erna Leanhardt Gibbs received the American Woman's Association's Achievement Award.

Mrs. Erna Leonhardt Gibbs (left) receiving the American Woman's Association's Achievement Award

George C. de Hevesy, winner of the 1943 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, was named on November 26 the recipient of the $75,000 Atoms for Peace Award.

The Beta Phi Mu Award for Distinguished Service to Education for Librarianship went to Florence Van Hoesen, professor of librarianship at Syracuse University.

Marianne Moore won the Poetry Award of the Boston Arts Festival.

Lindley Ruddick, a 15-year-old from Seymour, Indiana, was named Boy of the Year by the Boys' Clubs of America.

Lindley Reddick receives the 'Boy of the Year' award from Albert L. Cole, president of the Boys' Clubs of America

Louise W. Ilse, associate manager for Equitable Life Assurance Society, was voted Business Woman of the Year.

Louise W. Ilse

Ballerina Alexandra Danilova won the 7th annual Capezio Award for her contributions to ballet.

Major General Edward P. Curtis was named winner of the 1957 Collier Trophy by the National Aeronautics Association on December 8.

Children voted to give the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children's Book Award to Beverly Cleary's Fifteen.

Eugene Paul Wigner, professor of mathematical physics at Princeton University, received the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission's Enrico Fermi Award -- $50,000 and a gold medal -- on December 2.

The Society of American Historians presented its Francis Parkman Prize to Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., for The Crisis of the Old Order, 1919-1933.

Sir Winston Churchill was awarded the Freedom Leadership Award by the Freedoms Foundation; the award was announced on May 29 in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.

On August 18 Rear Admiral Hyman G. Rickover was voted a special Gold Medal by a joint resolution of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives in recognition of his part in the development and construction of the world's first atomic submarine.

Harmon International Aviation Trophies were awarded to General Curtis E. LeMay, vice-chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force, and U.S. Navy Commander Jack R. Hunt. LeMay had piloted a stratotanker on a record jet flight from Westover Air Force Base, near Springfield, Massachusetts, to Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1957. Hunt kept a nonrigid airship aloft for 11 days.

For leading the first overland crossing of the Antarctic continent, Sir Vivian E. Fuchs received the Hubbard Medal of the National Geographic Society.

The 1958 Humane Act Award was won by Grace Elizabeth Fainelli of Schenectady, New York, for outstanding kindness to animals.

Grace Elizabeth Fainelli with some of her animal friends

Robert Frost was awarded the Huntington Hartford Foundation Prize.

The second International Hans Christian Andersen Medal was given to Astrid Lindgren of Sweden for Rasmus pa Luffen.

U.S. Navy Commander William R. Anderson, captain of the nuclear submarine Nautilus that cruised under the North Pole, was awarded the Legion of Merit by President Dwight Eisenhower in August.

The American Library Association's Liberty and Justice Book Awards of $5,000 each were made at the ALA conference in San Francisco, California. George S. Counts won the award in the category of contemporary affairs and problems for The Soviet Education; Herbert Feis in history and biography for Churshill, Roosevelt, Stalin; and Len Giovannitti in imaginative literature for The Prisoners of Combine.

The Lippincott Award of $500 for distinguished service to librarianship was won by Carleton B. Joeckel of Berkeley, California.

Seven-year-old Susan Gratzel of Teaneck, New Jersey, was named Little Miss Muffin at the Associated Retail Bakers of America convention in New York City, New York, on April 27.

Former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, Lewis L. Strauss, for his work in aiding U.S. security, was presented with the Medal of Freedom by President Dwight Eisenhower on July 14.

The American Medical Women's Association named Dr. Eleanor M. Humphreys, professor of pathology at the University of Chicago, as its Medical Woman of the Year.

The Melvil Dewey Medal for creative professional achievement of a high order was presented to Janet S. Dickson, catalog librarian of Pennsylvania State University Library.

Miss Mississippi, Mary Ann Mobley, won the 1959 Miss America title in Atlantic City, New Jersey, on September 6.

Mary Ann Mobley being crowned Miss America by Marilyn Van Derbur, Miss America of 1958

The Miss Universe of 1958 title was won by Luz Marina Zuloaga of Colombia on July 25 in Long Beach, California.

Luz Marina Zuloaga

Because of her oustanding 4-H achievements, leadership, citizenship, and many church, school, and community activities, 19-year-old Judy Russell of Madera County, California was named 1958's Miss Young America in 4-H. In her eight years of 4-H work she completed between 50 and 60 home economics and agricultural projects.

Eleanor Roosevelt headed the annual list of the Most Admired Women in the United States for the 11th consecutive year, the Gallup Poll reported on January 15. Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom ranked second, Clare Boothe Luce third.

Mrs. Helen Giesse, of Cleveland, Ohio, was named Mrs. America of 1958 on May 10 in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

Mrs. Helen Giesse being congratulated by Mrs.Alice Hill, 'Mrs. Oklahoma'

The National Book Award for Poetry went to Robert Penn Warren for Promises: Poems 1954-1956. The Award for Fiction went to John Cheever for The Wapshot Chronicle. The Nonfiction Award went to Catherine Drinker Bowen for The Lion and the Throne.

Reuben C. Thomas was named the National Driver of the Year by the American Trucking Association. He was cited for his 585,000-mile accident-free record and for his heroism in rescuing a woman from a burning automobile that was also charged with electricity from a fallen power line.

Victor Borge, Walter Cronkite, Milton S. Eisenhower, Harry Hershfield, Martin Mayer, Sugar Ray Robinson, and Peter Ustinov were named National Fathers of the Year by the National Fathers Day Committee on May 22 in New York, New York.

