National Humanities Medal Awardees List

The National Humanities Medal, inaugurated in 1997, honors individuals or groups whose work has deepened the nation's understanding of the humanities and broadened our citizens' engagement with history, literature, languages, philosophy, and other humanities subjects. Up to 12 medals can be awarded each year.

Robin Wall Kimmerer
2023
Rosita Worl
2023
Anthony Bourdain
2023
Darren Walker
2023
Dawn Porter
2023
Mellon Foundation
2023
Nicolás Kanellos
2023
Aaron Sorkin
2023
LeVar Burton
2023
Roz Chast
2023
Appalshop
2022
Juan Felipe Herrera
2022
Jon Meacham
2022
Robin Harris
2022
Joy Harjo
2022
Robert Martin
2022
Wallis Annenberg
2022
Pauline Yu
2022
Ruth J. Simmons
2022
Richard Blanco
2021
Johnnetta B. Cole
2021
Earl Lewis
2021
Walter Isaacson
2021
Native America Calling
2021
Tara Westover
2021
Ann Patchett
2021
Bryan Stevenson
2021
Colson Whitehead
2021
Henrietta Mann
2021
Amy Tan
2021
Elton John
2021
Kay Coles James
2020
O. James Lighthizer
2020
National World War II Museum
2020
James Patterson
2019
Patrick J. O’Connell
2019
Teresa Lozano Long
2019
The Claremont Institute
2019
Elaine Pagels
2015
Prison University Project
2015
Abraham Verghese
2015
Isabel Wilkerson
2015
Rudolfo Anaya
2015
José Andrés
2015
Ron Chernow
2015
Louise Glück
2015
Terry Gross
2015
Wynton Marsalis
2015
James McBride
2015
Louis Menand
2015
The Clemente Course in the Humanities
2014
Annie Dillard
2014
Everett L. Fly
2014
Rebecca Newberger Goldstein
2014
Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham
2014
Jhumpa Lahiri
2014
Fedwa Malti-Douglas
2014
Larry McMurtry
2014
Vicki Lynn Ruiz
2014
Alice Waters
2014
Johnpaul Jones
2013
Stanley Nelson
2013
Diane Rehm
2013
Anne Firor Scott
2013
Krista Tippett
2013
American Antiquarian Society
2013
M. H. Abrams
2013
David Brion Davis
2013
William Theodore de Bary
2013
Darlene Clark Hine
2013
William G. Bowen
2012
Camilo José Vergara
2012
Edward L. Ayers
2012
Frank Deford
2012
Jill Ker Conway
2012
Joan Didion
2012
Robert D. Putnam
2012
Robert B. Silvers
2012
Kay Ryan
2012
Marilynne Robinson
2012
Natalie Zemon Davis
2012
Anna Deavere Smith
2012
Teofilo Ruiz
2011
Ramón Saldívar
2011
Amartya Sen
2011
Kwame Anthony Appiah
2011
John Ashbery
2011
Robert Darnton
2011
Andrew Delbanco
2011
National History Day
2011
Charles Rosen
2011
Gordon S. Wood
2010
Philip Roth
2010
Arnold Rampersad
2010
Joyce Carol Oates
2010
Stanley Nider Katz
2010
Roberto González Echevarría
2010
Wendell E. Berry
2010
Jacques Barzun
2010
Bernard Bailyn
2010
Daniel Aaron
2010
Elie Wiesel
2009
Annette Gordon-Reed
2009
Theodore C. Sorensen
2009
David Levering Lewis
2009
Albert H. Small
2009
Robert A. Caro
2009
William H. McNeill
2009
Philippe de Montebello
2009
Gabor S. Boritt
2008
Norman Rockwell Museum
2008
John Templeton Foundation
2008
Robert H. Smith
2008
Thomas A. Saunders III and Jordan Horner Saunders
2008
Richard Brookhiser
2008
Harold Holzer
2008
Myron Magnet
2008
Milton J. Rosenberg
2008
Albert Marrin
2008
Stephen H. Balch
2007
Russell Freedman
2007
Victor Davis Hanson
2007
Roger Hertog
2007
Cynthia Ozick
2007
Richard Pipes
2007
Pauline L. Schultz
2007
Henry Leonard Snyder
2007
Ruth R. Wisse
2007
Monuments Men Foundation for the Preservation of Art
2007
Kevin Starr
2006
Mark Noll
2006
Bernard Lewis
2006
Mary Lefkowitz
2006
The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford University
2006
Robert Fagles
2006
Nickolas Davatzes
2006
James M. Buchanan
2006
Fouad Ajami
2006
Alan Charles Kors
2005
Leslie Keno
2005
Leigh Keno
2005
Mary Ann Glendon
2005
Richard Gilder
2005
John Lewis Gaddis
2005
Eva Brann
2005
Matthew Bogdanos
2005
Walter Berns
2005
The Papers of George Washington
2005
Judith Martin
2005
Lewis Lehrman
2005
United States Capitol Historical Society
2004
Shelby Steele
2004
John Searle
2004
Harvey C. Mansfield
2004
Madeleine L'Engle
2004
Hilton Kramer
2004
Gertrude Himmelfarb
2004
Marva Collins
2004
John Updike
2003
Frank M. Snowden Jr.
2003
Edith Kurzweil
2003
Hal Holbrook
2003
Jean Fritz
2003
Elizabeth Fox-Genovese
2003
Joseph Epstein
2003
Midge Decter
2003
Joan Ganz Cooney
2003
Robert Ballard, Ph.D.
2003
Patricia MacLachlan
2002
Art Linkletter
2002
Brian Lamb
2002
Donald Kagan
2002
Iowa Writer's Workshop
2002
Frankie Hewitt
2002
Thomas Sowell
2002
The Mount Vernon Ladies' Association
2002
National Trust for Historic Preservation
2001
Robert Coles
2001
Tom Wolfe
2001
Jose Cisneros
2001
Eileen Jackson Southern
2001
Richard Peck
2001
William Manchester
2001
Sharon Darling
2001
Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve
2000
Earl Shorris
2000
Edmund S. Morgan
2000
Toni Morrison
2000
Barbara Kingsolver
2000
Quincy Jones
2000
Herman T. Guerrero
2000
Ernest J. Gaines
2000
David C. Driskell
2000
Judy Crichton
2000
Will D. Campbell
2000
Robert N. Bellah
2000
Garrison Keillor
1999
Jacquelyn Dowd Hall
1999
Taylor Branch
1999
Patricia M. Battin
1999
August Wilson
1999
Steven Spielberg
1999
John Rawls
1999
Jim Lehrer
1999
Garry Wills
1998
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
1998
Ramón Eduardo Ruiz
1998
Vartan Gregorian
1998
Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
1998
Nancye Brown Gaj
1998
Diana L. Eck
1998
E. L. Doctorow
1998
Stephen Ambrose
1998
Studs Terkel
1998
David A. Berry
1997
Nina M. Archabal
1997
Nina M. Archabal
1997
David A. Berry
1997
Richard J. Franke
1997
William Friday
1997
Paul Mellon
1997
Martin E. Marty
1997
Luis Leal
1997
Maxine Hong Kingston
1997
Don Henley
1997
Richard J. Franke
1997