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Three Duke Historians Win Prestigious Award

DURHAM, N.C. - Three Duke University historians - John Hope Franklin, Gerda Lerner and Anne Firor Scott - have been selected as recipients of the Organization of American Historians' Distinguished Service Award. The prestigious honor will be conferred at 7:30 p.m. Friday (April 12) at a ceremony in Washington, D.C., at the Renaissance Hotel. This year, the three Duke faculty members are the only scholars to receive the award, presented annually by the organization. "The award recognizes their efforts to create and shape two of the major sub-fields of American history, those being African American history and women's history," said John Dichtl, deputy director of the organization. "We really view them as pioneers." Professors Scott, Franklin and Lerner not only advanced the study of history during the second half of the 20th century, but each also served the organization in numerous capacities, including as its president. "They have touched the lives, intellectual development and work of a generation of historians, and have truly changed the ways we understand both the past and our present," added Dichtl. Scott, W.K. Boyd Professor of History Emerita, is known for her work in Southern women's history. She was educated in her home state at the University of Georgia, as well as at Northwestern University and Radcliffe College. In addition to her tenure at Duke, she has taught at Haverford College and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Scott has written or edited nine books, including The Southern Lady, Women in American Life, Making the Invisible Woman Visible, Natural Allies and Unheard Voices. She also has served in leadership posts with both the Southern Historical Association and President Lyndon B. Johnson's Advisory Council on the Status of Women. Franklin, James B. Duke Professor of History Emeritus, has devoted his life to the study, research and documentation of African American history. He has written 12 books, including the 1947 volume From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans, for which he is best known. The book has been translated into seven languages and is now in its eighth edition. -MORE- historians-1stadd Born in Rentiesville, Okla., in 1915, Franklin earned his bachelor's degree from Fisk University in 1935 and his master's and doctorate from Harvard University in 1936 and 1941, respectively. Franklin was an important consultant to the NAACP in its successful argument of Brown vs. the Board of Education before the U.S. Supreme Court. He has served on the faculty of Fisk University, St. Augustine's College, North Carolina Central University, Howard University, Brooklyn College, the University of Chicago and Duke. He has served on numerous commissions and boards and is the recipient of scores of honors, including 130 honorary degrees from colleges and universities. President Bill Clinton appointed him chairman of the Advisory Board to the President's Initiative on Race in 1997 and awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1995. Lerner, a visiting professor of history at Duke, has written 10 books on the female experience in this country. Born to a Jewish family in Vienna, she was forced into exile in 1938 after the rise of the Nazis. She came to the United States and earned a bachelor's degree from the New School for Social Research in 1963, and three years later received both a master's and a doctorate from Columbia University. Lerner is credited with establishing the country's first graduate program in Women's History at Sarah Lawrence College in 1972. She has written 10 books and edited 21 volumes, all on women's history or related topics. She is perhaps best known for researching and editing Black Women in White America: A Documentary History (1972), which served for a decade as the only comprehensive work on the subject. Lerner also is known for writing Women and History, Volumes 1 and 2. The first volume, subtitled The Creation of Patriarchy (1986), continues to be used frequently in classrooms across the country. Earlier this spring, Lerner was selected as the 2002 recipient of the Bruce Catton Prize for Lifetime Achievement in Historical Writing. She is the first woman to receive the prize, awarded every two years by the Society of American Historians. Lerner and Scott previously were recognized by the organization when it created the Organization of American Historians' Lerner-Scott Prize, awarded annually for the best doctoral dissertation in U.S. women's history.