Milton Eisenhower

The National Institute of Arts and Letters awarded a gold medal for architecture to Henry R. Shepley; a gold medal for poetry to Conrad Aiken; an award for distinguished service to the arts to Lincoln Kirstein, general director of the New York City Ballet Company; and its Brunner Memorial Prize in Architecture to Paul Rudolph.

Jean Listebarger, a teacher at Edwards Elementary School in Ames, Iowa, was named National Teacher of the Year.

President Dwight Eisenhower congratulates National Teacher of the Year Jean Listebarger

The New York Women's Bar Association lauded the achievements of Birdie Amsterdam, Justice of the Supreme Court of New York.

Birdie Amsterdam (center) being lauded by the New York Women's Bar Association

Boris Pasternak was named winner of the 1958 Nobel Prize for Literature on October 23. After attacks upon him by Soviet literary groups and threatened expulsion from the U.S.S.R., Pasternak refused the $41,420 cash prize on October 29. The Prize for Physics went to Pavel Cherenkov, Ilya M. Frank, and Igor E. Tamm. The Chemistry Prize was awarded to Frederick Sanger. The Prize for Physiology or Medicine was awarded to George Beadle, Edward Tatum, and Joshua Lederberg. The Peace Prize was awarded on December 10 to the Reverend Dominique Georges Henri Piré of Belgium, a Dominican priest, for his aid to persons displaced during World War II.

Ballerina Alicia Markova received the Order of Commander of the the British Empire from Queen Elizabeth II.

Konrad Adenauer was made an honorary member of the (Roman Catholic) Order of German Knights on March 10 in Cologne, Germany, for his services to the Christian West.

Sir Winston Churchill was decorated with the Order of the Liberation in Paris, France, on November 6.

Dr. Lonnie A. Coffin of Farmington, Iowa, was named the American Medical Association's Outstanding Family Physician of the Year.

The Peabody Awards for distinguished achievement in television and radio for 1957 were announced April 2, 1958. Network radio-TV special awards went to the National Broadcasting System for its educational programs and to the Westinghouse Broadcasting Company for its Boston, Massachusetts, conference and public service programs. A local radio education award was won by WKAR, East Lansing, Michigan; and a public service award by KPFA-FM, Berkeley, California.

Robert Frost was awarded the Poetry Society of America's Gold Medal.

Mrs. Virginia Huston of Bellingham, Washington, was named 1958 Polio Mother of the Year in January.

Mrs. Virginia Huston and her family enjoy New York City after she was named Polio Mother of the Year

The Prix Goncourt, the most important French literary award, went to Francis Walder for his historical novel Saint-Germain, on La Négociation.

Pulitzer Prize winners for 1958 included: Fiction -- James Agee, for his posthumous novel A Death in the Family; Poetry -- Robert Penn Warren, for Promises: Poems 1954-1956; Meritorious Public Service -- Little Rock (Arkansas) Gazette, for its coverage of the school integration crisis.; Local Reporting Under Deadline Conditions -- Fargo (North Dakota) Forum, for coverage of a tornado that swept the city on June 20, 1957; Editorial Writing -- Harry S. Ashmore, executive editor of the Little Rock Gazette, for editorials at the time of the Little Rock school integration crisis; News Photography -- William C. Beall, Washington (D.C.) Daily News, for "Faith and Confidence"; and a Special Citation to Walter Lippmann, nationally syndicated columnist.

'Faith and Confidence" earned William C. Beall the Pulitzer Prize for News Photography

Dr. Paul A. Siple won the Royal Geographic Society Patron's Medal in March. Siple had been to the Antarctic six times. The first occasion was in 1928, when, as an Eagle Scout, he accompanied Admiral Richard E. Byrd on his first expedition.

Reinier Beeuwkes III, 17, won first prize, a $7,500 scholarship, in the Science Talent Search. Dushan Mitrovich, 18, was second. Both were from Newton High School, Newtonville, Massachusetts.

The Future Farmers of America Star Farmer of America award of $1,000 went to James J. Jarnagin, Jr., of Jetmore, Kansas. Regional Star Farmer awards of $500 each went to Ethan Labrier, Kenton, Oklahoma; Malcolm Niles, Loleta, California; and James Speer, Blairs Mills, Pennsylvania.

James J. Jarnagin, Jr. (front center) was named Star Farmer of America

General Alfred Gruenther and Admiral Hyman G. Rickover won the Theodore Roosevelt Distinguished Service Medal in October.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce awards to U.S. citizens for contributions to human progress were made on April 28 to Wernher von Braun, Jonas E. Salk, J. Edgar Hoover, Charles F. Kettering, Calla E. Varner, Allan B. Kline, and Richard Mellon.

The U.S. Lady of the Year award was presented to Army nurse Lieutenant Colonel Ruby Bradley by Philippines General Carlos Romulo.

Philippine General Carlos Romulo presents Lt. Col. Ruby Bradley with the U.S. Lady of the Year Award

Raymond Firth, professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics and Politics, University of London, was awardedthe Viking Fund Medal in general anthropology for 1958.

Children voted to give the William Allen White Children's Book Award to White Falcon by Elliott Arnold.

The World Brotherhood gave citations to Rochester, New York, and Worthington, Minnesota, for community-wide activity in promoting international friendship and understanding with communities overseas.

The National Aeronautic Association awarded the 1958 Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy to Dr. John Francis Victory, assistant to the chief of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

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This page was last updated on November 09, 2017.