Not a 1967 milestone, and not an easy first to name
The first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for History did not do so in 1967. The 1967 prize went to William H. Goetzmann for Exploration and Empire, a study of the American West. As for who the first woman winner was, the writer of this article is not certain, and this page will not name one it cannot verify. What can be said with more confidence is how women historians and biographers gradually appeared on the Pulitzer lists in the middle of the twentieth century.
What the category is
The Pulitzer history prize dates from the first years of the awards. It was originally framed around the history of the United States, and the exact wording of the category has changed over the decades. That matters for any “first” question, because the answer depends on which version of the category you count.
The Pulitzer organisation also gives separate prizes that readers often confuse with history:
- Biography or Autobiography, a category that began in 1917
- General Non-Fiction, which was introduced later and covers books that do not fit the other categories
- History, the category this article is about
A woman winning a biography prize or a general non-fiction prize is not the same as a woman winning the history prize, though popular summaries often blur the three.
Women in the neighbouring categories
The biography prize offers a hint of how early women entered the Pulitzer system. Laura E. Richards and Maud Howe Elliott, assisted by Florence Howe Hall, were credited with the first biography prize in 1917 for a life of their mother, Julia Ward Howe. That is not a history prize, but it shows that women were writing prize-winning work on the American past from the outset.
Margaret Leech is a name that comes up often when people discuss women historians and the prize. She won in the 1940s for a study of wartime Washington and again around 1960 for a biography. Esther Forbes is another name frequently mentioned in this period, for her work on Paul Revere. Because the writer cannot be sure of the exact categories and years without checking the Pulitzer records, it is better to say that these women were among the historians and biographers honoured in the middle of the century than to say which of them came first.
Later in the century, writers such as Barbara Tuchman received Pulitzer recognition, though for general non-fiction rather than for the history category, which is a good example of why the label matters.
Why women were slower to appear
There are several reasons, and most of them concern the profession rather than the prize.
- Academic history departments in the United States were overwhelmingly male for much of the century, and women historians often found it hard to obtain permanent university posts.
- Many women who wrote history worked outside the university system, as independent authors, journalists or biographers. Their books were published for general readers, and the prize committees often judged them in the biography or general categories rather than in history.
- The Pulitzer juries themselves were small groups drawn from a limited pool, so the prize reflected the habits of that pool.
These are broad patterns, not exact statistics, and individual cases vary widely. The legal changes of the 1960s, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its employment provisions, contributed to the pressure for change in universities, though the effect was gradual.
How 1967 looks in this context
The 1967 winner, Goetzmann, was an academic historian writing about exploration and the American West. His win reflects the traditional shape of the category: a scholarly book on a national theme. At the same time, American historians were being drawn into the debates of the period. Campus radicalism, the student movement and the civil rights movement were changing what students wanted from history courses, and the demand for a more inclusive account of the past was growing.
A practical note for readers
If you come across a claim that a particular woman was the first to win the Pulitzer for History, check which category the source means and which year it names. Different sources can reach different answers because they define “first” differently, and some are simply wrong. The official Pulitzer website keeps an archive of winners, and it is the best place to confirm any specific name or date.